Going Viral

I don't think I fully realized the capacity social media contained in carrying weighted messages, until one recent occurence. Kony 2012.

This video was uploaded to Invisible Children's website on March 5 and went public March 7. It is a video made to raise support to arrest Joseph Kony, one of the world's worst war criminals. According to one source, there had already been 30 million views the very next day. I originally had no idea what it was or had no knowledge of who Joseph Kony was until one of my friends posted the link on my Facebook wall. This is where I think publicity blew up in regards to this.

By the end of that day, my entire news feed was filled with comments and links to watch this video that had suddenly become a phenomenon. College students were now sharing information with each other about a serious international issue and becoming passionate about it. When college students start caring about something, you know it has to be good. Curiosity is now sparked and information must be obtained on whatever the subject matter is, because being uneducated on the timely matters of Facebook can be like social suicide in the college arena.

Facebook is a world of it's own, and when information enters that world it is for one of two reasons. Either everyone is beginning to make fun of it or they have become really passionate about it and want to share it with their friends so they can join in too.

In this case, the publicity for this video generated a fairly positive response amongst college-aged students who may now have discovered a passion for this type of work that they might not have found out about if the webs of YouTube and Facebook were not so interconnected.

In my opinion this video conveyed such a strong message and was effective in how it recieved so much unpaid promotion from curious college students who know they have to ability to initiate change.

Here is the link so that you can decide the impact for yourself.
http://www.kony2012.com/