As Indians are turning to social media for news and views, there is also a spike in social issues such as gender bias, cyberbullying, and more. Hence, in order to make people more aware of responsible usage of social media, at the same time raising its credibility as an information channel, we, along with Facebook, conducted a Live-a-Thon. The #SocialForGood campaign was all about transforming people’s views about social media and using it responsibly. Co-creating and hosting India’s first Live-a-Thon was none other than global icon Priyanka Chopra, taking up the relevance and reach of the event up by notches.

Collating the best social media influencers and creating panels who spoke on perils and protection of social media, was a challenge, but we managed. The nearly four-hour live event which was fruitful in conveying the point garnered over 12 million views with an engagement of over 4 million through chat shows. Crores were raised for the NGOs involved as panels churned out meaningful discussions. By the end of it, Facebook was not only a social connecting platform but a socially relevant one too.

Facebook’s brief was simple, execute an event of a scale that awakens the whole digital media community and drives the message of using social media more responsibly. Thus we built our objective towards helping Facebook come across as a powerful social media platform that can influence the Indian youth to act on the growing social issues. Though India is growing at a faster pace, issues such as mental health, gender bias, cyber-bullying and many more are growing even more powerful. Fake news goes viral instantly and thus it is a great challenge to change the course and bring out in the open real news and issues. We wanted to change the way people looked up to social media, we wanted them to see it as a much reliable and responsible source of information and that’s what we aimed to achieve via Facebook Live-a-Thon.

Once the objective came in place, the next challenge was to conceptualise an event of a great potential. Social media has long been known for rhetoric that is rarely backed by any action. We suggested changing this by planning and executing an event that showed actual numbers and real-world repercussions. The client, being Facebook have their own clout in the digital space, and we made use of it. We had Priyanka Chopra and 30 other A-listers at the event. We created individual zones and activities designed to trigger social sharing. We also included the concept where users could pledge small and big amounts to causes they felt strongly about.

We knew that the fact that Priyanka Chopra was getting married in less than a month was something we could leverage, in order to create sufficient traction for the event. Thus, with all these composite ideas in mind, we set out to conceptualise the event with the objective of harnessing Facebook’s impact on the India youth. India’s first-ever Live-a-Thon was conducted by keeping the influencers at the core of the effort. We chalked out a plan to influence people through influencers by creating a chance to drive the opinion for the betterment of our community. This was #SocialForGood.

The event was hosted live for four straight hours with zero retakes. Priyanka Chopra interacted with the influencers of social media on critical causes.

1. A passionate opening address was followed by influencer and community interviews about specific causes in order to help the audience identify a story they wanted to support and champion.
2. Throughout the event, Priyanka Chopra, along with other panellists, urged viewers to interact via comments, and donate.
3. #AskPC was conducted where her fans asked relevant questions and discussed the pros and cons of various topics. Priyanka even made phone calls to six lucky donors.
4. A custom AR filter was created to engage the audience on a larger scale, wherein they were encouraged to take the #SocialForGood pledge and post the same as stories on their social media handles.
5. We broke down the event into five segments, based on the topics discussed:
   1. Mental Health Awareness – This one focused on taking the stigma of discussing mental health away. Here, donations were raised for Samaritans Mumbai, which strives to uplift those who are suicidal and severely depressed.
   2. Women Entrepreneurs – This one focused on women entrepreneurs who used social media to drive their business. Donations were raised for De’haat Foundation, which strive to help rural women who wish to be financially independent through their own businesses.
   3. Cyber bullying – Trolling, hate comments and other things were discussed and brought to light here. Donations were raised for Aarambh India, which works towards a safe internet environment.
   4. Social- First Generation – The panel spoke on how the new generation can use social media to build sustainable careers, and inspire in the process. Donations were raised for Dharma Life, which works to uplift rural single mothers.
   5. Do Your Bit –  One of the most interesting part of the event, which brought on board real life examples who made a change through social media, such as Afroz Shah, a lawyer who started Mumbai beach clean-up drives, Karisma Mehta, founder of Humans of Bombay, and more.

We ensured the best of technology for a glitch-free execution of the event. The message was clear that average Indians can come together to make a difference within the community.

The action and power packed four-hour live session turned out to be a super successful event. People from not just within the country but abroad as well participated online.

1. Apart from Priyanka Chopra more than 30 celebrities and influencers such as Ayushmann Khurrana and Richa Chadda came on-board to make social media a better place. This drove millions of people to come online, pledge #SocialForGood, and even donate for the causes.
2. The live event garnered more than 12 million views and four million engagements in total on Instagram and Facebook.
3. More than 15,000 unique donations were raised during the event, with NGOs tapping ‘one donation per second’.
4. The coverage, digital and print, turned out great as over 50 channels gave space to this event which turned out to be a ground-breaking one.

#SocialForGood began trending on all platforms at the end of Live-a-Thon, becoming a trigger for people to open up their hearts and wallets. In the meantime, Facebook became more than just a social media platform; it became a champion of change everyone wanted to bring about. Facebook became the first to pull off the social media Live-a-Thon, and we certainly hope not the last. The vision for the future is that all the media platforms use their influence to bring about real change in the communities, and we certainly took a ground-breaking step towards it with this event.