*Joseph Kimojino, blogger, Kenyan native, and member of the Masai tribe, uses various social media to draw attention to a serious cause.
Taken from Wired.com
“Kenya’s wildlife is seriously threatened by poaching, except in parks like the Mara Triangle, which employs rangers to protect animals. The rangers’ salaries are paid from park fees, but tourism has dropped 90 percent. To keep the conservancy running, the park’s online outreach needs to raise $50,000 a month until the tourists return…”
Widespread violence following Kenya’s latest election has led to this serious decline which the Mara Triangle Wildlife Park relies on to function. In an effort to keep the operation running and protect the lives of thousands of wild animals, the conservatory has launched an online outreach effort, utilizing social media tools such as Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and its own blog to raise awareness.
So far, the online outreach has been successful, raising over $40,000 in donations from the blog, $2,000 from his Facebook page, and additional help from the sale of ad space on the blog to safari companies. The rest comes from individual donations from people all over the world.
You can check out Kimojino’s blog about wild animals and his life as veteran ranger at the Mara Triangle Wildlife Park where you can also make one-time or monthly donations. He also posts photos of wild animals to his Flickr page, uploads interesting videos to Vimeo, and tweets up a storm in an effort to raise money for the park.
WAYS YOU CAN USE SOCIAL RESOURCES TO HELP SPREAD AWARENESS FOR YOUR CAUSE:
- Make a Facebook group
- Get volunteers to Twitter on the job
- Use LinkedIn or other professional networks to help find sponsors
- Create a MySpace profile and make friends with others interested in your cause
- Comment on other relevant blog or article posts
- Write about your cause and send it to bloggers who focus on your topic
- Make a video about your cause and upload it to YouTube
