Giving the Gift of Reach
This holiday season, what if we consider giving attention to people and organizations that deserve to be heard.
Every Thanksgiving, after spending time with family, many Americans begin the holiday season by shopping for stuff in person on “Black Friday,” and online on “Cyber Monday.” As a response to the perceived commercialization of what was intended to be the holiday spirit of giving, recent years have seen a growth in “Giving Tuesday,” a day (and hashtag) to celebrate generosity and giving.
New ways to give
The traditional way to “give back” during the holiday season is to donate to charities. But in the era of social media, we’ve also witnessed a rise in other ways to give to deserving organizations.
One common way to give is by sharing with friends and asking for support. Especially when you can’t give money, using your social channels to retweet and share is a clear, tangible way that you can lend attention to something you believe deserves more attention.
Yet, for all the sharing we do, the attention of our culture (over the holidays and beyond) continues to be focused on the mass-produced products and mainstream entertainment that gets most heavily promoted and marketed.
But what if there were ways to act together to shift attention away from the loudest voices, and give attention to those that deserve to be heard?
Beyond sharing: Let’s make it louder
In the giving spirit of the holidays, Louder is trying something different: we’re asking our friends to think about the artists and organizations in their lives whose work deserves more attention, and we’re providing a platform to run micro-crowfunding campaigns ($100) to help these artists reach new audiences of 10,000 people.
With a personal statement of support, you can create a campaign in minutes that raises donations to run targeted promoted posts across social networks, drawing valuable attention to creations which might have otherwise gone unseen.
Why donate to fund promotion?
Especially when compared to donations to charity, people want to know: why should I fund the promotion when I could could just give to the artist or cause directly?
First, it’s not an either/or. We should support artists and organizations directly. AND, we need to also support their promotion. With millions of links being shared every hour, it’s really difficult to be heard through the noise.
It’s one thing to share something with your friends and followers. But sharing only reaches a few of your friends and followers. With as little as $100 of promotion, together we can help amplify important work beyond your friends, and give the gift of guaranteed, targeted reach to the important causes voices within your community that deserve to be heard.
