Have you ever volunteered? Do you believe that if you volunteer you can change the world? Or do you think that money can change the world? I am a firm believer in the phrase that BonaResponds, a volunteer organization at St. Bonaventure university,  (@BonaResponds) uses: “Volunteer and Change the World.” I have the bumper sticker on my Jeep and plastered on my MacBook Pro. I volunteer because I feel while I have two strong hands and body willing to do work, I might as well use it for social good and change.

Marketers for some major companies feel that making donations, or creating a cause product does more good than volunteering. This is called Cause Marketing. Cause Marketing is defined as: a type of marketing that involves a corporation that is for-profit, that works with a non-profit organization to raise money and awareness for a specific cause.  It is reported that last year cause marketing raised over one billion dollars for various charities.

It has been found that Millennials are very much interested in making a difference. However, they must be interactive, so, if a company wants to take part in a cause marketing campaign, they must be sure to have it interactive. Millennials want to make a difference, but they also want to see the change, so for many cases, companies should organize days of volunteering rather than giving millions of dollars. We must see the change. So in my opinion, more people should volunteer rather than throw money at causes.

At St. Bonaventure University the class of 2014 brought back an old t-shirt fundraiser for St. Patrick’s day. The class officers created a green shirt that said “Kiss me, I’m a Bonnie” and put St. Bonaventure on the front with a clover. My role as vice president of Student Government, and taking a class in social media, I thought I would tweet to St. Bonaventure about the shirts. My goal was to get students aware of the shirts, in return I got 25 tweets from alumni ask if we could send shirts to them. 

I replied to the alumni and charged the shipping and handling. We had one order of 15 shirts! We would have had so many extra shirts if St. Bonaventure didn’t retweet me and have tons of alumni respond. 

Through Twitter and a tweet pic I connected with alumni from Florida to Colorado to Buffalo! 

Plus, SGA received positive feedback from all the alumni because we responded in a professionally, fast and came through and sent the shirts to them by St. Patrick’s day. 

Twitter connected the close-knit Bona family through Twitter and helped a fundraiser become an even bigger success that we had ever planned! 

Are you part of the eight million plus users of Pinterest? 

What do you use it for? Do you understand what it is?

Personally, I use it to pretend I am going to be crafty and actually do them. It is like my fake world where I think I am going to decorate, make my own art, sew my own headbands, bake cookies, take photographs, travel and switch my preppy style to trendy. Have I done any of these things? Nope, just pretend. 

However, I live with three teachers and they use it almost daily. The get crafty, educational ideas and use them in the classroom, which is great! 

From a social media stand point Pinterest has millions of unique users and brands are posting their advertisements, photos and ideas for their users. For an example, under the Fitness tab, the Nike brand has multiple pictures. The brand is getting their message out for free. People will post motivational pictures of women, or men working out with Nike slogans. 

Pinterest users can pin their favorite pictures, and the users can also post them in Facebook or Twitter, which increases the viewing.

Although I am currently not completely “sold” on Pinterest, I can understand the value of it and how people can really learn a lot from it. Is it for me? Maybe not, but what I have found out from it is that I wish I enjoyed doing crafts. 

• Twitter users can use social media to figure out parking
• The responses will be as up to date because of hashtags (#)
• The command center can respond to the questions of any kind

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is exactly what it sounds like, getting a crowd, or large group of people to get information about a product, brand or company. It is a great way for companies to engage with their consumers. 

Social media allows companies to crowdsource easily. Companies can utilize their social media presence through crowdsourcing. For an example, Ben & Jerry’s used social media and crowdsourcing to ask their consumers to: “Do Us All A Flavor.” This campaign gave consumers to create a new flavor ice cream and name it. Ben & Jerry’s had over 10,000 suggestions for new flavors. While the company was engaging their consumers they were also marketing their brand. 

When companies take advantage and communicate with their consumers in a fun and positive manner the brand and company has an opportunity to grow and create a larger impact on the consumer and in return, the consumer can have an impact on their favorite company. 

Ben & Jerry’s is not the only company that has taken advantage of crowdsourcing. Coca Cola’s Vitamin Water created a “Flavor Creator.” Coca Cola used Facebook to create a page to have Vitamin Water fans create a new flavor. The company spokesperson said, the company already has very loyal fans, so by creating a Facebook page allowed fans to get closer to the brand. 

The point is, companies need to start taking advantage of their social space, their fans, consumers and start using crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing can help improve a company and allow them to grow. The feedback might even help them create a new event or product. 

Here are a couple articles that I am suggestion for more information on crowdsourcing: 

http://mashable.com/2011/02/20/crowdsourcing-case-studies/

http://mashable.com/2010/05/27/youtube-google-moderator/

Social media. 

I took on the challenge of going two days without social media. Not all social media- just Facebook. 

A typical with Facebook goes something like this:

Wake up 7:30 a.m., put some hot water on for green tea, put FoxNews morning show on, check my emails on my iPhone, respond to emails, check Twitter (on my iPhone), get my MAC, get on Facebook, wish people a Happy Birthday, or de-friend people who’s birthday it is and I haven’t talked to in person in more than a year, go to the gym, check my Facebook and Twitter on my iPhone as I leave the gym to avoid any awkward encounters I might have, go home, shower, go to class, go to a couple meetings for committees I sit on, have lunch, text a few people, check Facebook again, check my favorite blogs, and news sites, have dinner, watch a movie, clean the kitchen, go to bed. I’m sure I’m missing a few things here and there, but this is a pretty typical, and of course, if I cannot sleep, I check Facebook again and stay on it for about two hours. 

My two days without Facebook went something like this: 

Wake up 7:30 a.m., put some hot water on for green tea, put FoxNews morning show on, check my emails on my iPhone, respond to emails, check Twitter, started reading “Socialnomics,” written by Erik Qualman, took notes on it, researched apartments in New York City, went to the gym, put my phone in my gym back and actually made eye contact with people and said “hello” (no awkwardness!), showered, researched SiriusXM, took notes, thought of questions to ask, scheduled an appointment with the Career Center at school to have a professional meet with me to explain how to negotiate a contract, watched a HBO documentary called “Koran By Heart,” went to class, got everything checked off my “to do list,” went to all my meetings, went to dinner with three of my housemates, watched “Moneyball,” started reading “The Help,”  written by Kathryn Stockett and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

I was social, productive and took advantage of my time. 

After my two days without Facebook I reflected on the differences between the two days I thought of these questions:

Do people use Facebook and social media to avoid awkward situations? Does this make my generation, the millennials, bad communicators when it comes to face to face communication? Should we put down our phones and have more face time for meetings? But do face to face meetings take too much time? Can Tweeting and using other social media outlets make our generation more efficient and productive? 

Over the past week I put the phone down, looked people in the eye and had conversations with people. I want to be known as a great communicator, not just a great social media communicator, but an all around great communicator. 

Will my generation be notorious for not interviewing well, posting too much on social media and not communicating well? If so, how do we change my generation, so society does not lose the beauty of communicating face to face?