In her recent blog post, Daiz questioned the practical value of using facebook. To answer this question, I wanted to look at the practical value of social media in relation to humanitarian aid, which Hubba started to address in his latest blog post.
A great recent example of using social media for aid, can be seen with professional starcraft 2 players, such as Dario Wunsch (TLO). He set up a 24hour livestream on justin.tv of him playing video games in order to generate ad revenue which would then be donated to Doctors without Borders. People were able to participate by watching him play, which people watched during the stream helped to generate the money for the final donation. As well as that, viewers were encouraged to make their own donation from the live chat. This has encouraged other gamers to follow suit, such as Shawn Simon (Sheth) to follow suit with a similar live stream. Both Dario, and Shawn were able to raise over $2000.
Thus in regards to Hubba's question of whether a Bob or Bonno is needed in the age of Web 2.0 i would have to say yes. In my opinion, people are always going to require some form of motivation when it comes to providing donations or aid, and an influential figure has often proved to be an effective method of getting that motivation. However, social media allows all of us to become little Bobs and little Bonnos, just as how Hubba's blog has influenced some of us, or how the professional gamers were able to gather their fans in support. At certain points during their streams, both had over 20,000 people watching at the same time.
I think there are still some unexplored ways in which social media can be used to promote these causes, as well as to help provide support. What do you think?
If you have other examples of social media being used in an interesting way for a good cause, lets hear them too!
I'm agree with you. I think that Social Media can be used to help and provide support to others in many ways. In fact, some months ago I read a book called "Growndswell" and it mentions that the American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivors Network (www.acscsn.org) is a good support for cancer sufferers across the nation (fantastic idea!!!)
ReplyDeletehey Ivan Facebook is being used in lot of ways for good causes one of them is that adding your blood group in your profile which allows everyone to see it and contact you if they need blood in case of emergency. looking at the recent slump in blood donation this may be the answer for this problem.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog Ivan.
ReplyDelete$2000 is not bad but considering the 24hr effort, I would have imagined it would have been more. Be that as it may, SM helped to get $2000 for a good cause. I guess it depends on how big the market is (I know the gaming market is huge) but how many gamers are out there are likely to sit and watch another gamer play, rather than play themselves? Would it have been more effective if a bunch of pro gamers got together and played a competitive game against each other and perhaps take wagers or get sponsors, with some percentage of the wagers or sponsor money going to the cause?
Ross
This is an area of interest to me - I think social media is a great way for people to express their support for good causes, for example the badges people were adding to their Facebook profiles after making a donation to support victims of the Japan earthquake. However, although SM offers a great opportunity for raising awareness (through sharing info, videos etc) it may not necessarily translate into donations - which is what non-profits need to keep the work going. It is pretty easy to become a fan of a good cause but the important part is driving further activity beyond that initial interaction.
ReplyDelete@Leo - Wow, I didn't know you could do that! I don't know how successful it will be to drive people to donate, but its a start!
ReplyDelete@Ross - I agree, $2000 is only a start, and there is a lot of room for improvement. However that did not include any personal donations from fans, and was mainly from the revenue generated through the advertisements. Your idea for a charity tournament is a great idea, especially considering how much prize money is starting to be pumped into video game tournaments. However, they will still need to provide some money for the gamers, who are not often the richest people.
@Amity - I agree, raising awareness i think is an important step, as often these causes are only talked about when certain major issues pop up such as the earthquake in Japan. I agree that while this may not translate into donations, its better than not talking about it at all.
hello everyone :)
ReplyDeleteGreat work Ivan! I totally agree that Facebook can definitely help raise awareness but then there are those scams fake groups and communities which i'm a bit weary about sometimes ~
But nonetheless, i think facebook can definitely help charities gain more exposure and ultimately raise money.