Charity: Water

Using Social Media to Innovate Public Relations

Diffusion of Innovation Theory

Zan Schindler

Charity: Water Social Media – Diffusion of Innovation

Since its inception in 2006, Charity:Water has amassed more than 1.4 million Twitter followers, 274,000 likes on Facebook, and over 151,000 Instagram followers. The sheer numbers indicate that the public has responded very well to their message: everyone should have access to clean drinking water. They utilize social media as a mechanism to raise awareness and then garner support for their cause. Visual storytelling is the easiest way to grasp the emotional side of a person. Charity:Water creatively continually shares the story of the need for clean drinking water in their use of social media.

While the presence on social media is impressive, it isn’t enough to simply have people following your message; the content needs to be gripping enough to create desire in the hearts of viewers to donate time/money and share with their friends. Integrating visual story telling through their social media outlets creates a ongoing conversation with their publics.

The PR theory demonstrated is Diffusion of Innovation, which requires publics to pass through 5 stages; awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption. This is an example demonstrating how their usage of social media can create an ongoing conversation with someone who knows nothing about Charity:Water, and traces the progression of their potential involvement.

Awareness: Charity: Water promotes an initiative on Twitter saying “We’re on our way to bringing clean water to 15,000 families in Cambodia. You can help! http://charitywater.org/cambodia pic.twitter.com/EMUPeCGSDj” Instantly, Charity: Water starts the conversation about a big movement happening, and invites the audience to be apart of the joy. Initial exposure through stunning photography or hard facts grasps attention, almost as if it were a fishing pole reeling people in.
Interest: The clarity and conciseness of the tweet pushes the message across in which our brains process in a matter of seconds. With a link to their website embedded, finding out how you can help 15,000 families in Cambodia is only a click away – and the mouse beckons to be clicked. With a campaign trailer a click away, they quickly capture interest.
Evaluation: Another aspect about Charity: Water that is extremely valuable is the brilliance in the design of their website. Instantaneously, there are dozens of outlets to find information about the mission, goals, who they are, how they started, etc. Their website is a mecca for non-profit strategic design, and provides simple and quick methods for the public to analyze what they do.
Trial: The website design and their use of social media through multimedia projects creates an exciting vibe for publics to share with their friends and family. It’s hard not to share such an amazing non-profit who is truly living their values. Almost refreshing to see some good happening in a world of corruption and high quarterly profits.
Adoption:Sharing clean water with our fellow brothers and sisters across the world is a cause we can rally behind from the fundamental basis as human beings. charity: Water’s innovative approach to personalizing the non-profit movement has established them as one of the preeminent non-profits in the world.

As this progression continues, the benefits of social media allow the public to carry on the conversation about their cause without them directly navigating it. Charity: Water effectively uses social media to create an endless conversation about their cause. They only need to start the conversation, the world of social media carries it on in an infinite loop.

An example of their visual story telling.