Organic Processing Vo1.6 #6 - November/December 2009

This article will not reiterate the reams of statistics that show how internet-based so- cial media tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube—not to mention hun- dreds of thousands of blogs—are changing communications. We’ve witnessed their power to affect change first-hand. Look no further than President Obama’s unprecedented use of social media to engage voters before and after his election. His Twitter followers alone surpass 2 mil- lion people and his YouTube Channel now has more than 22 million views. This same power of social media is also al- ready being used to drive the organic movement. When a British study that called into question the value of or- ganic came out this past summer, Nature’s Path was able to use so- cial media to immediately start set- ting the story straight. The company gathered information from the Ro- dale Institute and the Organic Center and within 24 hours created a video rebuttal of the study, posted it on NaturesPath.com, YouTube and Facebook, and then used Twitter to drive followers and bloggers to the video. Because of this social media effort several na- tional TV stations picked up the story, as well as countless blogs including The Huffington Post. Nature’s Path’s fol- lowing on Twitter and Facebook also grew exponentially.