In their Millenium Campaign to eradicate poverty, the UN is actively & innovatively engaging in the social media space. In order to reach as broad an audience as possible, and push the limits of how you can ‘be counted’, they are organizing events, and have kiosks throughout Second Life, as well as engaging ‘Lonelygirl15′ star Jessica Lee Rose to make an anti-poverty video that’s posted on YouTube.
This is a bold move by a nonprofit to utilize the strengths of the internet and social networking sites to raise awareness for the cause, as well as provide an additional platform for disparate people to get involved and build a movement. The foray into Second Life is quite interesting for its social implications, but a great alternative way for those who wish to, to ’stand up’ and contribute. It will be interesting to see how the move to engage a personality who caused quite a bit of controversy around authenticity is received, but with over 11k views since it was posted on October 5th, it’s off to a good start.
I’d like to see more active engagement with niche social networking sites, community building, and blogger awareness campaigns, but regardless, for an activism campaign it is off to a great and imaginative start.