I enjoyed watching Alexis Ohanian’s speech “How to Make a Splash With Social Media.” Alexis is the
owner of Reddit.com, which is a website where people upload videos then have
their peers vote on them to basically control which ones pop up on the home or
front screen of the website.
In Ohanian’s speech he gives an example of how Greenpeace,
an environmental organization, wanted to stop Japanese government and their
whaling campaign. They came up with a
campaign of their own to get supporters and that was to adopt a whale and name
him. They have two meaningful names and
one silly name, Mister Splashy Pants.
Greenpeace was surprised when Mister Splashy Pants was the name that
one. They took it back saying it was a
joke because they wanted to use one of the other meaningful names. The voters were not happy about this and had
sort of a little protest by making up Facebook pages and applications for
Mister Splashy Pants as well as having real life signs put up around
neighborhoods and offices.
To make a long story short, using social media helped the
cause because Mister Splashy Pants became the final name of the adopted whale! Greenpeace also benefited by making another campaign,
“Save Mister Splashy Pants” by selling clothing, buttons and even e-cards. It worked because the Japanese government
ended up calling off their mission!
This story shows how social media can impact a small cause
and turn it into a national campaign. I
mean, who wouldn’t want to have a whale named Mister Splashy Pants? This speech was also important to me because
ever since I said I want to start my own business, people tell me I need to act
less silly so people will take me more serious.
I always know I’d find a way around that and this campaign, which is for
a serious cause, let their guard down and decided to have fun with it while
accomplishing what they set out to do. I’m
also going to keep in mind a few things Ohanian said in his speech, “Lose control. It’s ok to take yourself less seriously.”
No comments:
Post a Comment