Purple Cow and Facebook Like for the Chebagogo Foundation

Seth Godin, through his book, Purple Cow, mentioned that it is not enough to create a mediocre product and combine it with a great advertising campaign. Instead, companies must strive to create a great product that people will look for. This is because customers today are getting smarter and they realize that companies will try to make their products look more appealing on TV, magazine, and newspaper than they actually do. In addition, with the availability of social media, consumers are getting smarter in finding out the truth about the products that they are going to buy. So, what the companies should do is to create great products and look for the people who are willing to talk about the products to others, or as the book called them, the sneezers.

The Chebagogo foundation is not the only non-profit organization that focus on helping AIDS orphans in Kenya, so it is important for the organization to come up with a new and unique way to attract peoples' attention or as the book mentioned it, the purple cow. More importantly, the Chebagogo foundation should focus on giving people good reasons on why they should support the organization and its missions. For example, the Chebagogo foundation can give out unique handicrafts made by the children to donors or it can organize an idea contest that will give the foundation a creative idea for fundraising. Whatever the unique idea is, it is important for the Chebagogo foundation to be open minded and fearless in trying out new ideas.

Moreover, it is not enough for the foundation to stop at the idea-generating process because every great idea, product, or service needs to be shared with others. For this reason, the book put emphasis on the importance of finding the "sneezers". These are the people who are loyal to the foundation and have fallen in love with its ideas. It is important that the organization finds these groups of sneezers and let them know about the unique ideas and without a doubt, these people will be more than happy to spread out the ideas to everyone else. Finally, in finding the sneezers, the organization should focus more on the niche market because the sneezers in this niche is easier to be influenced.

One way to find the sneezers is to use the Facebook's "Like" button. This Facebook's feature is so easy to use, but more importantly it is enough to capture people's attention and to give them a general idea about the organization. By using the Like button, the organization's Facebook fans will not only show their supports for the organization, but also share their opinion with others. This provides convenience for the organization and for those sneezers because their Facebook news feed will say it all. One thing that is important for the organization to do is to recognize these sneezers and thank them for their supports. Moreover, the organization can create a special event for these sneezers as a sign of appreciation.