I am always amazed at the power social media can have in charity. Why? Because most people truly want to do something good but don’t know how, social media makes it easy for them.

An easy case study is going on right now. Pizza hut sent out the following tweet earlier today:

@pizzahut : We will donate 4 meals 2 World Hunger Relief 4 each person who RTs this: http://ow.ly/qWn8 #pizzahut #charitytuesday

In just a few hours several thousand retweets came in, meaning the donation from Pizza Hut to the World Hunger Relief could be astronomical. In fact #charitytuesday is now a trending topic on twitter. Because of this World Hunger Relief will likely receive one of their largest donations, all thanks to the power of social media. Pizza Hut also has received a large branding boost, and essentially free marketing, with the exception of the donation that they will now have to make.

Of course this presents an interesting situation in that when you tap into social media in this, there is no way to anticipate how large of a response you will get. Always make sure if you offer it that you are able to back it up, or you will quickly find yourself on the negative side of social media.