ABC of OCC - S

S is for Social Media. "Social Media? Why on earth would Operation Christmas Child want to get involved in Social Media?" Since my move to the communications department of Samaritan's Purse, I am a person who is fairly new to the concept of social networking. However, in the brief time I have been involved - I have to admit I am a convert.

Of course, I am aware that if you are reading this you are already someone who at least got a passing interest in using this platform for communication. I hope therefore that you can help us further by becoming part of our Social network community and maybe becoming an advocate for it. We have already been gaining great wins using Facebook, Twitter and You Tube which has resulted in real growth for the OCC campaign to new audiences - both in terms of general support and also real practical help from new volunteers.

We have already over 28,254 fans on the OCC UK Facebook page and every day there are many posts telling us about the ways that people are getting involved and messages of support. e.g.

Dawn Ellingham Martin Checked through our stuff and on track to make over 30 boxes. God is good x 

Pauline Palmer My boxes are all done except for the Christmas wrapping paper. I won't be chasing around to finish them this year!

Patricia Ayton Smith I've being doing a shoebox for about 6 years, and I've always done a boy's shoebox, probably because my only child is a boy, now aged nearly 10. This year, i've decided to do a girl's shoexbox, and today, i've bought some really lovely girlie things! I haven't finished yet, got some more shopping to do........

They are also amazing at finding bargains - which they share with each other:

Mandy Price I bought loads if Olympic merchandise for boxes when they were selling it cheap. Alex the lion toy was 50p in Tesco a few weeks ago too!

In addition some really great discussions take place and lots of issues are dealt with by our regular contributors. This enables us to 'steer' people in the right direction for diverse subjects such as the supply of shoeboxes, contents, size of boxes.

Meanwhile on Twitter, we have nearly 1,000 followers and find its a great way to share messages quickly about the progress of the campaign and to share photos like this one (above). We also have blogs - some specifically about OCC - like the one from Guildford and some from staunch supporters and like our Puppet Lady and this one from the attic of course!

So please, encourage others to support us this way - 'share' on Face Book rather than just 'like' and retweet rather than just open the link and read and it would be great if you could share this blog too! There are lots of who have still yet to know about OCC - so why not be a part of telling someone about it today? After all, it is just a few clicks away....