Social Media for Social Good

Catching up on the massive flow of social marketing information coming out of SXSW, I came across David Spark's top ten video interviews from the conference, including two about how technology can motivate people towards a greater social good.

The first video is of Joe Jaffe discussing how the newly popular geolocation apps (Foursquare, Gowalla) can be used to help social causes. He essentially says geolocation apps create challenges for people and when those challenges incorporate a purpose, communities can rally around a cause, make a difference and raise money. He references the mobile app, CauseWorld, as an example of how a game is presenting challenges to people and raising money for all kinds of causes.

The second video is of Randi Zuckerburg, Manager of Marketing Initiatives for Facebook. She talks about how the Haiti earthquake was expressed through Facebook:

• 15,000 posts a minute with the word "Haiti" and
  
• according to Nielson 39% of people polled on Facebook donated to cause.

She sees this as proof that people are putting "virtual endorsement into real world action."