Social media has sparked a range of pledges and charity initiatives that are demonstrating social media’s ability to achieve social change.
Tuesday 24th March saw the first ever Ada Lovelace Day and the campaign was a huge success. The campaign was initiated by Suw Charman-Anderson and was designed to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, having written a programme for Charles Babbage’s “analytical engine” and had a vision for computers that extended beyond even his own.
Suw pledged to publish a blog post about a woman in technology, only if 1,000 others agreed to do the same. This target was far exceeded, with over 1,980 signing up to the campaign. Ada Lovelace Day served an important purpose, by highlighting women’s achievement in technology across the world, both past and present. A contribution often overlooked.
As well as reaching out to bloggers, there was intense buzz on Twitter and Google trends shows search traffic is impressive (See below).
Twist shows an intense Twitter buzz (click to enlarge)
Google Trends shows an impressive search traffic spike (click to enlarge)
This initiative comes in a recent string of pledges that are getting the online world excited. Amnesty International’s recent social media time bomb campaign effectively worked across different social networks including Twitter, Facebook & Myspace to raise awareness of violence against women in the UK. The pledge was simple - asking people to change their avatar and post a message and link provided by Amnesty.
The concept of pledging is working so well online because it gives us an opportunity to utilise our social network community and presence for good. It’s a nice feeling to think that by taking such a small action, you can help communicate a charitable cause to your online following. These pledges grow virally not only due to the idea of spreading a good word, but also due to their simplicity and the fact that they enhance your online activity, giving some real world meaning to our engagement “in the cloud”. Involving bloggers in an original and unique way that benefits both themselves and the cause is an ideal way to distribute your message online.
The WWF Earth Hour campaign, which culminates on 28th March is another great example of engaging online to change the offline. The campaign involves everyone (individuals, business and organisations) pledging to turn their lights off at 8:30pm local time on 28th March to tackle climate change. They couldn’t have made it easier to spread the word. The site has a range of downloadable resources including posters, web banners, screen savers and a light switch widget that you can add to your own website or blog.
Campaigns like this are a success because they are effectively engaging people online, enhancing their community while promoting a good cause. Everyone’s a winner!
Tags: Lauren Fisher, Social Media, Twitter
