MS. CATHIE BURTON

About 4 years ago they ran in the Council of Europe a campaign to stop racism in football, The manager of the Arsenal football team, in London, is a lovely man called Arson Wenger who said in English, in French and in German and Alsatian, that football was a beautiful game and that there should be no racism and that he supported the Council of Europe campaign against racism.
They put it onto the internet and tracked it by the analytics tool. Within 24 hours it had gone to 2 million people. They then took it onto the football sites, and put it onto sites where people like football. Within the next 24 hours, they had 8 million people and the next day that story about Arson Wenger, Manager of Arsenal, was in the Huffington Post which is one of the most influential media is America, it was in USA today, even in India today. So that shows the power of Social Media.
Then another campaign was started against domestic violence. They had a big launch in Spain with the Spanish Prime Minister. They had parliamentarians working on it, but also had social media. The result was that the parliamentarians were persuaded by their people on social media and told them to change the law in this country, make it a crime to hurt women. The Council of Europe has just launched a convention against domestic violence that includes 47 countries.
So, a lot changes with social media and a lot remains the same. It is a powerful tool but it's just a tool, you've got to use it. The message is the key and the appropriate use is the key.

Sound Bites

It's great to say that I've got 300,000 people following me, but are those people doing anything?