Social media for social change
Social media has been a major boon to the social development sector as a whole. The biggest contribution it had made towards social change is that it has helped change the ‘kurta-jhola’ image that most people had about NGOs and social enterprises. But social media can harm organizations in two BIG ways if they are not careful. This is applicable to those organizations that work on on-ground projects and not on creating awareness alone.
Firstly, social media tends to disillusion organizations through the number of people it can reach out to. Organizations that are in a nascent stage sometimes tend to feel that they have accomplished a significant goal if they have managed to get __ number of people to join a group, like a cause or subscribe to a mailer. This is when you get those annoying Twitter updates that say “We are humbled to see the number of __ 000’s of people join hands with us in our fight against _______ in just 2 days”. Undoubtedly this is a huge milestone but the question to be asked is – what next? And there is a good chance that your audience is also asking the same question.
Secondly, the bigger problem is that the audience often feels that it has made its contribution towards social development if he/she has taken time to join a group or read a newsletter. This is a huge hindrance as feeling sad about a problem or felling passionate for a cause is often seen as contribution in itself. Fundraisers are thus very careful not to publish poverty-stricken pictures form their organizations’ album as it tends to put people in a sad mood which can often be a major deterrent to actually getting them to contribute. If people feel that they have made a contribution by just reading a newsletter, the whole purpose of sending out a newsletter gets defeated.
It’s important to keep in mind what your real goal is. Is it to create awareness alone? For which purpose social media works really well. Or is it to get people to contribute through on-ground initiatives? Social media is a brilliant tool but not an end in itself.
