Twitterthon- And be Socially Responsible
By Mary Gardner, GET CONNECTED
Everyone knows that social networking takes a ton of our time, but for what? Is anyone getting results?
After speaking with my friend Diana Scimone who is the Director of www.born2fly.org, whose sole goal is to stop child trafficking, I found that big money can be made by holding a Twitterthon!
On Sept 9, 09, Born2fly’s goal was 9000 people each giving $9. It was a one day fundraiser to distribute materials to kids at risk and to their parents and teachers.
Her results were astounding. With one month to go, she started posting 31 days of blogs and asking Twitterers to spread the information about the fundraiser everywhere. They included links to the website, and had a “Chip in button” where people could donate safely by PayPal or credit card. Diana asked everyone on her personal list and asked them to send it to 9 people.
On 9-9-09, the donations started flowing in and they were from all over the world. Diana kept the website updated all day and gave away prizes. This really helped to keep the interest up and served as a central point of command.
Some heard about it through flyers passed out at a church in Indiana, and most were from people she didn’t know, but were touched through the powerful tool of the internet – on Facebook, through blog posts, through the traditional news media, and of course, through Twitter.
At this point, there are dozens of countries who have heard the awesome work that is being done to educate the kids about child trafficking. And Diana hopes to get to as many people as possible and that she gets there ahead of the traffickers. They didn’t hit their goal of $81,000- yet, but they did raise a whopping $20,000 on that day!
Who knew that Twitter would be used to serve children and save them from a life of destitution and crime? Being socially responsible through social networking? It’s the new way to play the game!