Social Media for Good

Exploring the use of digital communications tools for NGOs, non-profit organizations and to support humanitarian relief

Earlier this week, the UN’s refugee agency counted 1,000,000 Syrian refugees. The problem with big numbers is that they get lost in the noise and in the news; the key is to personalize these numbers. Here is what UNHCR has done.

The recent uproar over Instagram’s planned changes to the Terms of Service has reminded me once more why I like Flickr so much. Despite all it’s woes I think it is still the best photo sharing platform for non-profits. In addition, the new mobile app makes it easier to (re)discover Flickr from your smart phone.

One of the most promising uses of social media in disasters is for remote assessments of situations on the ground. “Geofeedia” just made this job easier.

While I was on leave, many interesting posts and articles piled up in my inbox and on my social media profiles. Here are the ones I found most interesting.

Many non-profits, NGOs and International Organizations are of two minds when it comes to sharing photos on the internet. On the one hand, they want their material to be shared as widely as possible, on the other hand they want to have total control. The decision matrix in this blog post will help you decide which photos to share and how.

To say that the last days were“intense” would be an understatement. From the minute the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement pulled out all stops to help the people on the ground.

Communications is only a small part of that response and social media an even smaller part. Nevertheless – here are my observations:

The Red Cross Red Crescent created a Flickr slideshow with photos from Haiti after the earthquake. This will be updated continuously. If you want to add it to your own blog, you can use this code: <iframe align=”center” src=”http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?set_id=72157623207618658″ width=”500″ height=”500″ frameBorder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe><br /><center><small>Created with <a href=”http://www.flickrslideshow.com”>flickr slideshow</a>.</small></center> If you want to change the size, please change the numbers marked in red. Created with flickr slideshow.

I have been using Flickr for about two years to increase visibility of the work of Red Cross Red Crescent. Today, I’d like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.