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**How U.S. Companies Use** **Social Networks** **to Socially Benefit the World**

**J. Adrian Rivera Aguilera, Kelsey Powell, Celine Fusella, Alexis Rangel, Samantha Bryant, Lauren Greer, Shannon O’Flaherty, Kaytlin Smith,** **Melissa Weller, Dena Shamoon**


 * Introduction:**

Organizations today are looking for new and innovative ways to spread their message, and reach out to the whole world. A few companies/organizations we are looking into are TwitChange, DNA (Demi and Ashton Foundation), and Toms Shoes. Each of these movements has used social media, the internet, and global outreach to spread their word. TwitChange's motto right across their webpage is "Team Up to Change the World, One Tweet at a Time" it was organized in 2010 in result of the aftermath of the disaster in Haiti and is working to bring celebrities and fans together in a fun and social way. Each campaign cumulates in an online eBay auction for fans to bid to be followed, mentioned or retweeted by their favorite celebrities with all funds benefiting Haiti or a specific campaign. Using Twitter as the fuel for the entire campaign itself. DNA, the Demi and Ashton Foundation is working to raise awareness of sex trafficking around the world. DNA uses Facebook for their global awareness campaign with interactive videos for viewers to insert themselves next to their favorite male celebrities and share these videos with their Facebook networks. Finally, TOMs shoes is most likely one of the most famous campaigns for global change. Their "One for One" message is determined for every pair of TOMs shoes you buy, a pair of shoes is given to a child in need in a third world country who doesn't have shoes. The biggest campaign TOMs has launched is "Toms One Day Without Shoes" on April 9th. They created a video with celebrities, companies, and schools all participating in wearing no shoes for one day so other children don't have to. This campaign was the #1 trending topic on Twitter and #4 searched item on Google.

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 * History:**



Social Media has become a essential part of our lives as well as the American culture. Social media varies from more then just Facebook and Twitter. There are social media sites that help connect people by sharing photons, videos, and meeting new people kind of sites. The precursors to Social Media start in the 70s and are quite boring (Usernets, BBSs, Online services) so let’s just fast forward to


 * Early Social Networks, things we are more familiar with:**

Dating Sites they are debatably the first social networks. Forums, which evolved from BBS popular gadget in the 70s and 80s. Six Degrees was launched in 1997, it was the first modern social media that allowed creating profiles which is similar to our Facebook. Six Degrees was sold, and then shut down a year later. LiveJournal started in 1999 and was a unique form of social media. This site allowed users to create blogs and discuss anything they want and it also gave the opportunity to follow other users and communicate. World of Warcraft is a popular video game, but also allowed you to connect with other users during the game.





**Major Advances in Social Networks:**

“Friendster” was the first general social media network created in 2002. It is still active today, with 90% of its users from Asia (90 million users). It was created for a SAFE way to meet people, by allowing users to communicate with friends of friends etc. “Hi5” is another major social media network, established in 2003 with over 60 million users currently. “LinkedIn” was founded in 2003 and was one of the first social media networks geared strictly towards business’. It allows its users to post resumes and interact with private messaging.



**And Now We Reach:**

**MySpace**- Was founded in 2003 and by 2006 became the most popular social media network in the world. It was different than other Social Media sites because it allowed users to customize their profiles completely, by adding audio, video, backgrounds, and themed pages. The form of communcation was though messaging, or posting public messagings to another users page. MySpace continued expanding by adding different apps you could embed in your profile and a place to post you “mood”.




 * Facebook-** Originally it was for Harvard only social media in 2004, but expanded to other schools and EVERYONE in 2006. Facebook was different than MySpace in not really allowing you to customize the page, but did allow posting status’ videos, and posting pictures. It expanded and is still changing today by adding chat feature and other applications. Facebook has many different methods of communication and allows users to stay connected constantly. Business’ are currently using Facebook in many ways to expand their business’. Facebook was the catalyst that sparked the Egyptian revolution that took the dictator Mubarak out of his 30-year reign. Facebook has made changes in peoples careers, personal life, international impacts, business success and the list continue.




