Yes Virginia – There is Social Media for Social Change – #SMB11 Recap
by Bob Collins
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
In case you hadn’t heard, this week’s Social Media Breakfast in Boston (SMB11) was pretty special. In keeping with the season, the theme was “Social Media for Social Change,” with three outstanding presentations by some of Boston’s most active Social Media Community leaders’ involved with educating, training and supporting fund raising efforts for non-profits and charitable organizations.
The Presenters
- Gradon Tripp, Social Media, Design Aficionado and Founder of SM4SC
- Frank Days, Soccer Dad, SocialMedia Gadfly and COO of Firstgiving
- Beth Kanter, World Recognized Trainer, Blogger and Consultant to Non-Profits in Effective Use of Social Media
As part of the Social Good themed breakfast – we wanted to showcase in real-time the power of rallying and engaging a networked community. The amazing Beth Kanter introduced Ed Nicholson, director of community & PR at Tyson Foods, into the mix and presented a challenge to Boston’s Social Media Breakfast community.
The Challenge: Tyson Foods will donate 100 lbs. of food (up to a truckload full with 35,000 pounds) to The Greater Boston Food Bank for every single comment left on their Hunger Relief website. We needed 350 community driven comments to fill the full truck donation. Tyson has been involved in similar such campaign drive in the Austin and Bay Area SMBs. We just wanted to see if Boston could do a li’l better!
Within 3 hours of launching the social media experiment during the breakfast our local community had rallied their online pals to generate over 550 comments on Tyson’s Hunger Relief website.
Due to the dramatic first wave of comments, which did indeed outpaced the Austin and Bay Area drives, Tyson decided to double-down on their support. In the end, Tyson Foods has pledged to provide 70,000 lbs. of food — the equivalent of approximately 54,000 meals — to the food bank.
All this Re-Tweeting and blog posting was happening behind the scenes at the breakfast as people mixed, mingled, networked and Gradon Tripp, Frank Days and Beth Kanter delivered some great insights and experienced in building communities, igniting passions and support through social media for social change.
Here are some of the videos, slide decks and blog post recaps coming out of
SMB11.
- Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – Social Media Breakfast Leverages Two Truckloads of Tyson Food Donation for Boston Food Bank!
- Diane Scimone – Makin’ A List
- Just Kate – Social Media Breakfast
- Season of Light – Talking Versus Doing
- Steve Garfield, Your Comment Generates 100 Pounds of Food
- Future Visions: Tyson Foods – Getting By Giving
- Yankee 2.0: More to give, and a challenge to ‘mainstream media’ – including me
- Jon Burg’s Future Visions Tyson Foods: Getting by Giving
- Gerritson’s Blog The Evolving Marketer – More Transparent or Better Concealed
And the Icing on the Cake at SMB11 – Walking in a Twitter Wonderland by @repcor @cmajor @tibbon
Check it out:
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[...] hours after Bob Collins and Beth Kanter rally Boston Social Media Breakfast Group’s twitter networks to comment on [...]
[...] were stunned by the warm reception they received by local social media organizations, particularly Social Media Breakfast of Boston who helped rally to their cause and secured 70,000lbs of food on behalf of their local foodbank. In [...]
[...] a hands on trainer. One small but significant example, when you partnered with Robert Collins at Boston’s Social Media Breakfast just prior to Thanksgiving ‘08, and challenged the breakfast bunch to retweet Tyson Food’s promise to donate lbs of meat to [...]