On April 14 about 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist organisation in Nigeria. The girls, committing the heinous crime of desiring an education, were taken by the Islamist group with the intent of becoming slaves and child brides. Imagine if something like this had happened in Australia, America or the UK? The entire world would be up in arms and demanding swift justice to the perpetrators. However, in the hardly covered African countries, the kidnapping barely made the news outside Nigeria.
That is; until someone tweeted about it.
#BringBackOurGirls first made its appearance on April 23, a full 9 days after the girls were kidnapped, by a Nigerian lawyer named Ibrahum Abdullahi. He, along with the former education minister, urged Nigerians to tweet relentlessly the hashtag until it caught the eye of the Western world. It took another 7 days for the hashtag to trend and another 5 days for the First Lady of the United States to dedicate the Presidential weekly address to the plight of these young women. Imagine that? From relative obscurity to global phenomenon in only 12 days; such is the power of social media. But the question has to be asked: is it helping?
We’ve been here before, far too many times to count, and the question of ‘does a hashtag help?’ is eventually asked by both cynics and ideologues. The answer is a little bit more tricky than either ‘yes or no’. Realistically the answer falls into the range of ‘yes AND no’. Simply put; hashtags are an amazing tool at raising awareness but not much else.
The now infamous #Kony2012 YouTube video helped propel War Lord Joseph Kony to global fame as his troops ravaged large sections of Uganda and fought both Ugandan and African Union soldiers. When the video and hashtag debuted in early 2012 they became a rallying force for Western liberals to demand action on behalf of their governments. All of this was well and good except for the simple fact that many governments had already been taking action against Kony as part of a variety of international efforts. American Facebookers wanted to send in the Marines to catch Kony and then put him on trial in the Hague. These desires are all understandable considering Kony’s disgusting use of child soldiers. However massive public outcry does not bode well for the soldiers who actually have to go against Kony or against Boko Haram. Military action takes a significant amount of time, money and intelligence before you can even begin to send in the first troops. In the case of Boko Haram soldiers would have to hit half a dozen different camps simultaneously to ensure that the girls are rescued. This does not bode well for the girls or the soldiers who would be trying to rescue them.
However the greatest folly of hashtag activism is the fact that as quickly as it takes off it crashes down. #BringBackOurGirls peaked on 10 May with 408,000 tweets containing the hashtag however the next day it dropped down to just over 150,000 and today it hardly breaches the 15,000 tweet per day mark. Now, don’t get me wrong, 15,000 tweets per day is amazing and as a social media marketer I would be doing cartwheels if my brands could achieve that kind of activity. However for an issue that captivated the world’s attention, and considering the fact that the girls are still being held hostage, not only is it heartbreaking but the majority of the tweets are simply begging the world not to forget the girls.
So hashtag activism does very little in the long run except act as a primer, a flash in the pan, of raising the awareness of a certain issue or problem. Is it useless? No. Of course not. Awareness is itself a noble goal and both the Kony campaign and BBOG campaign shone a light on situations that the world had no idea was happening. But how best could activists capitalise on their cause going viral?
Money.
Recently 3 Israeli boys were kidnapped on their way home from school. The Israel Defence Force sent out an exceptionally large force to search the West Bank for them. Whilst the IDF strives to provide their soldiers with everything they need anyone who has forced to eat army rations for more than a days know that ‘survival’ and ‘enjoyable’ are two very different things. An army meal in Israel is composed primarily of salads, tunas and pita. Eating it day after day can be depressing. Because of this a close friend of mine started up a collection to send treats to the thousands of soldiers who had been ripped from their university studies, jobs and social lives to find these boys. She originally hoped to raise $7,000 however on the strength of a trending hashtag and public awareness (the hashtag was #BringBackOurBoys) she ended up raising over $34,000 in only several days. This money went to purchasing a variety of food, drink and care packages to bring a smile to the faces of their soldiers.
It’s unfortunate to admit but the public is a fickle crowd. They float from one cause to the next and latch onto it before they find another one. A hashtag is lucky to last 2 weeks before it has faded into obscurity along with all the tens of thousands of other momentary causes. Your cause only has a few days to capitalise on the impact of ‘going viral’. If this is the case then you have to mobilise quickly to set up donation websites and ensure your backend infrastructure can handle a spike in visitors (you don’t want your website to crash). Unlike social media, goodwill money is tangible. Money can be used to genuinely help people. This is how hashtags can save lives.
All of this brings us back to the question of whether or not hashtag activism helps? The best way to think of a ‘liked’ Facebook page or a retweeted tweet is as a signature on a protest petition. It takes very little work to show your support and one day you may see that your petition was glanced at by a politician. This does very little to help anyone. However, if you can combine your viral status with a donation campaign? Then you can ride the free publicity wave for as long as possible, collecting as much money as you can, before people inevitably lose interest. So are hashtags helping? Yes, but only if you’re smart about it.