Using Twitter for Social Good
I’m worried about my bank account. Only not for the reasons you may think.
Last November I wrote about Tweetsgiving, a fund raiser tweeted out by the folks at Epic Change. Their goal was to raise $10,000 in 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania. I gave my money, wrote a blog post and didn’t really think about it again.
Until a couple of days ago when I received the most wonderful email from those good people at Epic Change letting all of us who had donated know that the schoolroom has been built! The name or twitter handle of every person who gave has been painted on the wall of the classroom. I’ll tell ya, it kinda got to me. Smart move on their part. By letting me know that the money actually got put into action, quickly, I am more likely to give to Epic Change again. Epic Change actually does have another fundraiser this week called TweetsLuck but there was another fund raiser I was saving my pennies for.
This week, Danny Brown kicked off his 12for12k Challenge by working his Twitter network in a Tweet-A-Thon with the goal of raising $12,000 to support Share Our Strength (there will be a different charity each month). This was the first month of the year long campaign and as I write this (first day of the campaign), they are well past their goal. Congratulations Danny, and Scott at Un-Marketing, you tilled the soil leading up to this day very well.
It’s pretty clear that one of the most successful applications of Twitter is its use as a channel for fund raising. It is imminently viral, if done right is really easy for people to get involved and it lets people feel connected in a good way. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more corporate sponsorship of these efforts. Guessing that’s next.
I think we will see this as one of the most important real world uses of Twitter in the future. It represents the best of what “social networking” is about and brings out the best in us as a result. Meanwhile, perhaps I should start a separate savings account for my Twitter giving habit.
Hi there Indra,
Thank you so much for taking the time to both support and write about the 12for12k Challenge.
Thursday was definitely an incredible day and far surpassed our expectations. My immense gratitude to Scott Stratten for stepping up to help, the donors who gave prizes to be raffled, and everyone who tweeted, emailed, blogged and more.
The March charity is actually our third month – in January we supported War Child and raised $6,000, while in February we supported Stop the Silence (preventing child sexual abuse) and raised about the same amount.
We will be revisiting charities that didn’t make the target throughout the year with special events to try and help them nearer our goal.
April 18 will see multi-city 12for12k charity TweetUps for the April charity, with details to be announced soon. Hopefully we’ll see you at one!
Thanks again, your support means everything.
Danny Brown
Founder, 12for12k
http://www.12for12k.org
Thanks for the update Danny, not sure how I missed those first two. Just saw your post about the tweet up at the Hard Rock Hotel for April. We’ll help spread the word!
[...] Many of you may have read the post I did on Friday about the #Beatcancer social media experiment that was aiming to set the world record for most widespread social network message. For all of you who read, and then tweeted, updated your facebook status, or sent information to friends – thank you. You were part of the 209,771 mentions of #beatcancer in a 24 hour period – setting a new world record.The over 200,000 mentions originated from just a small number of blog world attendees who then shared with their networks and watched as the message spread. In the end, it is estimated that the phrase #beatcancer had over 100 million impressions, especially after being tweeted by celebrities including: P. Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, MC Hammer, Kim Kardashian, Alyssa Milano, and Alicia Keyes.The best part is that the social experiment raised more than $70,000 for cancer charities. On behalf of Bailey Gardiner, I’d like to thank all our readers for getting involved and being a part of proving, once and for all, the power of social media for social good. [...]
[...] both of these viral campaigns show the power of social media to share a message, perhaps we’ve all missed a rather obvious means to raising money for our [...]