 * Others forms of Social Media:**


 * Ning-** a place that was for creating niche social networks. On Ning users could create, or join other networks.
 * Photobucket-** this was the first photo-sharing network that launched in 2003. It allowed the users to create online albums and share with others. Users had the options of having private or public photobuckets.
 * Flickr-** similar to Photobucket, Flickr was a social media network that had groups, photo pools and allowed users to create profiles while adding friends. They had options to organize images together and even photos in their own customized alubms.
 * YouTube-** This was the first major video hosting and sharing site that was launched in 2005. Today YouTube is the most used video sharing site and has even made a huge pact internationally. (YouTube is Free)
 * Rever-** Slever took a different approach to video hosting and sharing, It created video sharing where Rever will split 50.50 of what it generates with the creator of the video.
 * Delicious-**This was a social media site founded in 2003 that allows its users to bookmark and found content, tag the content and share it with other users. So it basically allows people to share content other than photos, videos, pictures, etc. like the other social media sites.
 * Reddit-** Founded in 2005 and allows users to vote content up or down. Users can catogorize what they think was a popular iten, controversial, and vote.
 * Twitter-** Was founded in 2006 and became super popular in 2007. Twitter allows users to follow create a simple profile, only one picture and a brief statement about yourself. It is microblogging for users to post status’ called “tweets” or send messages through private messaging. Tweets are visible if your profile is open, or it is only visible to people who are following you. Twitter usernames stat with @ followed by the name of your choice. Trending topics on twitter are specified with a # also known as a “hastag” that allows users from all over the world to talk about topics unitarily. Twitter has become very popular among celebrities as well as news organizations and journalist for a fast way of releasing information as well as exchanging information with people around the world. Twitter has made some incredible impacts in the world.




 * Company Overview:**


 * DNA:**

The DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, was founded in January 2010 to work towards the elimination of sex slavery worldwide. Through this foundation Demi and Ashton are hoping to put an end to child sex slavery. In fact in their “About DNA” section on the foundation’s homepage it explains, “ Believing that freedom is a basic human right, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher founded The Demi and Ashton Foundation (DNA) to raise awareness about child sex slavery, change the cultural stereotypes that facilitate this horrific problem, and rehabilitate innocent victims.” Demi and Ashton use Facebook as their main outreach channel in their new campaign “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.” They have famous male celebrities post videos about how they are real men because they don’t use women. The great thing about the DNA Foundation and their use of Facebook is that the “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” videos are interactive and their Facebook fans can insert themselves into the videos alongside any of the male celebrities.



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 * Twitchange:**

TwitChange was founded in 2010 after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. TwitChange, is an online auction in which fans bid on the chance to be followed, mentioned or retweeted on Twitter by their favorite celebrities for charity. Each auction benefits different charities around the world. TwitChange’s first auction was on September 25, 2010 and raised over $500,000 to build a school for children with special needs in Haiti. TwitChange just recently finished their second auction in February of 2011, which went to a charity known as “Operation Once In A Lifetime,” which benefits soldiers and their families. Through Twitter people all around the world are able to bid on celebrities and possibly connect with one of their favorite celebrities if they win an auction, while also raising money for charities all over the world.



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 * TOMS:**

TOMS is a well known company founded in 2006 that sells shoes both in-store and online. Why shoes you might ask? Children in developing countries often do not have the money to buy shoes, which puts them at risk for contracting many diseases. In fact, within the first year of the foundation being started, founder Blake Mycoskie brought over 10,000 pairs of shoes to impoverished people of Argentina. TOMS mission is to enable people to make everyday choices that improve the lives of children. In TOMS “one for one” movement they promise that, “With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for one.” Through their viral videos, Facebook, twitter and blogs TOMS has successfully reached people all over the world and given over one million new shoes to children in need as of 2010. Through the videos found on their website and Youtube, the public is able to see impact on children in impoverished countries.



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 * Future Challenges:**

The way the popularity of social media has taken off is definitely reassuring for the future of these non-profit companies taking advantage of the social media to benefit their charity. The future of social media looks to be promising, with social media sites becoming more popular and more accessible.

