Welcome to this weeks 920 Weekly Roundup
Almost two weeks ago we mentioned in our weekly wrap the trial launch of Facebook’s payment system in Auckland. Facebook’s move into formally facilitating payments between users and businesses continues to capture technology news with an interesting angle from Rakesh Agrawal in the New Zealand Herald.
Agrawal argues that while payments through social media might not take off in markets with robust banking systems there is significant room for growth in developing world contexts where electronically transferring money is significantly more difficult than in a market like New Zealand. Agrawal rightly mentions that with 1.5 million people on Facebook “there’s a good chance the person that you want to send money to is already on Facebook”.
The power of social media to transfer money and finances, is much broader than technological innovations.
Over the last few weeks, Brandon Stanton of the popular Humans of New York Facebook page has been travelling through Pakistan, capturing the struggles and triumphs of ordinary people. Humans of New York sets the standard for storytelling on social media with small immediate vignettes of people’s lives, told through their own voices and lenses. These stories are facilitated by a talented individual and a medium that is able to reach a multi-million strong audience.
Stanton built up his narrative with posts about young boys playing cricket to moving accounts of everyday struggles, challenging the stereotypes that viewers had of the country.
The series continued on this path, but then took an amazing turn, Stanton began to focus on one story, the story of bonded labourers working in brick kilns around Pakistan. He highlighted the work of Syeda Ghulam Fatima, known to her admirer’s as Pakistan’s Harriet Tubman.
Readers of the series encouraged him to set up a crowd sourcing campaign to the support the work of Fatima. Over the course of the campaign social media users raised US $2 million a remarkable amount of money in the context Fatima is operating in.
The learning’s from this kind of social media activity are numerous. The first, is that authenticity is fundamental. The second is that stories matter and the third that social media is about engagement. Technology and tools are enablers. Without the tools none of this global and instant engagement would be possible.
But the real drivers of engagement are real people and real stories. That’s something for us to all keep in mind as we navigate the world of storytelling and technology.
