Other ways to help fight breast cancer than bra color status updates

Over the past few days a viral phonomenon on many social networks like Twitter and Facebook has really taken off with women posting their bra colors in support of ending breast cancer. In their status updates people posted colors and these staus updates appeared on the Facebook Wall or Twitter streams of their followers . Some were puzzled and asked about it and probably a few men joined not knowing what the colors stood for.

Among the beneficiaries of this campaign according to a Washington Post article titled Breast cancer awareness goes viral on Facebook . . . with bra color updates
is that currently the Susan G. Komen for the Cure's Facebook Page has over 130k members up from 130 members the previous day. This is a good cause and social networks have been very successful in the support for good causes and its an exciting time for the Susan G. Komen foundation.

In the News Week Blog The Human Condition,  Kate Dailey said "There's nothing wrong using nontraditional, goofy, even cryptic marketing tactics to raise awareness of public-health issues. Sometimes, if it's done really well, it can make people laugh while they're learning something serious. Other times, it's done in ways that are hugely successful, and it's hard to argue with success (although people do)."

In another touching blog post on BlogHer  Susan Neibur who blogs as Whymommy - from the Washington DC area - brought home the point that those really affected cannot play this viral game. This post is absolutely a must read. Breast cancer strikes 1 in 8 women in the United States. In 2008, an estimated 182,460 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S., along with 67,770 new cases of non-invasive (in situ) breast cancer, according to breastcancer.org said the article in http://abcnews.go.com/

Advice from organizations like  American Cancer Society on how to help spread cancer awareness:

- donate money to a cancer charity of your choice . ( American Cancer society donation page )
- volunteer
- Write a thoughtful blog post about the impact of cancer  ( See  the Official Birthday Blog )
- take steps yourself to prevent cancer- ACS has a great new site http://eatrightgetactive.org/

A couple of years ago a local DC blogger Susan Reynolds was diagnosed with Cancer. Instead of letting her spirits down she embarked on a awareness campaign with friends and network connections using her blog and http://frozenpeafund.com/. Read the story in the Washington Post . Many folks from Twitter participated by changing their profile pictures - Avatars- to include Frozen Peas in the picture to drive awareness. See picture of Kristie Wells Founders of  and currently the Social Media Strategist at Ribbit (Photo courtesy Kristie Wells) The author had the opportunity to meet and connect with some wonderful folk active in this campaign.

 If you belong to a non-profit check out Beth kanter,  a social media evangelist for social causes has a great resource blog  How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change  where she helps analyze successful social cause programs and helps organizations make use of social media.

There must be other ways that you may know for supporting good causes. Please comment here and let the author and all the readers know. Do you have stories of how social media helped a good cause let the author know . Contact Shashi Bellamkonda here.
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