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One of the greatest aspects of social media is how it’s been adapted to helping charitable causes and non-profits.
From reacting to the Haiti disaster to raising funds for a kids school in Tanzania, social media continues to show just how much we can make a change where before we may have thought there was nothing we could do.
A perfect example of this is the CitizenGulf project, which my friend  Geoff is a part of.
Organized by a mix of business owners, cause marketers and social good causes, the CitizenGulf project aims to help fishing families affected by the recent BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf Coast.
As the clean-up for the mess continues and red tape and legal issues hold up some of the aid packages, CitizenGulf wants to help make a difference now. The great thing about the project is that it takes very little from us to get involved, yet it can make a huge difference to those affected.
This includes the fishing families whose livelihoods have been destroyed; locals affected by how the economy has been hit by the spill; and wildlife left to fend for themselves without our aid.
And with hurricane season fast approaching this area, the need for our help is clear.
So how can you help?
There are a ton of events planned around the U.S. to benefit the area, and you can find these locations here. If your city isn’t on there yet but you want to help, you can contact the CitizenGulf team to organize your own event.
You can also donate to organizations recommended by CitizenGulf, if you prefer that.
The oil spill in the Gulf is one of the biggest ecological and corporate disasters in the U.S in recent times. CitizenGulf wants to give us an easy way we can help the locals and the landscape.
Seems a pretty straightforward decision, no?
This story caught my eye today. It’s about a little 8-year old boy who’s dying from muscular dystrophy.
As part of his dying wishes, Tanner traveled to New York to take a tour through Central Park. He flew with Air Canada. In Canada, the name Air Canada is synonymous with “Who Cares Canada” instead. Simply put, they’re pretty much the crappest airline around.
Yesterday, however, they outdid themselves. They broke Tanner’s $15,000 wheelchair.
This is an 8-year old boy who can’t get around without his wheelchair. His needs mean that the chair is almost like an extra body part for him.
As an example, think of yourself trying to breathe on only one lung – that’s how important Tanner’s chair is.
So, bit of a problem would be an understatement.
No problem, you’d think. Air Canada broke it, they’ll replace it, right? Wrong.
They told Tanner’s family that they can’t do anything until this coming Monday – five days later. Five days for Tanner to be bed-ridden because Air Canada screwed up. Bad move, Air Canada – we live in the age of social media and instant backlash.
You might recall the outcry when U.S. air carrier United Airlines broke a passenger’s guitar, and the protracted period he went through to get a replacement. Eventually he made a YouTube video that saw United Airline take a negative PR hit they were never prepared for.
You would have thought airlines would have learned from that escapade, especially when you have some great uses of social media from the industry by the likes of  JetBlue and  Southwest Airlines.
But then again, this is Air Canada we’re talking about.
Despite an  outcry on Twitter; despite the news story that leads this post; despite the family pleading their case about how crucial it is for Tanner to have a wheelchair, so far there’s been nothing from the company apart from a “loaner” that Tanner can’t use.
Instead, it’s taken a  company in New York called Mobility Solutions to come to Tanner’s rescue. All through Twitter. All through helping a little boy out. All through goodwill; not through responsibility of breaking an item and replacing it.
Nice job, Air Canada.
Now I know times are tough, since you announced your second quarter results and showed a loss of $203 million. But then again, you made an operating income of $75 million, compared to a loss of $113 million last year. So you have some spare change.
But not enough to replace a dying kid’s $15,000 wheelchair that you broke?
Maybe there’s a reason. Maybe there’s red tape you have to sign off. Maybe you have to investigate what happened. Fair enough – that’s business.
But there’s business and there’s good business. You screwed up. You replace. Then you find out what happened.
It’s not so hard, is it?
And while you’re thinking about that, you might want to look at sorting out  your Twitter profile, or updating your Facebook page. That’s where the  questions are happening. If you had these up-to-date, some things you could have done:
The great thing about social media is that any mistakes made on it can be rectified on it as well. You have that chance.
Or is it still “Who Cares Canada”?
Have you signed up for Sponsored Tweets on Twitter? Or Magpie? Or TweetROI? Do you offer sponsored posts and paid reviews on your blog? If so, you might have to re-think how you share this information, thanks to a Terms of Service update from Facebook.
Why does a Facebook update affect you if you’re on Twitter, or writing on your blog? Think of your Status Update box. Many users of both Facebook and Twitter have their accounts synced, so when you post on Twitter it goes to your status box (or main feed). The same for blog posts – a lot of bloggers auto-update their Facebook status with their latest post.
