As each natural disaster happens in the world I watch with interest the ever increasing role that digital and mobile technologies play in driving disaster relief efforts.
Take the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January. The response for aid was astounding and more rapid than other recent natural disasters.
Social networking certainly played a key role with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all involved. A survey conducted by Facebook and The Nielsen Company in the week following the earthquake revealed 39% of Facebook users in the US, UK and Australia had already donated money or goods to the relief efforts (24% from Australia).
In addition, 21% of Facebook users who had not yet given to the cause planned to do so. Meaning an incredible 60% of Facebook users in the US, UK and Australia had donated or planned to donate money or goods, which clearly shows the growing importance and effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing tool and its power to activate people.
According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy in the days immediately following the Haiti earthquake more than $150 million in relief had been contributed. This is said to be five times the amount donated in the days immediately following the 2004 Asian tsunamis and more than the $108 million received in the first four days after Hurricane Katrina.
Another significant issue in this latest relief effort is that the relatively new method of text message donations really took off. The Red Cross campaign was promoted on Twitter and Facebook. On the Thursday (48 hours after the earthquake) text message donations hit $3 million and by Friday morning this figure had more than doubled to $8 million, with Red Cross among the 10 most popular topics on Twitter. To put this in context, in all of 2009, the Red Cross received $4 million in mobile text donations.
And even more interestingly, the Big Four mobile operators in the States (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile) reportedly not only waived fees on text message donations, but they advanced the transfer of verified donations (rather than just passing along the funds once the monthly bill was paid).
Is this a significant business opportunity for telecom companies that could lead to a big shift in financial services? Futurist and Chairman of the trends forecasting company Global Change Ltd, Dr Patrick Dixon, certainly thinks so:
What do you think?
Tracy Straughan is an Account Director at BCM Brisbane
You raise a very important issue and topic in our fourth wall world that we live in. Everything has become so instantaneous events can come and go really quickly. We’re we get our news and information about the world isn’t as centralised on TV screens anymore but rather TV screens with keyboards. Does this mean that any disaster that happens prays it’s not after another disaster in quick succession? Because social interest in it can evapourates as quickly as interest generates. But what Social Media does is allow us to record stronger opinions and attitudes regarding Social circumstances. With even more social Media become available to us in our Web 2.0 generation like knowyourhaitirelief.info does this mean that what we hear, read and learn will be equal to what social media we’re assigned to.