Others First: A Social Media Experiment for All of Us

Let’s try something. And I’ll say this up front: I’m not doing this to be selfish and to reap the benefits.

But let’s see if we can spread the word about a great cause and help someone meet some very real needs.

Sure, this might have the ultimate effect of driving up my readership for a bit, but that’s not my purpose. Please realize that my main goal here is to help an organization that has an immediate need.

Water Street Health Services is a division of Water Street Ministries here in Lancaster. For over 90 years they have been providing great care and services to the poor and homeless in the region. The organization provides free health care to many of the uninsured people in our area. But right now their finances are low, and here is the need as pulled from their own website:

A Need at Water Street Health Services

In this “unhealthy” economy, we are seeing an increase in the number of patient visits and a decrease in giving. This is causing a shortfall of $57,000. About 1,000 patient visits would be at risk if the shortfall is not met by June 1st. You can help change lives with a gift of $57 — the cost of one patient visit. A gift of any amount will really help!

And therein lies our Others First experiment. Let’s see if we can get the word out, via Social Media, and help them raise these funds, which they need by June 1st.

Here’s what we can do:

Give – If you can, contribute something. Anything. $57 to help one person is great, but if you want to give more or less, do so. Every bit helps. And even though Water Street is local to my area, you can give no matter where you are located. Or, if you prefer, find something similar in your area that you can get behind and make a contribution to any local organization you can find.

Spread the word – This is the key part of this experiment. People can only give if they know about the need, so we need to raise awareness. There are multiple ways of doing this. At the bottom of this blog post you’ll see icons for Facebook and Twitter and other social sharing services. Click on one or more of those and share this post. The more places you share, the more people will have a chance of reading about this need. You can also use the Facebook “like” button at the top, or the Facebook “Share” and Twitter “Retweet” buttons at the top.

If you don’t want to share this blog, at least link to the actual giving page on the Water Street website and share that on both Twitter and Facebook. Maybe you can even write a blog post about it as well! Be creative and find ways to spread the word. Let’s show everyone how effective word-of-mouth, and Social Media, can truly be.

And let’s continue to put Others First.

Tagged as: Marketing, others first, Social Media