Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

vcao — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:14:20 -0000

Adding to existing comments, all very perceptive and relevant, is this like the check-out at the supermarket where your only relationship happens to be that you are engaged in some other transaction or interaction at that venue and yet you are being asked to donate?

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Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Alonzo Sandoval — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:22:46 -0000

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Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Nate Berkopec — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:35:16 -0000

For those who thought (like me) that these stats would be more relevant with the user population taken into account:

Facebook - 200 million active users, about 1 million users per dollar.
Twitter - 18.1 million active users, about 190,000 users per dollar
Digg - 26 million active *visitors* (no user stats available), about 760,000 users per dollar.
LinkedIn - 40 million active users, about 750,000 users per dollar
MySpace - 125 million active users, about about 2 million users per dollar.

So, it appears that MySpace is the least altruistic while Twitter is the most. Of course, this doesn't take into account multiple networks per user, but I think it's a better estimate than just bare numbers :)

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

gbattle — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:22:27 -0000

Precisely, for population adjusted generosity, the calculation needs to be contributions per user. FB would almost unquestionably be in last place when you divide by 200mm users.

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Beth Kanter — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:43:53 -0000

There's a recent survey from NTEN that looked at the baseline for social networking use by nonprofits - includes all sizes
http://beth.typepad.com/bet...

All of my fundraising has been for a small organization as a board member - documented here
http://gsp4good.wikispaces.com.

There is a soon to be published study based on the results of the America's GIving Challenge -- most of the participants were small organizations. Should give us some more clues.

I think we're still early in all this --

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Joey Girokonto — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:29:46 -0000

Beside all the (positive) criticism in these comments, I want to underline the general positive thing about social networks. While many people still think its just a virtual way to push your very real ego, it is much more: the option to find people with same attitudes to get something going. And if its "just" some donations.

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

oliver — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:01:40 -0000

well

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Jonathan Crabtree — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:34:20 -0000

I created a social network at http://buzz.org.au Once it got to 10,000 members we decided to convert it into a not-for-profit company owned by members.

So perhaps GMHBA Health Insurance (where I work) is the 1st to actually create an ad-free not-for-profit social network and then gift it to members...

Check it out!
http://buzz.org.au

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

sabsavvy — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:39:13 -0000

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

thewildjoker — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:30:48 -0000

Great cause...I am unable to donate as of now.
I always like when organizations try to help out worthy causes.

Two Thumbs up Mashable and Altruism Challenge

TheWildJoker :D

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Sandrene Mathews — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:24:29 -0000

Does the graph take into consideration users who have accounts on more than one network? I would suspect that is a high percentage of users. If I make a donation through a link on one site, I'm not going to make another donation just because I have multiple accounts.

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Justyn — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:18:37 -0000

I think this needs some explanation. Is that $/user? Millions/Thousands? If it's $/user, is it an average of only those who donate?

If it's an average of people that donate, it might be saying that FB users are more generous, though I think the number of fundraising efforts taking place on FB dwarfs the efforts of the Twitter community.

If this is a total contribution, then obviously we need to account for user base, in which case Twitter would be more generous.

Not really sure what this Graph is saying...

Re: Which Social Network is the Most Generous?

Beth Kanter — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:29:54 -0000

This is a clever twist for a fundraising campaign on social networks. But, let's look at the definition of Altruism. It means loving others as oneself or behavior that promotes the survival chances of others at a cost to ones own. In other words, self-sacrifice for the benefit of others.

So do you really think that social network sites can be altruistic (http://www.atruists.org)-- it's the people on those sites. And, is donations the right metric?

And, I suspect the amount of money raised on each site has to do more with how much they have built a following and relationships on those different sites.