David Armano makes his social network pay
Critical Mass vp of experiential design David Armano is a certified social-network celebrity, with a well-read blog and popular Twitter feed. This week, he decided to put his network to use for good—and might have just developed one of the most powerful social-media case studies to boot. Last night, Armano posted an appeal on his blog, and to his 8,200 Twitter followers, to help a family friend in desperate circumstances. He set a goal of raising $5,000 in small donations to help the woman and her family get back on their feet. By this morning, donations had topped $11,000. Social-media mavens are talking new world order, and Armano thinks the response is a powerful testament to what networks can accomplish. "I'm hopeful we can move the discussion from who has influence to what we do with what influence we have," he tweets. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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January 7, 2009 in Morrissey, Social networks | Permalink |
Comments
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It's great to see a person's network used for good, and I definitely think this is a case study for the power of a large network on sites like Twitter. Hopefully brands start to see the potential in these types of social networks, and understand that a little effort and the right message can result in a lot of return.
Posted by: Cory O'Brien | Jan 7, 2009 1:16:19 PM
I donated. I don't usually donate. But, I did. This effort and experience substantiates my POV and belief that as leaders we have a responsibility to the community. To borrow and paraphrase a line from Spiderman, with great influence comes great responsibility.
My frustration with social media and for that matter industry wide leaders/experts/thought-leaders/etc. is that they've become a bunch of closed minded, narcissistic, you scratch my back I scratch yours people that are far more interested in promoting themselves than they are with making the community better.
David shows us the impact that can be made when you focus on doing good. When you focus on the community. He could have made this about him. He didn't. Someone like Calacanis would have made this an initiative to drive traffic to Mahalo. Scoble would have used it to attract even more followers. The list goes on and on.
People donated and invested in David as much, if not more, than they did to Daniela. If a virtual nobody had asked for the donations, they would have gotten nowhere. But, people's trust in David is what generated the near immediate support. His value to the community is such that people, like me, were compelled to help support his initiative.
This shows the strength of the community. It shows the power of influence. It also shows us that you can't make it about YOU. When I see things like this happen it makes me want people like David to become the Wyatt Earp's of the social media space. This "space" needs policing. If the community is allowed to continue its path toward a corrupt environment we ALL lose.
It's clear, that when David talks, people not only listen, they take action. We need more of what David does and less of what people like Calacanis do.
Posted by: Adam Kmiec | Jan 7, 2009 1:18:46 PM
Guess you missed Laura Fitton's version of this in December: http://pistachioconsulting.com/how-we-doing/. She's working her powerful socnet on Twitter and via blog to raise $25k and provide clean drinking water for 5 villages. She's raised more than $15,000 already. And of course the Frozen Pea Fund run by Connie Reece and Susan Reynolds to benefit breast cancer research was twitter's first fundraising star (to my knowledge). All great causes and great case studies;)
Posted by: Annie Heckenberger | Jan 9, 2009 1:38:15 PM
