| Posted by: Zooped, December 27th, 2007 |
By Rachana Rathi Globe Staff / December 27, 2007
University of Massachusetts at Amherst freshman Andrew Leavitt has something in common with software creators and advertising professionals - a growing recognition of the marketing power of social networking websites such as Facebook.
“Everyone is on Facebook 24-seven,” Leavitt, 18, of Concord said of his peers. “It is the easiest way to get the word out there.”
A fund-raising veteran of sorts, Leavitt discovered last year that Facebook is a far more effective marketing tool for his charitable events than fliers and word of mouth. And his experience is quickly being affirmed by other local youth with social causes.
Lincoln-Sudbury High School juniors Rebekah Glickman-Simon and Alexandria Giacalone of Sudbury saw Leavitt’s success and used Facebook to help put out the word about their dance at the Concord Armory last month to raise money for victims of the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. 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.
The website, facebook.com, is where many high school and college students spend hours checking out who’s in a relationship and who’s not, sending faux cocktails and gifts to each other, and playing games like Scrabulous. With some 58 million active users, it can also be a powerful tool for them to promote events, parties, and causes to people far beyond the community of any one school.
The website 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, 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, 16, said. Giacalone said they posted pictures of suffering Sudanese children on the invite to get people to “think about the cause more.”
Leavitt sent out an invite earlier this month 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 last Wednesday afternoon, 490 people had confirmed that they were attending, 403 people were maybes, 347 people said they could not make it, and 212 had not replied. Two years ago, Leavitt could not have even dreamt of those numbers.
Leavitt, who began organizing charitable events when he was 10, used to spread the word by 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. In April, he raised about $3,000 for the scholarship through an event in which he says at least 90 percent of the guests attended because of Facebook.
“Facebook really allowed young people to be able to reach other towns,” Leavitt said. “It’s given us the power to bring people together.”
Glickman-Simon and Giacalone attended Leavitt’s dance in April and quickly saw the potential to raise money for a cause close to their hearts.
Both girls had family members perish 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 attended a rally in New York City to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis last September, and in August began planning a fund-raiser to benefit the Genocide Intervention Network of Washington, D.C.
Glickman-Simon and Giacalone saw the potential in Leavitt’s marketing model - they didn’t pay for advertising and spread the word primarily through Facebook.
More than 850 people from communities including Concord, Carlisle, Acton, Boxborough, Framingham, Maynard, and Wayland attended the Nov. 17 dance at the Concord Armory, helping the teenagers raise about $12,500. Three-hundred more were turned away because the hall was at capacity.
Leavitt said he hopes to have the same problem next month at his Jan. 12 scholarship dance in the Concord-Carlisle Regional High School cafeteria, where capacity is 650 people. The dance begins at 7 p.m., and tickets are $10.
Rachana Rathi can be reached at rrathi@globe.com
Tags: Andrew Leavitt, facebook, social networking, Students tap Facebook to spread the word, University of Massachusetts
