Tonight over the period of almost 7 hours (by the time I finish writing this it will be) I saw something unfold that was amazing. Something that companies and organizations all over the country have been trying to refine over the past year. Figure out how to use Social Media to drive people to action. But before I continue, I would like to draw attention to someone in need and the reason why people have acted. Please read this story.
David Armano posted that to his blog around 6:15, and then tweeted it. Setting a goal of $5,000 to help Daniella’s family get them an apartment and get on their feet. By 12:45AM they have raised almost $10,ooo. He was able to do this all by writing a blog post, and broadcasting that post to people who follow him on twitter. I have compiled the twitter posts as they came through from David (his twitter ID is @armano) expressing his and Daniella’s gratitude towards peoples generosity.
The communication spread, and from his blog and got picked up on Digg and was dugg (or tagged) over 115 times in a 3 hour span. The topic “#daniela” was at one point trending higher than “Apple” on the 1st day of MacWorld. For the non technical folks, MacWorld is a highly anticipated, highly talked about event for Apple. It is the event in which they normally unveil new products, like the 27th revision of the iPod Nano (making yours obsolete!).
In the end David was able to have a simple conversation with the 7,500+ people who follow him on Twitter. Objectively, he litteraly asked people for money (you can payPal it to him) and in total they donated almost $10,000 in a short amount of time. David has credibility with the 8,000+ people that follow him on twitter, and the personality to engage with new followers. He has been most gracious to put Daniella’s family up during this rough time. He asked those people to help out someone in need and they did without hesitation. What company out there that can do that? And again, if you would like to help Daneila and her family, please go here.
This morning I woke up and there was a mention of it in businessWeek, there has been over $12,000 raised for the cause, and his network (readers, followers, etc) has exploded. Scott Drumond over at “Come Together” has collected a lot of the articles and postings on the events. All very interesting. I think this is the impact which is what brands want to achieve. Unfortunately they are missing a couple components, character and credibility to speak to an audience in a non-targeted casual manner.
Tags: Social Media
i immediately went to donate when i saw you repost it and saw how much they had raised. it was amazing.
Thank you so much for helping spead the word on this. We are really floored with how peopl responded.
[...] The Power of Twitter and a Good Cause, a blog post by Marc Van Norden [...]
Great post Marc, especially your comment on the inability of brands to execute like this. It all centers around trust really I guess – we are very aware of brands (advertising etc) but do we trust them enough to execute something similar? Oddly enough this relates back to a thought I posted a few days before David’s amazing initiative.
If you took a camera to the streets and asked people about your brand, would they wax lyrical about what you do? Would they be prepared to go on record and stake their social reputation on your brand? That’s the feeling companies should be looking to inspire in their customers I think.