The Salvation Army: Social Media case study

Now this is an interesting look at a case of business use of social media and in particular Web 2.0 tools such as micro-blogging tool, Twitter in order to raise awareness of a specific cause.

The Salvation Army, known for its door knocks and Red Kettles (red donation buckets and collections) during the holiday period and typically targeting the older generation for donations, recently launched an Online Red Kettle campaign and a Red Kettle Twitter channel as a new means to encourage donations.

This online program is allowing the Salvation Army to reach out to a younger generation and engage and recruit younger donors and potential volunteers for the cause. Twitter is proving to be a great news distribution channel allowing the company to send out viral updates and promote the Red Kettle online program. Through this program, donors are even able to donate virtually and encourage friends and family to donate online to the kettle they have set up.

The Salvation Army Twitter Channel already has 557 people actively following its updates as well as being broadcast publicly across the micro-blogging site. The Online Red Kettles campaign has a national goal to raise $1,000,000 and last time I checked it was at $926,634.05.

You can check out more information on the Red Kettle campaign here.