You have the power, spread a smile, wipe a tear….
A video of the hardships endured by the aged couple running the “Baba Ka Dhaba” eatery in South Delhi prompted social media outpouring.
In the video, 80-year-old Kanta Prasad shows dal, curry, parathas kept in large dishes, ready to serve. A widely shared video of a tearful aged owner of a small eatery in South Delhi, talking about how he had no customers, prompted an outpouring of support.
Don’t underestimate the power of a regular person. Social networking tools are facilitating social change in ways that weren’t possible before. A connected culture is demonstrating the ability to improve lives.
A recent article in Forbes states that particularly the millennial crowd seeks out transparency, which also happens to be the number one factor that prompts people to act. Social Causes let influencers start and join causes such as cancer researcher Eric Ding’s Facebook Cause for cancer prevention and research. The reason has over three million members and has raised above $75,000.
Altruism aside, when you combine this kind of connectivity with powerful (and meaningful) calls-to-action, people are willing to engage donations for the charity of their choice.
Though aside from the distraction of electronics and social media, which can also lead to addiction, there are good positives of benefiting from using social media by using it to the best of our potential. And also be fully impacted by the use and benefits of social media.
Similarly, social media’s impact on Somalia is worth recalling. It all started with a tweet from a Social Media Influencer Jérôme Jarre on March 15 after being on a call with a volunteer in Somalia who had just witnessed a 6-year-old girl died from dehydration after walking 90 miles with her mother in search of water.
United Nations is already calling it the worst humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war as more than 20 million faced starvation and famine.
In his video, Jarre made a case for everyone on social media for food and water to corporations and airlines to be send to Somalia. The local NGO’s assured of taking care of the distribution.
He started a GoFundme campaign called “Love Army for Somalia” and challenged viewers to post on social media for immediate relief for Somalians.
The campaign took off, and within days, A-list celebrities joined the cause. Turkish Airlines also said they would keep donating a plane filled with food until the end of the famine.
This campaign received $1 million within 24 hours, with the average donation being around $28.
The goal was to reach $1 million in 10 days, and the amount of money raised in such a short time by so many people takes my breath away.
Humanitarian aid specialists are excited about the attention the campaign generated for Somalia. It is heart-warming to see the impact of a single tweet that turned into a snowballing movement and enabling people like Jarre to go out there and help people.
Another exciting campaign for a good cause was, #NoMakeUpSelfie which helped generate over 8 million pounds in less than a week for cancer research by Omnicore UAE. Social Media Influencers are more potent than ever. Be it Baba Ka Dhaba, Jérôme Jarre is an excellent example that shows how a handful of influencers were able to make a difference.
Because words have a deeper meaning, tweets have power, the power to force necessary change.
