The other month there was a fair amount of buzz in the twittersphere when US social media commentator David Armano used both Twitter and his blog to raise a lot of money for a Romanian mum and her kids in New York to find a new place to live.
Something Gavin Heaton pointed me to via Twitter: Another example of using social media for the greater good comes from Australia where a chip (french fries) brand is having its online competitions hi-jacked to help people affected by the recent Australian bush fires.
Australian digital strategist, Julian Cole explains it on his blog - Samboy Chips has been looking at various ways to get its relaunch talked about on social networks.
One tactic involved the chip maker giving AUS $10,000 (US$6470 / £4480) to the person who could start the biggest Facebook group with the words 'Samboy is back' in it. Kimberley Evans promptly created one called 'Samboy is back, JOIN NOW TO WIN $10,000 FOR THE RED CROSS BUSHFIRE APPEAL', got over 100,000 people to sign up and won.
Samboy is also staging one of those ubiquitous 'stick your film onto YouTube' competitions, where Australian chip lovers are encouraged to "make a video about how the flavour hits you" (groan), with the most watched getting AUS $5000.
Inspired by Kimberley Evans' Facebook group, Julian has come on board to make his own entry, with the aim of donating the $5000 to the bushfire appeal.
With several weeks for the competition to run, his video is already on 60,000 views, so it's more likely than not that it will win - but to make it a landslide, watch and forward it on anyway! As Julian says, everyone benefits. The bushfire appeal gets another $5000 and Samboy chips by default gets its name out there.
Related articles by Zemanta- Amazing Australians Online: On the Victorian Bushfire Disaster and the Web (shaicoggins.com)
- Social media explodes in wake of deadly bushfires - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (tsurch.com)
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