How to spontaneously activate your audience with a tweet or two

A few months ago I blogged about a favourite charity of mine, Learn as One, that’s been making some great use of social media to drive awareness of the charity, the causes they support, and encouraging donations. Anyway, it felt like high time for a quick update, and there’s good news to report – Learn as One have reached their first fundraising target, to build the first classroom at the school in Simakakata, Zambia.

Now, what’s equally interesting from my perspective is the way in which they closed in on their fundraising target. Steve Heyes, the charity’s founder, tweeted to his merry ban of 450+ followers that they were just a few hundred pounds shy. Within two minutes there was a further tweet from Steve thanking a donor for their pledge and giving the new total… a flurry of donations and tweets later and the target had been achieved. Observing and participating in this fantastically spontaneous event with the Learn as One community of followers, was both personally rewarding, and a great example of how small organisations can activate their “social” audience with minimal activity and remarkable immediacy.