Social media has become somewhat of a buzzword nowadays. From corporate marketing strategies to presidential election, the awesomeness of social media power seems to have spread to every corner of our society. However, there is one thing that most social media users might have neglected, which is to use social media to do social good. Here I will list seven tips of how I use social media for the purpose of social good.
1. Tweeting/blogging for news.
Twitter is the new breed of social media which exists as a micro-blogging tool. Twitter has the potential to broadcast news fast, on time, and in a mass scale. One recent example was related to the Iranian election. Twitter users are even faster than CNN journalists to deliver timely news. The hashtag #CNNfail has been adopted by Twitter users to indicate a lack of news coverage from the mainstream news media.
Another example is the 7.8 earthquake in China back in May, 2008. Twitter was very fast in delivering the news. If you had tried to search for the word “Earthquake” in Twitter Search, you could literally see hundreds of updates within minutes.
In addition, some bloggers have been actively blogging about the earthquake and therefore raised tons of awareness. According to a post from ReadWriteWeb, Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang used his blog as a platform to inspire people to donate money to the Red Cross. He took a trip to China personally, and then posted all the photos he took about the earthquake in China on his blogs. This has allowed his audience to see how badly some people were affected by the earthquake. His initiative through social media has significantly made a difference.
2. Building tribes.
Seth Godin’s book “Tribes” illustrates how important it is to leverage modern technology, namely social media and Internet, to build your own followers. It has come to my realization that this type of network not only can provide religious, social, and spiritual supports for the “tribe” members, it will also become the fundamental bonding power for our entire society.
For example, if you had a Facebook group or a fan page that attracts environmental fans, it would be easy to assemble a global army of like-minded people in this particular field, without concerns of geographical barriers. The bigger the group gets, the more advocates there are, and the more it will benefit the society. In essence, this “tribe” mentality now has spread to every corner of the society. Instead of resisting and fighting it, we ought to all embrace this hugely powerful tool to do social good.
3. Empowering others.
Personally, I like to transform my inner beliefs into quotes and then distribute them in my community. Besides being able to influence and inspire others, this kind of behavior reinforces my own faith by simply sharing something I deem as valuable and useful. After all, social media is all about “Sharing.” Instead of saying something trivial that others don’t even care, why not transform your beliefs into something tangible that others can benefit from?
Now granted, not everyone will understand your initial attempt and appreciate your good deeds. This happens in almost every situation of life. But it’s important to stay consistent in what you do so you can influence those who do want to be helped. So be patient. One post at a time. Eventually, consistency and commitment will make a difference. I like to call this “Personal Development Training Made Easier.”
4. Facebook “Cause” Application
As I am writing this post, the Facebook “Cause” application has about 24 ½ million monthly active users. Causes is one of the most popular Facebook apps. The official definition, according to Facebook, goes like this – “Causes empowers anyone with a good idea or passion for change to impact the world. Using our platform, individuals mobilize their network of friends to grow lasting social and political movements.” It includes categories such as Animals, Education, Environment, and more.
This app allows Facebook users to create a cause and link it to a registered non-profit organization in the US or Canada. In general, this app has been a very useful fundraising tool for a lot of charities. It also has drastically raised people’s awareness about some pressing issues in the world.
5. Blogging for a Cause
This summer (6/1 through 8/28), Mashable has launched the first large scale online charitable campaign called “Summer of Social Good.” The goal is to raise funds strictly online through the power of Social Media and the Internet. Throughout the previous weeks, this program has made some major progress by featuring inspiring tales from real people, encouraging people to participate in this program by offering incentives. Mashable also listed examples on how some charities use social media to raise money.
Another example involves a site called “Make The Difference Network” (http://mtdn.com/) founded by Actress Jessica Biel and her family. As social media continues to evolve, more and more websites and blogs will feature this type of content.
6. Social Bookmarking for Better Efficiency
Social bookmarking sites allow Internet users to organize and manage bookmarks of web pages by tags. Sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious have become more and more popular because it allows better user efficiency. Take Digg for example, the Digg voting system allows people to vote for submitted stories. The functions are called digging and burying .
With social bookmarking websites, I could simply browse through the category I am interested in, and sort stories by popularity. Now, I am not saying that those popular stories are exactly the ones you are looking for. But social bookmarking sites do provide a viable reference point. In general, this type of service can save tremendous amount of time for its users. Therefore, it fulfills our “social good” purpose.
7. The revolution continues….
Social media is taking on a major role of leading the trend of our society. Facebook was launched by Mark Zuckerberg in his college dorm on February 4th, 2004. Then there is Twitter, which was publicly launched into a full version in July 2006. What’s next?
For every trend, there are early adopters, the majority and the laggards. Luckily, social media has the awesome power to lead our thinking as human beings. This, in a large scale, is good for our society, because the society is jumping curves. Instead of evolving on the same curve, the society revolutionizes with the most popular social media trends. Eventually, this phenomenon can lead to frequent update of newer technology that allows for better effectiveness/efficiency and change the world.
So how do you use social media for social good in your daily life? You can let us know by commenting this post.
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