It’s time to focus on the good that Social Media can do. After all, it is a platform of unrestricted communication that can rally the weak and instantly spread a message of importance.

Social media is not just for dancing cat videos anymore…

Here are two incredible examples of Positive Social Media making a difference in the world. Both utilize creativity, design and collaborative involvement to empower a movement for positive change. One uses love to fight a war and one uses an animated poem to fight bullying.

Anti-bully Poem goes viral
“To this day” the animated poem by Shane Koyczan 

This is an amazing example of collaborative creative energy put towards a great cause. Canadian spoken word artist, Shane Koyczan, who gained worldwide exposure with his stunning “We are More” performance at the opening of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, has once again made international news.

His poem “To this day” has taken on a life of its own to push the anti-bullying message global. Along with Toronto media shop Blue Ant and a collaborative volunteer effort from a team of 86 animators, who each donated a 20 second segment of animation, they created the YouTube video of “To this day”.

The result of this video has been a rocket in media and public awareness… with over 6 million views in three weeks all bringing attention to the important anti-bullying movement.

This is a powerful tool for positive change that should be a mandatory part of the educational system everywhere.

To find out more about the “To this day project” please visit: tothisdayproject.com


 

The Peace Factory
“Peace must be Viral”
  from www.israelovesiran.com

Like all movements, the Peace Factory began as a small project to spead a message. On March 14, 2012 Ronny Edry and his wife Michal Tamir, graphic designers and teachers living in Tel Aviv, uploaded a poster to their Facebook page.

The poster was a photo of Ronny with his daughter holding the Israeli flag. The written message: “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We love you.”

Within hours Israelis posted their own pictures with the same message.

After 24 hours, messages from Iran started pouring in. Moved to tears, people wrote back: “We love you too.”

After one week they had 7,000 likes and Ronny set up the Israel Loves Iran page which is now at over 100,000 fans and multiple sister pages.

Within weeks thousands of fans and posters from around the world were posted and this movement has developed into “the Peace Factory” with a vision of  “The time has come for the people of the Middle East to raise their voices and declare: WE WANT PEACE”.

Do yourself a favour and give Ronny’s Ted talk a view.  And a special thank you to our friend Derra for bringing this movement to our attention.

These two great examples demonstrate how the power of Positive Social Media can influence the world.

 


Cheers
grant

Grant Ivens, RGD
brand surgeon | rocket scientist
Say What! Communications Corp.
“love your brand”

116A Main St North, Markham, ON, Canada L3P 1X8
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