Social Media Spotlight: Alicia Keys’ Keep A Child Alive foundation

By Adam Maikkula | December 27, 2009

12 – time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys is Co-founder and Global Ambassador to Keep A Child Alive, a global foundation dedicated to providing anti-retroviral treatments and support to children and families within Africa and India affected by HIV/AIDS.

In 2002, Alicia visited Africa on behalf of an invitation to perform there. While in Africa, she saw and experienced conditions for herself and has since continued to raise awareness for the fight against AIDS.

Leveraging the power of technology and social media, Alicia and Keep A Child Alive (KCA) have developed a fundraising campaign inviting global citizens to text “ALIVE” to 90999 to make a one time $5 donation to KCA via their mobile phones. In addition to supporting KCA with a $5 donation, those who donate are entered into a drawing to be 1 of 5 people selected to join Alicia on her upcoming visit to Africa. Winners will spend 5 days in Africa with Alicia. So far, 250,000 people have donated $5 to KCA via the “ALIVE” campaign.

Integrating the fundraising campaign with their Facebook Fan Page, Causes profile, Twitter account, YouTube channel, MySpace account, and website, KCA is successfully gaining exposure and improving the affects of their fight against HIV/AIDS.

What I like most about the ALIVE campaign is that they are fully leveraging Facebook, Twitter, Causes, YouTube, Myspace, and their website to spread the word and communicate with their supporters. In addition to having a presence on these sites, KCA leverages products like ShareThis and also uploads videos and pictures to communicate visually with and engage their supporters.

Visit Alicia’s personal website and the various Keep A Child Alive sites to see how they are successfully using social media. Try to see if you can spot the important parts of their social media efforts and compare them to my next blog post. Next week, I will do a follow up blog post highlighting various parts of their social media. Comments are highly welcomed!