UPDATE: Why I'm AGAIN giving to my Twitter followers' causes

UPDATE, 12/13:

For the holidays I would like to recreate this giving campaign. I'm giving $20 to the favorite charities of 20 followers. All you have to do is RT my tweet to enter. I'll reach out to 20 of you and ask for your favorite charity so you can give it a shoutout on Twitter. Then I'll donate $20 in your name and tweet the receipt, as I have in the past.

UPDATE, 4/29:

Stunned to discover that I have gained 10,000 followers in the past month, I find myself at another milestone: 20,000 followers. Because gifts to my followers' favorite causes were clearly very popular, I'm giving $10 to the favorite causes of 20 followers. Just tweet the url of your favorite cause to me @jeffelder. (This is very fun!) Here's my original post explaining what I'm doing, and why:

I'm leaving corporate America, where I've led social media for a Fortune 50 company, and going out on my own as an independent social media consultant and entrepreneur. So a week ago I decided to allocate a small budget toward advertising.

I bought a couple of small ads on social media. But I once again experienced the fact that social media ads' effectiveness is spotty. Consider this evidence: One-third of all online display ads appear on Facebook, comScore, the digital marketing research company, reports. Yet those ads command a cost that is far, far below the market value of other online ads. Why? They don't work very well. You see those ads on the shoulder of your Facebook wall. Do you immediately get out your wallet? Me either.

I also signed on for several community-building Twitter sites, but the followers I gained were for the most part not relevant to me: Some were tweeting in other languages, others were purely looking to add to their own followings.

Then I had an idea:

I was about to cross the threshold of 10K followers. What if I noted that by giving away $100 to good causes on Twitter? What if I offered to contribute to my Twitter followers' favorite charities, thereby sending the money to good causes, rather than to the advertising media? Would that inspire a circle of good buzz and positive sentiment, gaining me the exposure I sought? I wanted to find out. So I tweeted the following:

I'm giving $20 to the favorite cause of 5 followers. RT this & reply with your favorite cause & its link to enter.

I heard from dozens of people on Twitter, advocating for their causes, and saying they thought this was a cool idea. I then gave 20 bucks to the causes of five Twitter followers. For that $100 I received great positive sentiment.

Were my motives entirely altruistic? Obviously not. If I wanted to be a philanthropist (a vocation I cannot afford), I could've anonymously donated the money to the cause of my choosing. But that's the point: I didn't give to my cause. I gave to other people's. And in that way, the project was collaborative. I received because I gave.

Collaboration is what social media is all about. We might all be motivated by WIFM -- what's in it for me? But we only get traction socially by taking an interest in what other people care about.

My followers got money for their causes, and the satisfaction of knowing they helped. The causes got a contribution -- and also several public shout outs. I got positive sentiment attached to my personal brand. Behold the circle of life.

But I also got something else: It was really fun. Fun making my followers happy. Fun discovering their causes. Fun giving in a way I would not have been inspired to give. Fun seeing the buzz created.

So I'm doing it again. Another hundred bucks -- $20 to five followers causes. Now I have another motive: Watching a cool social experiment continue.

Want to play? Tweet this:

RT @jeffelder -- I'm giving $20 to the favorite cause of 5 followers. RT this & reply with your favorite cause & its link to enter.

Good luck. I hope I get to give to your cause.