Yellow for Greg: A Community Connected through Social Media

When a group of teenagers or young adults are asked why they use sites like Facebook and Twitter, most will say they use it to stay connected with friends and family.  I certainly agree; it’s one of the many reasons I use social media.  Although that thought has always been there, I’ve never really seen social media connect people directly until it happened in my community among high school students.

I was on Facebook one day in early April, and I noticed my aunt had liked a photo.  It was a picture of boys sitting in a church, and they were all dressed in yellow.  The caption described that they were wearing yellow for Greg.  I didn’t give much thought to it, and moved on.  I went on Twitter next, and my sister had tweeted #YellowforGreg several times, and all of the sudden my whole Twitter feed had the hashtag #YellowforGreg.  I texted my sister to ask about it, and after she explained to to me, she said “Like it on Facebook and follow it on Twitter. Or else.”

Greg Von Rueden is a 15-year-old boy who has an aggressive form of bone cancer.  In March, he received news that he had beaten the cancer, but two weeks later, he found out the cancer had returned. The doctors found a mass in his knee, and were unable to perform surgery to remove it.  The cancer has now spread to other parts of his body.  

Greg happens to go to school at Marquette University High School, the all-boys Jesuit high school in Milwaukee, where many of my cousins have gone.  That’s why my aunt had liked the picture.  The day the picture was taken, the students were told to wear yellow in support of Greg.

Greg was a volleyball player and volleyball players from Milwaukee wore all yellow to a tournament in early April.  They started to post and tweets pictures of them wearing yellow on Facebook and Twitter, and it caught the eye of the Milwaukee local news station, TMJ4, who later formed a news clip about the tournament and what all the yellow was about.

The day after, Yellow for Greg had both a Twitter and Facebook account.  The Facebook page has 1,402 likes and the Twitter account has 1,432 followers already.

The Yellow for Greg Facebook page has links to videos others have made him, news clips, and links to places where others can learn more about him and his fight against bone cancer.  It also frequently advertises the Yellow Run 4 Greg, a 5K walk/run on May 5.  As of Friday, April 19, 312 people were signed up to participate.

The Twitter account started off in early April tweeting “#YellowforGreg #NoOneFightsAlone” in the effort to trend in Milwaukee and eventually nationally.  The account retweets many tweets of others who use the hashtag.  There have been tweets to Aaron Rodgers, The Ellen Show, and the Milwaukee Brewers to get them to show their support.  The MACC Fund, USA Volleyball, and JJ Watt, a former UW-Madison football player who now plays for the Houston Texans have tweeted and shown their support for Greg.  Lately, the Twitter account has promoted the run coming up in May.

Although last week was a rough week for the country in general, seeing the young people in my home community connect through social media in encouragement for a boy who has been through more than most of us will ever experience has given me great hope for and faith in our future.

 

 

Cats, Dogs and Social Media

I found out Wednesday of this past week that you’re really never too old for a field trip.  Especially when that field trip includes incredibly cute dogs waiting to be adopted.

My social media class took a field trip to the Nebraska Humane Society to learn about their social media sites and what their strategies are on these social media sites.   (We also got to look at the dogs for a few minutes as well!)

Our speaker focused mostly on their Facebook page. She first started working at the Humane Society when they had no social media presence at all, so part of her job was to start the Facebook presence of the Humane Society.  She started simple;  each day she would post either a picture of a dog or a picture of a cat and explain their stories below the pictures.  She said it was frustrating because it wasn’t really working; not a lot of people responded to this method.  She explained to us that most of the strategies she uses or wants to use on social media sites are at first trial and error methods.  There is no way whether to tell if a strategy will work; you have to test it out and decide if it was worthwhile based on the analytics you receive back.  I think with any organization and any social media plan, a lot of the techniques are going to be trial and error techniques.

After she noticed that after her initial technique wasn’t working, she literally asked people what they wanted to see from her on Facebook.  This eliminates a ton of guesswork and it may limit a huge failure in the making.  I thought it was interesting that she just posted and asked the people directly what they wanted to see; I wouldn’t have thought about doing that, and I think it’s a great idea for growing any organization’s social media presence.

