Talia, Gabriella, Mila, Tayla, Ben and Isaac, Glendowie Primary School
The idea of asking for help for animals is nothing new. Even pre-Internet, SPCA mailed out pleas for help and utilized the telephone and word-of-mouth to find volunteers, foster homes, and adopters.
What sets social media apart from other forms of media is exactly how it got its name in the first place: the social component. The journey a message takes through a social network begins with a single Facebook update, Twitter tweet, or YouTube video upload.
From the point of view of the SPCA making the post, it really isn't that different from publishing something on a website. But for the people reading the message, it's completely different. They're not passive readers, but active supporters who participate in social media for the specific purpose of keeping up with the people and causes in which they have an interest. And because information-sharing is the currency of social media; people are there to let other people know what they're doing and thinking, and also what they believe in. Someone who believes in you and cares about your message will make sure to re-broadcast it to their own subscribers, who may do the same in turn.
That might be of limited use if it just bounced around the Internet to a closed circle of people in the animal shelter and rescue community. That's what happens on sites that are focused exclusively on a single issue; it becomes something of an echo chamber. But social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are made up of people with all kinds of diverse interests and points of connection.
