Poppy appeal: the social opportunity

The poppy appeal has swung into action this week with even more opportunities to get involved and show your support. While there's huge amounts of content online it does strike me that it's the same supporters seeking out this online content who support it tirelessly offline.

There's nothing wrong with that, they are a great (and significant) group of influencers, but the poppy is such a symbolic emblem with widespread relevance to all, that it feels like a great opportunity to reach out to a younger audience through social media, rather than relying on existing supporters to visit the brand site. Here's an example we produced for Beatbullying that took the message to people rather than expecting them to come and find it on the charity's dotcom site. In this instance we had to raise awareness in order to try and affect Governemnt policy.

So in regard to the Poppy appeal, why for instance can't i donate through Facebook to recieve a virtual poppy on my face book profile for the next 11 days? And in so doing alert my network to the fact that i'm wearing my poppy?

I found this twitterpoppy app built by a 3rd party that does just that on Twitter. Hopefully it gains enough traction this year to be delivered in an official capacity next year and hopefully monetised to ensure that the Royal British Legion can continue to offer support to all of those that need it.