VideoDonor Leverages the Facebook Effect to Boost Organ Donation Rates

Online, September 3, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Now, well over a year on, we have our first real indication of how effective the Facebook effect nudge was. In a paper in the American Journal of Transplantation titled "Social Media and Organ Donor Registration: The Facebook Effect", researchers have found that on the first day of the new organ donor initiative, there were 13,054 online registrations to become a donor in the US. That's 21 times as many as there are in a normal day; in one state, Georgia, the increase was well over a hundred times the norm.

The success of leveraging social networks to increase awareness for organ donation appears to be catching on in the UK with the launch of a organ donation video sharing site VideoDonor. People have referred to the site as the YouTube Alternative for Organ Donation Videos.

The site enables users to share their Organ Donation Stories online. Its owner hopes that this will help up the percentage of possible lives saved. The site incorporates the popular Facebook Comments plugin that allows users who have signed up to a organ donation register using Facebook to auto login to the site and upload video clips and comment on 1000s of uploaded organ donation videos.

Organ and blood donation are options that many people think about but few seem to act upon. The benefits are undeniable but still the problem rarely seems to be acknowledged until we need it ourselves or for the sake of someone close to us.

It is also important to let friends and relatives know and naturally a social video sharing network like VideoDonor or Facebook are naturally good platforms for this.

In all cases consent needs to be confirmed, Silicon Republic says that for each time someone commits, up to nine lives can be saved.

Let's hope that VideoDonor sees similar successes as Facebook as it spreads globally.

To join the social media campaign, visit VideoDonor and login using Facebook connect.