Friday, March 22, 2013

Social Media and a Good Cause

I am by no means a social media guru, but every once in a while I can see the value of this medium to reach a targeted audience. Almost all my pursuits focus on the St. Louis area. Almost all my Facebook and Twitter connections are with people and organizations in the region. I do not have thousands of followers but these kinds of numbers exist in my 'network.' So if I write a blog post about a good cause, like yesterday's post on volunteer leadership opportunities with Habitat for Humanity and then share with a few accounts I'm associated with on Twitter and Facebook it is interesting to see what can happen.

Here is an image of some of the tweets/re-tweets that made the rounds last night/today:


I offer no great conclusions, but it does seem that these kinds of efforts can work. My twitter account has 950 followers. I counted up, a minute ago, the followers of those who re-tweeted the post or re-tweeted a re-tweet. That number is 5,460. I'm sure that in a world of professional media people this may not be much but I suggest that networks of non-profit supporters using social media to advance a worthy cause can have an impact and be of significant help getting the word out.