Now, however, if that tweet or post includes an advertisement from the likes of Sponsored Tweets, or a paid review from a company like  IZEA and other paid blogging services, Facebook would be in their rights to see that as part of their “unauthorized commercial communications”. This could, in return, see your Facebook account closed or deleted.
Of course, the easy thing to do would be for IZEA and other companies to talk to Facebook. Or, for people to stop syncing accounts and blogs (Twitter updates is something a lot of “just Facebook users” have already complained about). The question is, will people want to change their current set-up?
What’s your take? Do you sync accounts? Will this make you change or will you keep posting regardless? Or should advertising companies be the ones taking the proactive approach to work to a solution?
Last night on Twitter, I saw a pretty high-profile user retweet a message he’d received from one of his connections. It was high praise about this person, and was retweeted verbatim with no changes to the text.
My initial reaction to that was to ask the following question to the Twittersphere:
The responses came in thick and fast and they opened up a great stream of conversation for the next hour at least, with aspects to all sides of the original question.
 David Spinks and Alex Tan opened up a great conversation around the question which you can read more of here.
From my own point of view, when I asked the question I was of the mindset that it leaned more toward ego as opposed to pride (or excitement at receiving praise). Did you really need to retweet the praise – couldn’t you just say thanks to the person who offered the praise?
But is that view right? Is it any different from having a testimonial page on a website, or asking for references for your LinkedIn account? Does the public conversation aspect of Twitter make it less “respectable” to promote your praise than a static site?
Someone mentioned that it’s like being at a cocktail party – you wouldn’t suddenly announce how great you are. Or would you?
So… is it ego, or is it pride? Is it being genuinely pleased or just being a pimp? Would you retweet praise verbatim about you? Over to you – the mic is yours.
Justin Michael is like many online users. He has a  Twitter account and a Facebook account, as well as his own website.
He’s passionate about new technology and social media/networking and what it can do for you, personally and professionally.
Justin is also running for Mayor of Santa Barbara in the upcoming November 3 election. He’s using these social tools – Facebook especially – to help spread his political message, as well as his philanthropical one (Justin’s campaign message is “Humanitarian first, politician second”).
It seems a natural thing to do, when you see how much social media and online networks helped the  Obama presidential campaign.
And it would be – if Justin wasn’t the victim of a cyber criminal who has stolen his identity on Facebook. Not just the  fake account “fun” that Twitter suffers from – Justin’s legitimate Facebook account has been closed due to the actions of the cyber criminal.
Here are just some of the events so far:
Justin’s tried talking to the person behind these attacks. The responses from the fake Justin Michael account show that the hacker isn’t too bothered about the legal ramifications. He’ll simply keep changing IP addresses each time the one he’s using is tracked.
The reasons behind the attacks aren’t clear. Justin suspects who the cyber criminal is. Maybe it’s politically charged? In one of the message exchanges on Facebook, Justin is advised that if he removes his Internet presence (MySpace, Twitter, Facebook) and reverts to traditional campaigning, his harasser will remove the fake accounts.
Whatever the reasoning, it’s another sad example of how vulnerable our identities are on social networks. It’s too easy to set up an account and impersonate a person or business. All that’s needed is a basic email account and some knowledge of the person or brand involved.
Sure, there are ways that you can protect yourself – brand monitoring, alerts and observant friends and colleagues being just some of the methods. But these will only alert you after the event. By then, the damage can be irreparable.
What about the social networks in question? Can they be more stringent in their account activation process? Possibly. But how do you know the initial account isn’t fake to begin with? And that you’re subsequently blocking the real person or brand from coming on to your network to try and limit damage control?
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any immediate and easy answers. For social networks. For cyber crime. For people like Justin Michael. For you, for me.
Social networking is the ultimate connection platform. The question is, are people connecting with you or someone else?
While I don’t use third-party Twitter app Tweetdeck myself (I switched to Seesmic Desktop a while back), I noticed today that both Mashable and TechCrunch now have their own branded versions.
It’s basically the same Tweetdeck application but now you can have a dedicated pre-set column for the latest news from both websites, as well as a shiny Mashable or TechCrunch logo on your Tweetdeck skin.
But are they worth changing to?
Personally, I can’t see the major benefit at this time. Yes, it’s great that now both Mashable and TechCrunch have their logo on Tweetdeck’s interface. But will that really expand their brand?
