“Hemoji” has changed the way blood centers search for and recruit new donors in a digital social era. At the same time, it empowered people to show their support in a really simple way. And, organically, we brought the cause to a place where everyone is – social platforms.

In Brazil, blood donation is voluntarily only. You can’t announce or offer any reward for donors.

“Hemoji” appropriates a very popular social behavior: the use of emojis on social platforms.

The Emoji alphabet has four images that represent blood types: AB, A, B, and O.

We invited people to add one of these emojis, along with the plus or minus character, to their screen names on Twitter and Instagram. Therefore, they can share their blood type and identify themselves as blood donors.

By searching for an emoji and users’ region on the platforms, Santa Casa can find the right number of right donors every time a specific blood type is needed. Then, we can send these users direct messages asking for donations.

People use “Hemoji” and see users they follow using as well. By being every day on everybody’s feed, the cause has also gotten a lot of visibility, turning “Hemoji” into a symbol for blood donation.

After aligning with Twitter and Instagram offices, we kicked off the campaign by dressing Santa Casa’s profile pages and by posting on these platforms and on Facebook as well.

At the same time, major celebrities started to use the emojis, posting videos and messages about the idea.

Posters and flyers were handed out at the hospital.

We trained Santa Casa’s staff in how to search for and contact users properly.

Searches are being run through a third party tool linked to Twitter and Instagram APIs. According to Twitter, in the next months – as more people with the emoji will be indexed by their system – we will be able to use the platform’s native search engine. Then, the audience itself will also be able to find blood donors, whenever their relatives or friends need donations.

“Hemoji” had a strong, fast-growing impact on the targeted audience.

In the first week:

Around 40 nationwide celebrities joined the campaign voluntarily.

Considering only Santa Casa’s and the celebrities’ followers, we had over 113 million impacts on Twitter and Instagram.

We reached nearly 30,000 potential new voluntary blood donors.

That’s 10 times Santa Casa’s monthly demand for donors.

Santa Casa’s direct contacts were more appealing emotionally and motivated potential donors that, in ordinary digital campaigns, would have “liked” or “shared” messages, but wouldn’t have actually donated blood.

The cause became a daily discussion topic on people’s feeds.

The campaign got earned-media coverage.

Other blood banks around Brazil have showed interest in using the same system.

Brazil is the world’s number two in users on both Twitter and Instagram. Therefore, it was very powerful for us to have a social-native idea that runs 100% inside these platforms.

Besides that, we took advantage of Twitter, a real-time platform, to solve an issue that always comes up with immediate needs – blood donation.

We had a huge obstacle to overcome, but also a considerable benefit: almost all users on these social networks can be blood donors. Our target segmentation focused on the people around the hospital’s region. But even those who don’t live near Santa Casa were also encouraged to participate in order to show their support for the cause and to influence other users in an organic way.

Major Brazilian celebrities were invited to add their emojis and speak with their millions of followers, and a series of posts promoted the campaign on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Santa Casa de São Paulo is the largest philanthropic hospital in Latin America. However, it suffers from a chronic shortage of blood. Only few Brazilians are regular blood donors. And, even the few ones who want to join Santa Casa’s database of donors may give up because of the long process, which includes going to the hospital and filling out numerous forms.

The hospital runs mass campaigns that attract new donors, but many of them have blood types that aren’t in need at that moment. Besides that, because of their almost-zero budget, these initiatives tend to be infrequent, and blood has a short shelf life.

Santa Casa wanted to create awareness to the cause and, most importantly, to have a solution for its blood bank’s low levels that would work in a constant way without big – or any – costs.