First, Ashton Kutcher beat CNN for 1,000,000 Twitter followers. Then, Oprah joined Twitter. Celebrities are recognizing the span and impact of social media. They are finding they can use social media to not only promote their latest projects, but to more importantly do some good.
Image courtesy of Mashable
This week at Mashable’s Media Summit, Edward Norton introduced CrowdRise, “a social good Web site that gives individuals and organizations the tools to organize grassroots activism campaigns and raise funds for their causes.” [i] The site leverages its celebrity profiles (Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, to name a few) to raise awareness of the causes on the site.
Mashable notes, “Crowdrise distinguishes itself from other social good Web sites like Change.org by employing irony and irreverent humor (not a surprise, given some of the celebs involved) but it also has points and prizes to give people an incentive to participate and give.”
By mixing the power of celebrity with incentives to participate, Crowdrise has a great formula to raise awareness of nonprofits and causes on the social Web. At the Media Summit, Norton said, “that social networking sites are about ‘personal narrative’ in the sense that individuals want to create a narrative that represents their lives and values on the Web. Crowdrise helps them do that with their passions for specific causes, then share the results.”
It is really wonderful to see celebrities, such as Edward Norton, jump on the social bandwagon and harness its breadth and depth. We are sure that even more celebrities will be stepping out and using their influence combined with the power of the social Web to help make a difference in this world.
[i] Axon, S. (June 2008) Crowdrise: Edward Norton Presents DIY Fundraising Site from www.mashable.com
