Happy Social Good Day

Today is Social Good Day, a day that coincides with world leaders meeting in the UN to discuss the progress being made towards the Millennium Development Goals.  Social Good Day has been organised by the social media news provider, Mashable, and the charity designed to eliminate Aids in Africa (RED), in order to understand how the social web can help in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

As Chrysi Philalithes points out in the Huffington post, the social media world has changed so much since the goals were set…

When the goals were set, the words ‘social media’ did not live side by side. In 2000, Mark Zuckerburg was just 16 and it would take Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams another six years to launch Twitter.

I have been thinking about this all day. social media alone is not the answer to the world’s problems. But if used as part of a concerted effort with on and off-line planning, crowd-sourcing and communication, social media has the power to change everything.  Whether that be presidential elections, or international threats to struggling nations social media has shown it can make all of the difference between success and failure.

An example of the power of social media is shown in Social Good Day itself: there have been 1,500 meet ups, involving 15,000 people taking place over 122 countries! This is clear proof that with a little coordination people from all over the world can come together to discuss, engage and interact to make the world be a better place. 

Social media has made that happen and for that alone it should be celebrated.

Happy Social Good day! but what are you going to do…?