In this week’s look at charities that are making a noise on social media and helping their campaigns go viral we highlight the Action/2015 coalition, Mind’s use of Vine and a choking jelly baby from St John Ambulance.
Action/2015
Thursday saw the launch of a global campaign involving more than 1,000 organisations from 120 countries reminding world leaders of the importance of action ahead of two international summits this year. In September the Millennium Development Goals will be replaced by sustainable development goals and a new climate change summit is scheduled for December.
The hashtag #action2015 has been trending on Twitter since the launch, with backing from the likes of Malala Yousafzai, Queen Rania of Jordan, Bono, Ben Affleck and Bill and Melinda Gates.
Bond is coordinating the UK activity for Action/2015 with more than 40 organisations involved, including Global Poverty Project, Save the Children, World Vision UK, Comic Relief, Plan-UK, WaterAid UK, VSO UK, and Restless Development.
For this week’s launch VSO is calling on people to share a photo of themselves holding a piece of paper filling in the sentence: “I am (name) I am (quality)". Civil Society News was encouraged to see the following message from an events assistant at the charity which read: “I am Lydia. I am effective governance”.
Why we love it: It’s great to see so many organisations working together with such a clear focus but still leaving room for each charity to interpret the campaign in ways that is relevant to their constituents.
Mind – In our own words
Putting a fresh twist on last year’s campaign, which featured young people sharing personal experiences of mental illness in their own words, Mind uploaded a couple of 15-second videos to the social network Vine this week.
The charity has taken soundbites from its six-minute YouTube film so that they can be used on Vine and reach a different audience.
The video featuring Jamil (embedded below) has now been viewed more than 10,000 times.
Why we love it: A great example of a charity getting the most out its content, ensuring that the campaign reaches as many people as possible.
St John Ambulance – #TheChokeables
The first aid charity enlisted the help of David Walliams, David Mitchell, Johnny Vegas and Sir John Hurt to voice the characters in a video explaining how to help a baby if it is choking.
It will be shown on television over the next three months but has also been uploaded to YouTube and embedded on the charity’s website. It has been viewed more than 700,000 times and shared on Facebook 29,000 times.
Why we love it: Who doesn’t love anything with David Mitchell in? But seriously, the video is snappy and clear, and the call to share the video is nice and prominent.
If your charity, or even another, is doing something innovative on social media let the Civil Society News team know by emailing [email protected] or tweeting @CivilSocietyUK.
