Top Green Social Networks

Do The Right Thing: This social network gets users to collectively rate the performance of large corporations, with the goal of getting companies and their executives talking to consumers about sustainability issues. This is one of the first sites to use a Digg like rating system on corporate social and environmental performance.

Zerofootprint.net: This is a nonprofit social network with a sustainable business model. This Toronto-based company creates branded carbon calculators and community sites for cities and large organizations.

BeGreenNow: This site was created by Austin, Texas-based clean-electricity provider Green Mountain Energy. It is a great example of how companies are using green community sites to market themselves. It’s includes a carbon calculator and ways to offset carbon emissions.

BigCarrot: This site offers cash prizes to help address the world’s problems, they offer prizes for innovations (such as the Auto X Prize and Virgin Earth Challenge) into a distributed community project. Individuals can pool their resources into a cash offering, which they can then use in the community or to build a language-teaching web app. The site makes money from a combination of a 5 percent fee for transactions, advertising on its website and investing the cash prizes in “low-risk financial” tools.

Carbonrally: This social network seeks to capitalize on the desire to compete. Carbonrally uses the draw of being on a team to help members focus their efforts on challenges that reduce carbon emissions. This site is great for corporate customers because it helps them organize company carbon programs. Corporations could also be Carbonrally’s real moneymaker, as businesses could be willing to pay for more premium subscription services.

WorldCoolers.org: This site is a browser add-on made by marketing company Collactive that alerts you to news and announcements on global warming. The site also has a section for online campaigns and a blog. Their desktop app is designed to give people concerned about the climate crisis the means to connect with one another, organize their efforts, and reach out to the larger community.

2People.org: This green social media site gets its name from the motto: “How do you move a nation: 2 People.” This site is focused on the important work of trying to organize people around climate policy.

Celsias.com: Celsias started as a blog and evolved to include a social network community site for climate change-fighting advocates. Celsias organizes its community around “Projects” that users can create and join.

Care2.com: Launched in 2008, Care2 is one of the oldest green social networking sites. With millions of members this is one of the more popular social networking sites.

Change.org: This social network addresses a variety of philanthropic actions but highlights several green projects like “End Dependency on Oil,” and “Stop Global Warming,” and features “take action” and “donate” buttons directly under the appropriate news stream. We also like the “network graph” which lets users take a look at all their recruits and contacts around the cause they are fighting for.

MakeMeSustainable: As the name suggests, this site offers ways of reducing your carbon footprint. The “Manager” section monitors your carbon emissions over time via “actions” you’ve taken like. Then there’s a social-networking component where you can join user-created groups and see who’s involved in the site in your local area. This site is well designed, with easy-to-read charts and Google maps of other MakeMeSustainable members nearby.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Hashtags and Twestivals Essential to Using Twitter for Green Marketing

Twitter is one of the world's most powerful social media technologies, it includes some great green and sustainable feeds that can be followed.

Since its launch in 2006, there have been over 2 billion messages posted on Twitter. A 2010 study examining Twitter usage in the US, found that Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users. New users are signing up at the rate of 300,000 per day and 180 million unique visitors come to the site every month. Twitter gets a total of 3 billion requests a day via its API and Twitter users are, in total, tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day. Twitter's search engine receives around 600 million search queries per day.

A hashtag is a tag used to categorize posts on Twitter (tweets) according to topics. With millions of tweets each minute, hashtags enable users to zero in on others with similar interests. Along with attracting followers, hashtags are great for pulling together Tweets of people attending a live event and to create a feed of people Tweeting about your business.

Use hashtags composed of relevant key words, examples of good hashtags are #greenstream for green news and #earthtweet for tips on living green. EarthTweet is a tweet-a-thon organized by BrighterPlanet that encourages Twitter users to do good things for the planet. Another good hashtag for finding green oriented individuals and groups to follow is #ecomonday.

Other green oriented hashtags include: #waterwednesday, #climate or #climateaction or #climatechange, #green, #greenliving, #ecofriendly, #environment, #econews, #sustainability, #sustainable, #energy, #cleanenergy, #solar, #solarenergy, #windenergy, #renewableenergy, #cleantech, #energyefficiency, #greenjobs, #recycle, #reuse, #endangered #animals, #greenbiz, #greenbusiness, #CSR, #socap, social capital. You can also ask a question on Twitter by including the #GreenQ.

Twitter Search, TweetGrid and TweetChat are services that can search and monitor hashtag use.

Twitter can be used for events with an environmental theme. This involves participating, promoting or even creating Twestivals. A green Twestival is a twitter-based global event that promotes green ideas and solutions. A great example of a successful Twestival is the "Charity: Water" event. On 12 February 2009, over 200 international cities hosted a Twestival to bring Twitter communities together to raise money for Charity: Water. With over 1,300,000 followers on twitter, the Twestival raised $250,000 and brought worldwide public awareness to the global water crisis.

The Go Green Twitter Sweepstakes was another campaign especially created for 2010’s Earth Day. Developed by Create the Good and the AARP, the campaign consisted of users tweeting examples of environmental action at @createthegood by using the #gogreen hash tag. They offered a zero-emission trip to Washington, DC for the official 2010 Earth Day celebration. Over 150,000 people participated in this campaign and its twitter feed has more than 6,000 followers.

For a comprehensive list of green feeds or to register your green Twitter feed see the Green Twitter Directory from Green Upgrader.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.


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First International Water Hour

The first international Water Hour takes place today June 11, 2010 between 8PM and 9PM local time. This global event is about protecting one of our most precious resources. For those concerned about the coming water crisis, this is an exciting opportunity to take action and raise awareness.

Water Hour is a moment to celebrate water, to create a torrent of messages and a flood of action for water! Water Hour takes a whole new approach. Rather than focus on fear and guilt, Water Hour seeks to reconnect with the awe and wonder of water in our lives, and create positive change from a positive place.

Water Hour is a celebration, a time to reflect on what water really means, and a dynamo of action to protect water. People are invited to get involved in a journey to re-awaken their connection to water, and to commit to its protection.

The event is designed to encourage on-the-ground action and celebrations, preferably recorded in postings, photos and video to share with others online. Water Hour taps into the enormous power of social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, connecting across the globe to create something wonderful. Communicate messages worldwide through social media, with http://www.waterhour.org/ as a hub.

Take action to conserve water in your household and workplace, to clean and protect the rivers and lakes and aquifers where your water comes from, to stop pollution, and to assure that water is shared fairly. To review the ways Water Hour is being celebrated, click on the top five picks and more ideas. However you mark the hour, share it with the world on the Water Hour social networks.

Join the Swim Drink Fish Music Club - free from 8PM - 9PM local time. Go to the "I Have a Code" blank, type "waterhour" and then click Redeem. Fill in the profile form and your one-year free membership is active.

Water Hour is an initiative of the Ecologos Institute’s wider water protection program called Water Alive.