From Twitter to Music Videos to Helping Stop Slavery in 24 Hours
About three years ago, I was interviewing for a PR internship at a large media corporation. The man interviewing me asked if I had a Twitter and if I thought the platform was important. I had prepared well for the interview, but hadn’t quite learned the art of talking around a question you don’t have a good answer for. So I answered with a little too much honesty: “I don’t have a Twitter and I don’t really see the point of the platform.”
I was introduced to Twitter in college where the majority of friends who used it were tweeting something emotional after a couple drinks. (“I’m so lonely tonight — wish he knew I still love him.”) I was an English major and my head was buried in books, not concerned with technology or social media. In other words, I didn’t know enough about the platform, and so to me, it was a waste of time, a place to vent, and not something worth using.
Luckily, (very luckily), the man who interviewed me gave me a chance at the job anyway. One of the conditions was that I create a Twitter and begin following news sources, blogs, magazines, and writers that night. He taught me that twitter is a great place for information, breaking news, ideas, thoughts, not just a place to vent into the abyss of technology.
While throughout the past two years I have gained more respect for the platform, (especially as I have started to write more) it wasn’t until this December, that I truly began to understand the value of Twitter.
As part of my job at a new app called Triller, I run the social media channels. Triller enables anyone to create professional quality music videos with just a couple of taps on their phone. It is very easy and fun to use, and one of the best parts is how easy it is to share the video to any social platform directly from inside the app. People are constantly sharing videos to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Vine. In the app, we have a pop-up that activates in the few seconds the video is being processed to share on those platforms that encourages the use of #triller. I then go through almost every video on each of the platforms that mentions us. Every day, I watch hundreds of videos reposting them on instagram, retweeting them, compiling youtube videos of the week. Because we are still such a new app, I believe that it is important for the people who make videos to feel love from us even if it is just a simple double tap on Instagram. Though the process itself is a little tedious, the information I gain as a result is invaluable. I can learn what songs are most popular, what demographic is using the app, what captions and words they use. And most importantly, it is motivating to see something that you are a part of generate happiness and entertainment for others.
On December 11th, I was monitoring our Twitter account, watching the videos, retweeting, etc. Sometimes we get so many that I end up scanning quickly before returning to other projects. I was in the process of favoriting some videos and scrolling down the tweets that mentioned us when suddenly a video started playing with a group of women dressed in black with reindeer ears on. They had choreographed an entire routine to Taylor Swifts “Bad Blood”. The video caught my eye because it was an older demographic than we are used to seeing, and because it was hilarious. I watched it again, favorited it, and kept scrolling. A few minutes later, another video popped up with a group a group of girls laying on the ground with Christmas sweaters and lights lip syncing to “Here comes Santa Clause”. The video switched between them and a man with big bright green glasses shaped like Christmas trees. This again caught my eye, so I looked a little bit closer at the caption and hashtag they used. The only thing it really mentioned was #Jingleisourmiddlename and stumbled upon more hilarious Christmas videos.
While I was looking at each of the videos, notifications kept popping up on the right hand corner of my screen with even more videos posted to the hashtag. I couldn’t stop watching them and was so curious about where they were coming from that I tweeted from our account, “Whoever created the #Jingleisourmiddlename hashtag is amazing! Who are you?” and immediately the favorites rolled in. The tweet went fom two to ten favorites in just a couple of minutes. One lady responded that the videos were coming from the International Justice Mission (IJM)— a charity that helps fight slavery and human trafficking. They were on a corporate retreat where one of the tasks was to create a music video in less than 15 minutes using our app.
I had never heard of IJM before so I immediately googled them and started reading about their charity, their mission and the projects they are involved in. The International Justice Mission does incredible work going into poor countries and not only saving people from inhuman conditions and treatment, but also training local cities to deal with problems themselves. They also have programs for those they are able to rescue to help mentor them and nurse them into a good state of mind. IJM attempts to give the gift of Justice to everyone in the world. I learned so much from reading about them (did you know there is more slavery in the world today than ever before) and knew right away that Triller should somehow get involved with their charity.
Earlier in November, we had spoken about partnering with a charity to give back for the holiday season. However, at a startup with only eight people, sometimes ideas fall into the cracks and we hadn’t been able to dedicate time finding the right charity and organizing an activation. It was almost fate for IJM to catch our attention with their energy, enthusiasm and hilarious videos. I tweeted back and forth with one of the ladies involved at the IJM retreat and asked her if there was a way that our App could help them spread awareness and raise money.
She messaged me the e-mail to her colleague who runs partnerships at IJM and I e-mailed her right away mentioning the retreat and how we were hoping there was a way Triller could help IJM. The head of partnerships e-mailed me back within ten minutes and we scheduled a phone call for that afternoon.
On the phone, the head of partnerships and I discussed Triller, IJM, and possible partnership ideas. It was great to speak with her because she had experienced Triller and was enthusiastic about the app. Unlike most calls I have, I didn’t have to explain why Triller is a great app, she already knew first hand.
In the 30 minute phone call, we decided to amplify what her and her colleagues were doing on their retreat. We created an initiative where Triller donated $1 to IJM for every Triller video made in the month of December. She recommended building off their hashtag while tweaking it slightly. We decided on #Jingles4Justice, encouraging people to make funny lip sync videos to help give the gift of justice to someone in the world.
Within 24 hours, we went from Twitter to an initiative where music videos raised money to help stop slavery and sex trafficking. For the rest of the month, hundreds of people joined the initiative including the CEO of IJM. Families got together and created videos at dinner or with their kids dancing to holiday tunes in their pajamas. The energy and enthusiasm that the IJM team had is something special that I have not seen with any other group we have worked with or partnered with so far. These kind of activations usually take weeks, or even months to plan. And thanks to Twitter, and some incredibly energetic people, we planned it all in a day.
With all of the social media platforms out there and many more emerging, none of them have mastered the instantaneity that Twitter has (especially now with the acquisition of Periscope). In any one moment, you can connect with anyone, anywhere. In a world that holds us captive behind small screens instead of communicating in real-world conversations, Twitter might be as close as we can get to actually connecting. Not just connecting, but also helping each other whether through a charity initiative or through supporting someone’s writing or ideas. I finally understand that Twitter is a platform of opportunity, not an empty abyss of words.