How do you start a viral marketing campaign with next to no resources?

1. Find a commonly held desire.
2. Suggest a simple step that addresses that desire.
3. Pick a date for people to all take that step together.
4. Ask them to spread the word.

Following these simple steps, Kristen Christian, a 27-year-old gallery owner from Los Angeles, has managed to get more than 57,000 people and counting to say they will move their funds from their banks to credit unions on November 5 or Bank Transfer Day ^[1]. She’s not trying to start a social movement or bring down the banks or anything like that, she says. The move is merely intended as a boycott, and a response to what she considers unethical bank practices. She told the Village Voice that Bank of America hit her with endless fees, for instance charging her $2 for using its phone banking system when its website was down. She was humiliated when she took her mother out for Mother’s Day, only to find BofA had frozen her funds due to unspecified “suspicious activity.”

The event began as a Facebook event with 500 invitations, and was picked up by some Occupy Wall Street organizers though Christian is not affiliated with them. Facebook’s invitation system was soon overloaded, so Christian asked supporters to post it on their news feeds instead. Now credit unions are getting in on the act, there’s a Bank Transfer Day QR code, flyers at local farmers’ markets, and talk of putting Bank Transfer Day info on the sides of trucks.

Read more at ABC News ^[2], Credit Union Times ^[3], and The Village Voice ^[4].