10 ways to change the world through social media

While surfing the net I came across this recent article in Mashable.com - a site that prides itself of being "top source for news in social and digital media, technology and web culture" - actually, Mashable is a pretty cool website...this is just the description they have up about themselves: With more than 40 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific news site reporting breaking web news, providing analysis of trends, reviewing new websites and services, and offering social media resources and guides. Mashable’s audience includes early adopters, social media enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, influencers, brands and corporations, marketing, PR and advertising agencies, Web 2.0 aficionados and technology journalists. Mashable is also popular with bloggers, Twitter and Facebook users — an increasingly influential demographic. Check it out yourself: mashable.

Anyways (I'm clearly a victim of social media: I get distracted easily!), the point is that I came across the article titled: "10 ways to change the world through social media". I thought it was pretty interesting - and here is what I got out of it.

You make a difference, we make it easy. That's the slogan of the first idea discussed in the article: Social Actions. Basically, if one day you wake feeling like you want to "do good", go to socialactions.com and you can search different ways of taking action that same minute - whether you want to sign a petition, make a loan, volunteer...Social Actions is the place for you when you are feeling altruistic. If you feel that maybe your "doing good" feeling is here to stay, then Social Actions has "packages"for you which means you can get action alerts on the issues you care about. What are you into today? AIDS, Animal Rights, Cancer, Homelessness, Autism, Darfur...the list goes on and on. And Social Actions has it all ready for you.

Another very useful thing that I learned is that social media has enabled each of us to have an audience - whether through Twitter, Flickr, Yourube or a personal blog, each of us can have influence and reach. And what’s more, it can be used for GOOD. That's the whole vision of SalaamGarage who set believes in the equation:

Citizen journalism + NGOs = Social Change

Bright, right? The idea is to partner citizens with organizations to travel together around the world...and report about it. So basically the audience has the incredible opportunity to learn about first-hand experiences from around the world, even if they are seating at home. A neat explample posted on their website follows the story of Jonathan, a guy that traveled to Ethiopia to learn about midwives. It's amazing.

Finally, another fun thing I read about is...Where is Matt? Apparently (might seem obvious by now) new social media can unite the world - albeit only through video. Matt is a guy who thought it would be 'unifying' to dance all around the world. The video of him dancing in who knows how many countries has an astounding 34,464,126 hits on Youtube (42 countries, actually) inspired many to believe that we are, indeed, only one species living in one world. Perhaps this is a first revolution in the path to social change. Others have followed Matt with unifying the world via videos, such as Playing for Change which connects the world through a song.


Not bad for a first blog on new media and social change, eh? If you are interested in reading the whole article (highly recommended, by the way) you can find it here: 10 ways to change the world.