Report: TALK TO YOUTH IN THEIR LANGUAGE

This is the age of online promotions and things move like lightning via the World Wide Web. Being aware of the opportunities galore, we launched our blood donation campaign through the most popular of social media networking sites – facebook and twitter. And then there is the mobile phone – the most important accessory that youth cannot survive without. Sending suitable SMSs was a direct hit. Read on to find out more on these…

Facebook:

An online opportunity was created for donors as well as supporters of the cause to come to a common platform and interact.

A Face Book Group called ‘Blood Donors Mumbai’ and later a Face Book Community page by the same name were started to promote the campaign.

Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blood-Donors-Mumbai/193924653991296

Through this platform the objective is to motivate more people to donate blood and those who are in need can also appeal at this platform.

While the group has around 300 members, Blood Donors Mumbai Community page has about 100 people ‘LIKE’ing it.

Promotions were made through these two pages to keep the public informed about where they can find the Blood Mobile Van on a given day and also the value of donating blood. The main motto promoted was “Blood Donation Saves Lives”. This platform was also used to thank the people of Mumbai for their contribution.

SMS Campaign:

Pin Code targeted SMSs – 20 special SMSs were created with the name of the blood bank and sent to specific target audiences as per their Pin Codes. Hence people living in a particular area could donate blood at the nearest bank. This gave excellent results with a lot of people turning up at blood banks to donate blood.

Twitter:

Twitter Handle @blooddonorsmum was recently created to spread awareness of blood donation. This is connected to the Facebook account and whatever messages are posted on fb will also automatically reflect here.

Impact:

• Social Media activities on Facebook and Twitter have helped take the campaign forward. This has resulted in reaching out to the masses and has created more awareness amongst the Mumbai public. This is a perennial activity and will ensure the sustainability of the campaign throughout the year. It will also be effective on a long term basis.
• SMSs targeted people living in different areas in the city. This ensured that there was good response all around.