Social networks are great tools for a great number of things. Many of us use them to keep in touch with friends and family, especially those on the other side of the world. Others use it as a tool to promote a business, or perhaps a personal brand. Other just use it to keep up on all the gossip!
One great use for social networks is to raise awareness of things, be they important events, elections or generally good causes which need to be highlighted amongst the masses. One such cause is ‘Be The Match,’ a non-profit which is trying to raise awareness of the need for bone marrow donors as well as the national bone marrow database. In order to do that, it has taken to Facebook.
Not content with simply starting a Facebook page and calling it a day, the ‘Be The Match’ team set about creating something a little different. The result is ‘My Social Strang‘ which, once a user has handed over their Facebook credentials in order to allow it access, will go off and create a personalized infographic based on their life. It’s actually pretty awesome. For example, I now know that there are 57,711 people with my name and that it is most common amongst 2-year-olds. I am also only 47% likely to survive a zombie apocalypse, which given my prowess in zombie games is entirely accurate!
‘Be The Match’ hopes that by showing people how unique they are, they will want to take an interest in the bone marrow database. We can’t help but think people are more likely to simply have a look at their cool infographic and move on, though we obviously hope our pessimistic outlook on the average Facebook user is misplaced.
“Our hope is that in just a couple minutes of engagement, people will want to get involved, we think this is a simple, quick way to get people involved without getting into the heavy science.”
Give the Facebook app a try for yourself and see what it comes up with. Here’s hoping that your zombie survivability is considerably higher than mine!
Oh, and be sure to check out the bone marrow database, too!
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