Students tap online network to spread word on social causes
 Alexandria Giacalone (left) and Rebekah Glickman-Simon, both Sudbury 16-year-olds, are using Facebook to raise money for victims of war in Darfur. (Lisa Poole for The Boston Globe) |
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School juniors Rebekah Glickman-Simon and Alexandria Giacalone recently discovered they have something in common with software creators and advertising professionals - a growing recognition of the marketing power of social networking websites.
"I don't know a teenager who doesn't have a Facebook account and who doesn't check it daily," Giacalone said. "It's the fastest way to reach the most people."
While organizing a benefit dance this fall for the victims of the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, the two 16-year-old Sudbury residents discovered that Facebook is a far more effective marketing tool for charitable events than the traditional fliers and word-of-mouth. And their experience is confirmed by other local youths with social causes.
It was Andrew Leavitt, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst freshman, who created the precedent followed by Giacalone and Glickman-Simon. Through Facebook-promoted events, he was able to reach several hundred more students than he would have through conventional methods. And at Brandeis University in Waltham, students have been using Facebook to organize and sustain protests over the student-activity fees they are being charged by the university.
Glickman-Simon and Giacalone attended a dance organized by Leavitt in April, and quickly saw the potential to raise money for a cause close to their hearts.
Both girls had family members who perished in the Holocaust, so when they learned that hundreds of thousands of civilians have died since 2002 in the conflict in Darfur, they became determined to help. Glickman-Simon and Giacalone, who had attended a rally in New York City called to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis, in August began planning a fund-raiser to benefit the Genocide Intervention Network of Washington, D.C.
Like Leavitt, Glickman-Simon and Giacalone saw a marketing model in Facebook - they didn't pay for advertising, but promoted their event primarily through the website.
"It's how we got the word out," Glickman-Simon said. "We told our friends from other towns, and then they invited their friends through Facebook."
Many high school and college students spend hours on the networking website, facebook.com, checking out who's in relationships and who's not, sending faux cocktails and gifts to each other, and playing games like Scrabulous. The website also provides its 58 million active users with the ability to promote events, parties, and causes to people far beyond the community of any one school.
It not only provides broader audience reach, Glickman-Simon, Giacalone, Leavitt, and others say, but also has features that make organizing, promoting, and hosting events easier. Facebook event "invites" allow promoters to provide details about an event as well as deliver special instructions. For example, Leavitt's invites say no alcohol allowed and provide a map with directions. Facebook also sends out reminders about the event, lets attendees provide feedback after an event is over, and gives organizers an updated guest list at their fingertips.
"It's the easiest way, really, to ask people if they're coming and get responses quickly," Glickman-Simon said. Giacalone said they posted pictures of suffering Sudanese children on the invite to get people to "think about the cause more."
Leavitt, a Concord native, sent out an invite two weeks ago for a Jan. 12 event to raise money for an annual scholarship offered to a Concord-Carlisle Regional High School student in memory of his mother, who died of breast cancer in 2004. As of Wednesday afternoon, 490 people confirmed that they would be attending, 403 people were maybes, 347 people said they couldn't make it, and another 212 had not replied yet. Two years ago, Leavitt couldn't have even dreamed of such numbers.
A fund-raising veteran of sorts, Leavitt began organizing charitable events when he was 10, passing out fliers at lunch. Now he forwards an invite to his growing friends list on Facebook, which his friends promptly forward to their friends, and so on.
His last two events, promoted primarily through Facebook, had a higher turnout than the previous six events combined. At an April event, he raised about $3,000 for the scholarship. He says at least 90 percent of the guests attended because of Facebook.
"Everyone is on Facebook 24-7," Leavitt, 18, said of his peers. "It's given us the power to bring people together."
More than 850 people from area communities, such as Framingham, Maynard, Wayland, Concord, Carlisle, Acton, and Boxborough, attended Giacalone and Glickman-Simon's Nov. 17 dance at the Concord Armory, helping raise about $12,500. Another 300 guests were turned away because the hall was at capacity.
Leavitt hopes to have the same problem at his Jan. 12 scholarship dance in the Concord-Carlisle school cafeteria, where capacity is 650 people. The dance begins at 7 p.m. and costs $10 per ticket.
Rachana Rathi can be reached at RRathi@globe.com.
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