The world is facing a loneliness epidemic, which has been reported to affect over 60% of young adults today. Even in the age of social media, it can often feel like we’ve forgotten how to truly connect. And when we do, we generally resort to small talk.
You’re “good”. I’m “good”. Everyone is “Good”.
But that’s not always the case.
So, we set out to design a campaign that would spark stronger conversations and connections between people everywhere, both online and in real life.
One way to gain deeper relationships: ask deeper questions. When we go beyond the “good” and ask real questions to friends, loved ones, and even strangers, we get to know one another better, and we all feel less alone.
This objective fueled our #CareToAsk challenge.
On May 1, the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month, we kicked off The Mental Health Coalition’s #CareToAsk challenge. Over the course of the month, we developed and shared one thought-provoking, conversation-starting question on social media every day. All we asked of people was that they took a short moment out of their day to care to ask the questions, either in real life or by tagging their loved ones in the comments.
Questions ranged from introspective (“What holds you back from deeper conversations?”) to cultural (“What’s a song that makes you feel less alone and why?”) to complimentary (“Who inspires you the most?”) to current (“What’s something upcoming you’re really excited about?”).
We partnered with social media influencers & creators (Sidney Raz, Em Beihold, Rebecca Rogers, and more) to answer some of the questions themselves and invite their audiences to #CareToAsk the questions to their own communities.
In addition to the daily social media questions, we took to the streets of New York City, asking the questions to strangers to get people to have more in-depth conversations IRL. And people everywhere were hungry for those meaningful moments that so often pass us by.
Each day offered a reminder that deeper connections are not as hard to forge as we might think – it just starts with asking a question that goes beyond the superficial.
Because when we #CareToAsk, we all feel less alone.
We theorized that if people were offered a simple yet meaningful opportunity to connect more deeply with their loved ones, they’d take it. We were thrilled to see this campaign proving exactly that.
From day 1, people started tagging friends and commenting their answers on our social media posts to start meaningful conversations with those in their circles. As the collection of questions grew day by day, more and more people joined the challenge, many of them coming back every single day to participate.
With shares and video creation from social media influencers, the challenge continued to gain traction. When the daily question asked about songs that were meaningful to people, commenters tagged the musicians who created them — leading to completely organic social engagement from artists like Nelly Furtado and Josh Groban.
By the end of the month, over 31K engagements had been collected on our posts, with thousands of conversations for all to see in the comments — and many more happening offline, as people wrote to us about asking the questions in their classrooms or with their families around the dinner table. Old friends learned something new about their besties. Family members and friends that had fallen out of touch found new ways to reconnect. And it all happened organically, with $0 in media budget.
Reaching 421K people total, the #CareToAsk challenge gave people a tangible tool to take action — starting conversations that would deepen their connections and ultimately make everyone feel less alone.
