The Seattle Cancer Alliance partnered with the Copacino + Fujikado agency to develop “The Day I Found Out” landing page, which shared 12 professionally made videos that told people’s stories of the day they found out they had cancer.

After the campaign ended, Copacino + Fujikado took ownership over the site, but did nothing with it for a couple years. When I joined the agency as an intern, I was asked to post on the site’s Twitter page 2-3 times per week.

Coming up with tweets about a website that hadn’t had any new content in 3 years was a challenge, to say the least. I don’t have cancer. Nobody I knew had cancer. We weren’t associated with a cancer center anymore. And there was zero budget to film new videos.

With no content to share, I took a different tack and began to follow accounts from cancer survivors. I regularly reposted their video blogs. After a few weeks of building trust, we asked if they would share self-made videos about the day they found out they had cancer.

Dozens of videos poured in every week. “The Day I Found Out” Twitter following kept growing. To accommodate the vibrant spirit of these homemade videos, I got the go-ahead to build a new website with a more interactive format that focused on building community.