I’m guessing that most users who already have Tweetdeck installed know about both websites. And you can always just set up your own preset column in the standard Tweetdeck to watch the Mashable and TechCrunch feeds.
What about new users? Mashable promotes their version by saying it’s great for new Twitter users to “get up to speed”. I’m not so sure – new Twitter users might be better getting used to Twitter itself first before trying to control a multi-column app.
Comments on both websites are mixed – some think it’s great while others think it’s a waste of time.
I have to say that I’m with the second camp at the minute. It’s always interesting to see brands experiment with ways to get their name into people’s collective. I’m just not sure this is it.
And with some Tweetdeck users still complaining about performance issues (the new iPhone app crashing, memory hog, etc), wouldn’t it be better for Tweetdeck to concentrate on that first?
What about you? What’s your take on Mashable and TechCrunch’s new Tweetdeck app?
Would it make you question their bias when discussing third-party Twitter apps? How can they make real use of it down the line? Will you be downloading one of them?
Back in November last year, #Journchat was launched by PR mavenSarah Evans.
Its aim was simple – use Twitter to bring journalists, PR professionals and bloggers together on Twitter in a weekly chat format.
Since then, #Journchat has gone from strength to strength and brought in special guests from CNN as well as regularly topped the Twitter trends every Monday night.
Lately, however, it seems to have lost its way and some of its sparkle. That’s not to say that #Journchat doesn’t offer any value – it does, and an incredible amount at that. And it’s done a great job of bringing together industries that otherwise tend to just criticize each other.
But maybe #Journchat is a victim of its own success?
The way that #Journchat works is simple, yet it can also be frustrating. Because it uses Twitter as the chat medium, each question and answer needs to be within the 140 character limit of Twitter.
This is good for keeping answers short and punchy, but it’s also frustrating when an answer needs so much more and you have to go to multiple messages. By the time a longer answer is out, often it’s the next question. So in that respect, Twitter as a format isn’t ideal.
#Journchat runs for three hours officially, every Monday night from 7.00pm until 10.00pm CST. The length normally means that around eight questions are asked, with about 20 minutes allocated to each topic. Then there’s a wrap up and pitch session to close the discussion. You can continue to discuss topics but it’s not part of the moderated session.
Is three hours too long, though? Are there too many topics being discussed that it’s easy to become lost?
Some people can be on Q6. while others can still be chatting about Q3. This then leads to potential confusion throughout the #Journchat stream as three or four topics are being discussed at once. Which can then lead to missed questions and answers.
One thing that #Journchat is immensely successful at is encouraging probing questions and discussions on topics that are often avoided.
The introduction of special guests has also helped get an insider look at larger corporations like CNN, with questions being asked about inner workings and how the various forms of media are co-existing.
Yet too often, important questions based on a previous answer are being missed. Guest speakers are (obviously) being inundated with questions that they may have already answered, therefore missing the really juicy ones that everyone wants to hear a view on. Which is a shame.
As I said at the beginning, I’m a huge fan of #Journchat and what Sarah Evans is both currently achieving, and also trying to achieve. I just think the current format is stifling and maybe taking away some of its sparkle.
Perhaps the very format that made it successful is now holding #Journchat back? 140 characters on Twitter is great for little info bursts but for an in-depth discussion panel it obviously has limitations.
How about swapping to something like the new Wordpress template P2? It’s similar to the Twitter stream but with two key differences – no character limit and threaded replies. This makes it far more effective to keep up with conversations.
Additionally, how about changing the format a little? It’s great that so many people want to be involved in #Journchat but perhaps it’s time to scale it back?
Have a registration where 100 people across the three mediums – journalism, blogging and PR – are the “live chatters” each week, with questions being provided by everyone else. You keep mixing up the 100 people so everyone that registers is involved in the debate at some point, and there’s less on-screen confusion.
Or, go to UStream TV and have a live feed from there with special guest, and have a similar approach to the debate. Questions can be asked in the chat room and the most relevant or topical can be asked.
These are just some ideas. I’m sure there are countless others.
I love #Journchat. I love the reason for its inception and I support what Sarah’s trying to do 100%. I just feel there could be a more effective way of hosting it.
Then again, maybe it is perfectly fine as it is. After all, it’s been going strong for more than six months now, so that must say something.
How about you? Do you participate in #Journchat? What’s your take – is it good as is or does it need freshened up a little? I’d love to hear your suggestions.