In the era of social networks, accustomed to interact daily with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google or WhatsApp, we forget that these tools are phenomenal in the History of Humanity capable of mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in very different geographical locations in a matter of hours or even minutes.
Already in the past, Twitter has asserted its more social dimension to mobilize people, companies or organizations and also, from a broader perspective, feelings of solidarity and support or also of rejection and repulses towards causes with an important mediatic impact.Recently, Twitter was once again the engine of solidarity after Dortmund's explosions as the Borussia Dortmund team bus passed on its way to the local stadium on the occasion of the Champions League match between the Borussia and the Monaco.
These explosions did not have the devastating effect that they could have caused , so that everything remained in a major social commotion at international level, an injury to the arm of player Marc Bartra del Borussia who has required hospital attention and the suspension of the match until tomorrow Wednesday at 6:45 p.m.
The fans of the visiting team displaced to Dortmund, had very difficult to find accommodation until the celebration of the game and many of them were planning to return home last night, but Twitter, again, showed itself as an extraordinary mobilization platform and a hashtag began to work the miracle of the loaves and fishes in their particular contemporary version in the Internet era.
#bedforawayfans, from zero to 135,000 in 16 hours
The explosions took place at 19:15, and at 21:10 a tweet from the official account of Borussia Dortmund invited to follow the hashtag #bedforawayfans on Twitter to coordinate the accommodation of the followers of Monaco until the celebration of the party on Wednesday.
Just after announcing the postponement of the match, Borussia Dortmund (@BVB on Twitter) launched this tweet that mentioned the official Monaco account (@AS_Monaco_EN) along with the tag or hashtag #bedforawayfans created to centralize the accommodation offers that local team followers could make to visitors until Wednesday.
Monaco himself retweeted the Borussia initiative, creating the auspicious scenario to capture the interest of the followers of both teams and let solidarity take its course .In a few minutes, Twitter worked the miracle of solidarity and allowed, once again, to express the best of human nature in the form of tweets where it is seen how the followers of the Monaco were finding accommodation in the house of the followers of Borussia or of any other person moved by the cause # bedforawayfans.
The evolution of this hashtag can be analyzed using analytical tools such as Trendsmap thanks to which we can know data such as the number of tweets with that tag, the maximum number of tweets per minute (TPM) , the geographical origin of them or even from which platform the tweet or retuit has been made.
Specifically, in just over 16 hours there were already about 135,000 tweets related to this hashtag, most of which were published during the first hours. These are spectacular figures, unimaginable just a few years ago in order to disseminate and publicize initiatives that involve tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of people.
The main objective was fulfilled, and also an interesting side effect was achieved such as asserting solidarity and collaboration against terrorist attacks, with many tweets apologizing feelings of union and cooperation.
There were also those who took advantage of the "tiron" of this hashtag to try to give visibility and traffic to causes that have little to do with the original accompanying tweets with content so disconnected from the news of the attack as it can be a scientific publication with the hashtag @bedforawayfans.
Twitter and the causes: it is not a new phenomenon
With all the media that is the #bedforawayfans initiative, having two rival teams on the field cooperate outside the field to face a setback as dramatic as an attack, Twitter has a rich track record as a platform to mobilize causes and initiatives.
They are not always social causes.There are also personal, corporate or vindictive claims for causes of disadvantaged groups, for example.In all cases, Twitter's merit is to get many of these causes to be materialize in practice .In the case of #bedforawayfans, many Monaco fans got accommodation until Wednesday, for example.
In other cases, the materialization of a cause is in money.As #GivingTuesday, an initiative that arises in the United States in 2012 as a reaction to the consumerism of Black Friday, and that today has become a global movement around the act of giving and sharing.
Another of the formulas seen on Twitter is the one that originated on the occasion of the earthquakes in Japan in 2011, #PrayforJapan, with an emotional and solidarity motivation mainly, which has subsequently been used at other times in the form of #PrayforParis on the occasion of the attacks in the French capital, or more recently as #PrayforPeru , after the floods last March.
Another case is that of #IceBucketChallenge, that in 2014 managed to mobilize a large number of influencers and relevant figures from the world of business, media or culture to raise funds to finance research projects on ALS, a disease for which there is no cure.
When same-sex marriage was approved in June 2015 in the United States, the #lovewins hashtag filled Twitter with demonstrations of support and celebration of such a milestone.Even President Obama joined by publishing a tweet with said hashtag.
Twitter also allows to mobilize personal causes, such as Carter Wilkerson, a 16-year-old kid who asked publicly on Twitter to the fast food chain Wendy's how many retuits would be needed to be entitled to a year of free nuggets.The answer was "18 million", which, far from discouraging Carter, made him launch a petition on Twitter to get those 18 million retweets.
This request has gone viral and Carter has already achieved more than two million retweets, along with a mediatic impact that leads to becoming a record breaker in social networks , in addition to materializing in a series of merchandising objects and a foundation against cancer, and all in a matter of a few days.
Twitter, an unparalleled potential
The lesson that can be learned from these cases and many others, is that Twitter in particular and social networks in general, are very powerful tools for moving wills.Twitter, in particular, presents as greater virtue the speed at which it is able to move an initiative to a global audience .Within hours you can mobilize people, money or ideas.A phenomenon with an extreme social impact relevance.
The good news is that we are looking at examples in which qualities such as solidarity or cooperation are valued.It is true that cases can also be found in which the opposite values are handled, but for the moment, good judgment wins and values for good deeds, although they are not always to save the world but to get free nuggets.
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