The Mashable article “The Next Five Years in Social Media” calls YouTube the most important social media tool of the past decade. You Tube is a common application that is used by TwitChange, DNA, and Toms all share. I think that videos will continue to be important in the future of social media enforced charities because they have the ability to become viral. As shown in the videos in this discussion, these companies have made some very persuasive and informative videos to help their campaigns.

TwitChange, DNA and Toms all promote their charities through various events and campains. Toms does the “One Day Without Shoes” event globally, and TwitChange is based on a series of different campaigns supporting a different charity each time. If these organizations continue these events, they will only increase in popularity, especially if they keep using social media they way they have in the past.

Some challenges for these companies in the future could be if there is an overload of charities that are using social networks, users might not know where to turn their attention. If every non profit charity was on twitter, it would be hard to decided who to follow. TwitChange, DNA, and Toms are on the forefront of the non-profit organizations using social media movement, so right now they are all successful.




 * Conclusion:**

As proven by the broad scope of awareness that campaigns such as TwitChange, DNA and TOMS Shoes has brought to important world issues, social media plays and will continue to play a monumental role in how we, as global citizens, interact with and help each other. However, more than just awareness, and much more importantly, is not that social media campaigns will make the public familiar with these issues, but the social pressures from peers to take action on these matters that they create. Simply knowing that sex trafficking exists doesn’t do any good; but buying a “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” T-shirt does. Studies show that the driving force behind clicking the “purchase” button is not the altruistic fuzzy feeling of doing a good deed—it’s the feeling of doing a good deed with your friends. When you are the last in your circle of friends who hasn’t bought a pair of TOMS, that’s how awareness is translated into action. This is where the beauty of social media truly lies. The power of Twitter and Facebook is they create an avenue to reach millions of people, and though a crucial step, it is only the first one.


 * References:**

&. (n.d.). The History of Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]. //Social Media News and Web Tips â€“ Mashable â€“ The Social Media Guide//. Retrieved April 26, 2011, from [|http://mashable.com/2011/01/24/the-history-of-social-][|mediainfographic/]

Dead Sites - Web 1.0 Sites Before Their Time - Esquire. (n.d.). //Beautiful Women, Men's Fashion, Best Music, Drink Recipes - Esquire//. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from []

Demi and Ashton Foundation. (n.d.). //Demi and Ashton Foundation//. Retrieved April 24, 2011, from [|http://www.demiandashton.org]

// Demi and ashton dna foundation //. (2010, January 25). Retrieved from [] DNA Foundation to Stop Child Sex Slavery | causes.com. (n.d.). //causes.com | Anyone can change the world.//. Retrieved April 24, 2011, from []

Janisheck, J. (2010, January). // Demi and ashton // // foundation .// Retrieved from [] One For One Movement - A Pair Of New Shoes Is Given To A Child In Need With Every Pair Purchased - TOMS.com. (n.d.). //Official Store - TOMS Shoes - One for One - A Pair of New Shoes is Given to a Child in Need With Every Pair Purchased | TOMS.com//. Retrieved April 24, 2011, from []

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// TOMS //. (2006, January). Retrieved from []

// TOMS //. (2006, January). Retrieved from []

// TOMS //. (2006, January). Retrieved from [|http://twitter.com/#!/TOMSshoes]

TwitChange 3.0: Educating Girls In Poverty Worldwide with CARE and Eva Longoria. (n.d.). //TwitChange 3.0: Educating Girls In Poverty Worldwide with CARE and Eva Longoria//. Retrieved April 24, 2011, from []

// Twitchange //. (2010, January). Retrieved from [|http://twitter.com/#!/TwitChange]

TwitterButtons.com. (n.d.). Single Volunteers of DC. //Welcome to Single Volunteers of DC Website//. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from http://www.svdc.org/SocialNetworks.php

Why Facebook Is Still A Startup - TNW Social Media. (n.d.). //The Next Web | The Next Web - TNW is the International Source for Internet News, Business and Culture.//. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from http://thenextweb.com


 * Wiki Video:**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx_mBANc0nI

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