Sunday, July 1, 2012

Using Twitter to Adopt a Baby

Twitterizing the adoption search -- what could be better? 'Cause 140 characters can convey the soul of a prospective adoptive parent:
After almost three years of waiting to adopt a baby, a Michigan couple has turned to Twitter to get their profile across.

Rick and EriKa Jones have been on a small local adoption agency’s waiting list for more than two years. Unlike larger adoption agencies, their Berkeley-based organization doesn’t have the financial means to extensively market their clients. Nor do Rick and Erika have the money to go through a larger adoption agency.

Before turning to Twitter, Rick says they followed the agency’s suggestions to use fliers, newspaper ads, business cards and Facebook. None of those “traditional methods” got their case any traction.
That’s when Rick decided to turn to Twitter, asking celebrities and members of the media with large followings for retweets of the couple’s adoption profile, from his handle @rjman48.

“Newspaper articles and flyers can never do what Twitter can do,” Rick told Mashable. “Twitter’s a way to reach thousands in a really quick way and get people to read our profile and help us adopt and start a family.”

1 comment:

Adri Ramirez said...

I bet this couple is well-meaning but I certainly wish people would stop treating children like a commodity. We should be finding families for children, not children for families. Thanks for this link!