Social media for a cause: charity: water

It's pretty incredible how social media has the power to inspire social change by uniting and mobilizing people all over the world. Without tools like Facebook and Twitter, events just simply aren't as successful, and frequently these tools help generate enough buzz to make the evening news. Case in point – Twestival. 

Last Thursday, members of our New York Digital Media team joined thousands of others in 185 cities and 30 countries at Twestival to raise funds for charity: water, a nonprofit organization that installs wells and rainwater harvesting systems in developing countries.

Although the event was primarily promoted on Twitter, organizers in each city used various online channels for weeks beforehand to get the word out including personal blogs, Facebook profiles and Facebook invites for each city. Mainstream media also picked up on the event, with coverage in the New York Times Bits Blog and the LA Times. For those who couldn't attend the event in person, live streaming videos were broadcast via Web sites as well as a virtual event in Second Life.

(Left to right: @Jess418, @andrewfoote, @katiedawg, @mikepresson, @franman12384)

Using social media platforms to raise awareness for events or causes not only fosters a sense of unity and community spirit, but also spreads news of events like wildfire. Just last week, London's Liverpool Street station was shut down because of a flashmob that had gathered to imitate an advertisement for T-Mobile. That event began with just a few friends on Facebook and grew to the thousands. Events like this happen all the time, but leveraging these tools to raise awareness for truly important organizations like charity: water has a very powerful impact.

The ease and accessibility of social media tools make those platforms ideal for communicating messages to a global audience. However, as with anything else, it's all about the message. We had the pleasure of speaking with Julia Roy, one of the New York event's organizers, about her thoughts as to how companies can incorporate initiatives similar to Twestival into their overall communications strategies.