Smaller Organizations Use Social Media To Be Heard
Friday, January 29, 2010
City Year is located in Boston and is dedicated to helping solve the problem of failing schools. It was founded by two Harvard students who believed that people could change the world and were inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. City Year has been around for about 20 years. Every year, City Year hires young leaders called corps members to serve full time as tutors, mentors, and role models to make a difference in the lives of children and transform schools and neighborhoods. These corps members are from 17 to 24 years-old. There are more than 1,550 corps members in full time service across America helping students’ attendance, behavior, and coursework. Though City Year is based in Boston, they have been working on improving schools in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, San Antonio, Columbia, Cleveland, and Sacramento. City Year has also gone global by working in London and South Africa.
One way City Year has increased recruiting is by using social media, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. City Year has their own account on Twitter, channel on YouTube, and page on Facebook. Though they only have 3,188 followers on Twitter and 5,967 fans on Facebook, the number is growing and it has spread awareness and information about City Year greatly.
It just goes to show that small organizations, such as City Year, can become successful and well known through social networking. Social networking is changing media, and it is important to keep the smaller organizations running.
7 comments:
I liked this article because I could relate to it a lot after just being involved in an interview with Meridith Hollingsworth who works for City Year. You had good information, and I didn't realize how much City Year was growing on sites such as Twitter on Facebook. They are a great organization and I hope that with the help of social media, more and more people will learn about City Year.
After reading your blog, I was surprised to see that City Year only has almost 6,000 fans. For a company that has been around for so long and it nation-wide, I would've expected a lot more. However, I am surprised to see that City Year has around 3,000 followers on Twitter. Twitter is a fairly new social network and I didn't realize it was becoming that popular so quickly.
Also, I just became a fan of City Year on Facebook and was very surprised to see they were already up to 6,065 fans!
This article shows how even nonprofit organizations are able to take advantage of medias such as Facebook and Twitter. It's obvious this part of City Year is growing rapidly and its media distribution sector is doing very well. City Year is setting an example for other non-profits that Facebook can help spread the word about their cause.
As an organization that is made up of mostly 17-24 year olds, its very smart for City Year to use social media as much (and as well) as they do. As a current corps member, it is great to see CY growing as much as they are.
As the social media manager for City Year Seattle/King County - I wanted to add that each city is building up their own Twitter following to connect with local/regional non-profits, partners, schools and the communities we serve in! Check out http://twitter.com/CityYear/city-year-locations for a feed of these twitter accounts.
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