In addition to major corporations and government agencies, non-profit organizations are also implementing new social media. A workable organization needs to connect with the people who support them. The American Red Cross has realized that new social media is an effective way to reach out and connect to their donors, supporters and volunteers. The Red Cross can collaborate with their audiences on a whole new level because Web 2.0 has allowed them to follow people’s perceptions and track their emotions on related issues they face. Response to misunderstandings and support for praise can also be addressed. The Red Cross has definitely used new social media to its advantage. People everywhere can be easily informed and joined together during disasters.
The slideshow below elaborates on the Red Cross’s use of social media. They monitor blogs and engage in the conversation. The Red Cross connects with the community by using various tools, such as Flickr, online chat, and Facebook. They encourage audiences to get involved by setting up an RSS reader.
Personal stories from volunteers are shared with audiences through the Red Cross youth blog. Young adults from diverse geographic locations have the opportunity to display their talent and past work. Volunteers from various levels of service engage in discussion on volunteer issues and current events. Volunteers share their Twitter news and Flickr photos on the blog as well.
As a relief organization, a major task of the Red Cross is to get information out to victims and their families when a disaster occurs. With their use of social media tools the information is distributed more quickly and accurately. Victims and volunteers can now be easily informed on shelter locations and food supply when natural disasters occur.
4 Comments
April 2, 2009 at 3:47 am
Hey Mandy,
The Red Cross is a great non-profit organization that has a handle on collaboration in social media. I remember reading in the book Social Corp by Joel Postman that the Red Cross began implementing there social media tools after Hurricane Katrina.
People wanted more information about the disaster as well as information about where to send donations. The Red Cross has truly stepped up its game and uses technology to keep people in the know and up-to-date.
Their youth blog is great. There are so many young Red Cross volunteers and they deserve the ability to collaborate with one another just as much as the next adult. In this day and age it is better to learn social media skills at a young age anyway.
After looking on your Read Write Web blog link I wanted to check out other non-profit organizations that implemented social media. You might be interested to know that the United Nations Foundation also uses social media. They developed a blog that can be found at http://www.communicopia.com/blog/united-nations-foundation-relaunches. They also began using mobile technology in Asia and Africa because wired infrastructure is less common. For more information on this you can check out http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_mobile_activism_on_the_rise.php
April 2, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Like Nicole, I am interested in how other non-profits are using social media. I have been researching blogs and through my research I have not stumbled upon many non-profit blogs. The American Red Cross is a big organization with a lot of information to relay to their audiences, so blogging is the perfect solution to help them organize and deliver content faster. For instance, the Red Cross publishes a new blog for every hurricane. ( http://hurricaneike.wordpress.com/ ) With vast resources and topics, which need to be communicated in a timely manner, it makes sense for the Red Cross to engage all of their audiences through different social media applications.
April 3, 2009 at 12:02 am
Thanks for the information on the United Nations Foundation Nicole. I will definitely take a look at the way they use new social media and perhaps elaborate on their non-profit organization in a later post!
April 3, 2009 at 1:22 am
Mandy, I agree that non-profits need to start using social media. This is a growing technology and if they use these techniques, their audience could grow as well. Like you said, it is a good resource for potential donors, volunteers, and supporters. They need up-to-date information and this is one way to get that to them. If any disaster occurs, this is one way to get information out quickly and easily to many people, like the Hurricane blog by the American Red Cross. Another non-profit organization I found that uses a blog is the American Cancer Society. (http://www.cancer.org/aspx/blog/Default.aspx) They have one of their chief medical officers update a blog on current issues that he thinks is important. This could be useful for anyone needing to learn about the American Cancer Society, or for volunteers, donors, or supporters as well. It is a way to create relationships between people who might not have been able to be connected otherwise. It creates an opportunity for engagement between audiences.