Her most recent campaign on Facebook was an awareness of placing a chip inside your animal.  The Humane Society chipped animals for only $10.  The chip identifies the owner of the animal in case the animal is lost.  The campaign was a huge success; they chipped over 400 animals in one night.  They advertised their campaign using a graphic with the slogan “Hip to Chip.”  Our speaker told us that visuals are everything; people don’t want to just read words, they want to see pictures.  She also noted the importance of responding to every comment that they receive.  For example, I noticed that a person commented that she was unsure if she wanted to chip her animal.  The Humane Society responded and told her that just a few weeks ago an animal that was lost for over 6 years was reunited with its owner thanks to its chip.

Another technique that is used on Facebook is telling people to like or share a post.  People will be more likely to like or share if you ask or tell them to.  They most likely won’t take the initiative to do it themselves.  

One of my favorite parts of the field trip was meeting Baxter (his picture is on the right).  He’s absolutely adorable, but he does have a sad story of abuse and neglect in his past.  The Humane Society did find him an owner; actually, an employee of the Humane Society is his owner now.  Stories like Baxter’s are often used when the Humane Society is trying to raise money so they can provide services to animals.  Our speaker mentioned that raising money is the hardest thing to do on social media, and often times, you won’t get responses,  you’ll lose likes, or you’ll get angry comments.

It was really great to get out of the classroom and learn about social media through a real life example.  I enjoyed seeing all the cute dogs, and it was certainly a fun and educational field trip!

The Supreme Court, Same-Sex Marriage and Social Media

I don’t know about you, but I saw a lot of pink equal signs last week.  

I was on Facebook on Wednesday of last week, glanced over to the “Chat” bar that is on the right hand side of my screen, and noticed that every person’s profile picture (excluding two or three people) was changed to the pink equal sign.  I had no idea what it was until I scrolled through my news feed to figure out that it was in support of same-sex marriage.  The Supreme Court was hearing cases for and against it two days last week.  Shows you how much I know about current events.

According to an article published last week on TIME.com, the Human Rights Campaign promoted the image of the pink equal sign over the red background on social media during the Supreme Court hearings that matches their logo of a yellow equal sign on a blue background.  In 24 hours, the logo got 25,000 likes and 78,000 shares on Facebook.  They knew exactly how to reach their audience.

We love to talk about and share things and events from our lives on social media sites.  In fact, it’s only natural for us to do so.  When hotly debated topics become popular topics of discussion, it seems as if those who feel strongly one way just love to share their opinions.  I know I experienced it throughout election season, and I see it here now. It makes me think about the need that some people feel to share opinions, and to do so publicly.  I’m not necessarily against putting opinions on social media, but when people share excessively, can annoy a lot of their followers/friends. No matter which “side” you’re on concerning same-sex marriage, I would think it was a little overwhelming to see all the equal signs.

I also got to thinking, “how is changing your profile picture beneficial in this case?”  Sure, now everyone knows you support same-sex marriage, but ultimately changing the law is not your decision.  It’s the Supreme Court’s decision.  They are not going to all of the sudden change their opinions on the issue and they are certainly not going to tally up who is for it/who is against it based on social media.  What difference does it make in the end? 

In the sea of all of the pink equal signs, I found that one of my friends had the same red background as her profile picture but instead of the pink equal sign, it had a pink male and a pink female figure (like the ones you see on public bathroom signs) holding hands.  It states “One Man.  One Woman.”  I noticed it had a number of comments, and I clicked on it.  The first comment was “Are you serious?” and she replied “I wouldn’t put it as my profile picture if I wasn’t serious.”  She then goes on to say that she was just stating her opinion, like every other person who changed their profile picture to the pink equal sign logo.  Then others started to try to convince her to support same-sex marriage with their opinions.  I give her major props.  It takes guts to publicize that you disagree with a large number of people.

I’m looking at my chat list now, and there aren’t any red equal signs or male/female figures.  I hadn’t seen that much information or reaction to a Supreme Court hearing in a long time.  To add to that, was only two days of Supreme Court time.  They don’t even make their decision until June! I bet you we’ll see round two once the times draws nearer for the Court to makes its decision.