Blog Action Day 2008: Social media wages war on poverty

October 15th, 2008 | Published in social media, society | 1 Comment

Today is Blog Action Day 2008, a day when hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of bloggers will be asked to raise awareness for this year’s issue: poverty. Poverty is an epidemic in many parts of the world; in fact, half the world’s population (more than 3 billion people) lives on a meager $2.50 per day - or less. Spreading awareness is step one in solving this crisis, and bloggers are using their blogs and social networks to reach more people, more quickly.

The Blog Action Day front page counts 9,690 participating sites which will reach a combined (estimated) audience of 10,741,407 people. Digg is also being used to promote the cause along with Reddit, and a 12-hour broadcast on poverty will take place on BlogTalkRadio, as well. On top of all that, a Twitter account is being used to provide news and updates.

If this isn’t an inspiring use of social media, I don’t know what is.