Who's with me?

Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... For tonight, we dine in hell!

Social media has the capacity to be the great leveller.

There are many stories of heroic Davids defeating mighty Goliaths, although not quite cutting off their heads, through the use of connections made possible by services such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc. But a recent campaign from eBay for Charity has left me feeling that maybe the Goliaths need to take some moral responsibility and stop fighting altogether.

“The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed.” – King Leonidas

eBay are offering the charity with the most votes a £5000 cash prize, a not inconsiderable sum. But to the likes of the current leader (Cancer Research UK) is it really all that much? Cancer Research has an annual turnover of nearly £500 million pounds and employs well over 4,000 people. Is it really fair for them to win this as well?

I’m not just aiming this at the likes of Cancer Research, but at all of the huge charities with multi-million pound advertising budgets. Haven’t you already got enough muscle to raise funds? I’m certainly not suggesting that these large charities shouldn’t be part of the social media revolution, but that there are some battles that are best left unfought.

The Pride of Britain Award-winning national children’s charity Bullying UK is facing closure for the sake of £50,000. eBay’s top prize would make up 10% of that figure, what percentage would it make of larger organisations yearly budgets?

I have no connection with Bullying UK, other than I consider @JohnCarnell (it’s founder and CEO) a good Twitter friend. But if you’d like to help this charity continue it’s excellent work, please visit http://www.justgiving.com/savebullyinguk

Social media can offer everyone the chance to connect and converse with their supporters, but it can also offer those with smaller voices the chance to be heard. If the Goliaths mighty Vuvuzelas continue to drown out the little guys chants, I fear our brave new social world will become just like the old one.