Flightpath regularly shares the opinion that social media is exceptionally well-tailored for furthering the interests of non-profit organizations.  More than for many for-profit brands, non-profits can benefit from a strong presence on places like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube for reasons including:

• Participants in social networks often share common interests
• Social networks are a great forum for sharing altruistic goals
• The immediacy of social networks allows for rapid organization and easy dissemination of breaking news
• Tools built into many platforms allow for turnkey advocacy around issues and instant fundraising

Last month, we presented a NY Social Media Roundtable event dedicated to the topic of Social Media and non-profits.   With this background, it’s fascinating to see protesters in Iran, adopting these same media in order to meet similar needs and achieve comparable types of goals. 

Yesterday’s New York Times included a fascinating article, titled “Social Networks Spread Defiance Online,” detailing how Iran’s opposition forces are utilizing Facebook, Twitter, et al to pursue their interests.  (Required reading for anyone interested in this stuff.)  Today’s paper followed up with fascinating commentary from Thomas Friedman, portraying today’s Iranian adopters of social media as members of a virtual mosque, with the caveat that guns may still trump tweets.

While we hope for the flowering of democracy and the rule of law, it’s still unknown how things will shake out in Iran.  Nonetheless, the events of this week clearly mark a sea change in how dissidents interact with each other and with their governments via the intrinsic power of social media.   This situation is certainly being monitored by regimes the world over.  If I were one of the Castro brothers, I’d be very concerned about my future.