Recap: Social Media for Social Impact

This month, Forum One and Autodesk hosted a panel titled, "Social Media for Social Impact" during Social Media Week in San Francisco. We had the privilege of having four panelists who each told a story demonstrating how the social web had empowered communities around social causes.

• Connie Chan from Yahoo! described how status updates and Flickr photos were used to spread awareness of Yahoo!'s "You In?" campaign that encouraged random acts of kindness.
   
• Susan Tenby explained how TechSoup helped non-profits establish a presence in SecondLife, demonstrating how the virtual world can be used to disseminate information and also act as a venue for people to meet.
   
• Amy Skoczlas Cole from eBay explained how a grassroots employee effort for office-wide green initiatives grew to an online movement around the environmental impact of reused goods.
   
• And finally, Peggy Duvette of WiserEarth talked about how their free online community connects the non-profit world

Three themes began to emerge in discussions after each panelist’s story:

1. The importance of community. eBay's Green Team began with a group of San Jose employees. It evolved by tapping members of its existing community of 89 million eBay buyers and sellers who share an interest in environmental issues. Furthermore, WiserEarth connected existing non-profit communities, enabling them to share relevant information. In both cases, the presence of pre-existing communities empowered social media to more effectively spread cause-related information.
   
   
    
2. The multiplicity of interactions. The social web has provided a plethora of ways for people to interact and share information. It could be as simple as the hundreds of thousands of Yahoo's status updates from the "You In?" campaign or SecondLife users' ability to instant-message, group chat, voice chat, and/or video chat while immersed in a virtual environment. The interaction options are wider than ever.
   
    
    
3. Time as currency. In SecondLife, Tenby described time as currency. Without users spending time in the virtual world, it can quickly become a ghost town. The same can be said about all communities, online and in the real world. Committing time to be "present" and creating value to draw people there is key to establishing and fostering an online community. It was also a frank reminder that principles from the real world still apply online.

Overall, it was a very inspiring event on how social media can further social causes. Proceeds from the event were donated to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund. View the event tweets.