Quakebook harnesses the good will of social media

For those who still think Twitter is for teenagers and geeks, Quakebook is a lesson in its potential global value.
A Brit in Japan – known online as ‘our man in Abiko’ - came up with the idea of creating ‘Quakebook’ – a collection of contributions from anyone who had been involved in any way in the earthquake in Japan, subsequent tsunami and the aftermath. It started with a tweet which was fleshed out with a blog post.
His aim was to self publish a biographical book of the event – with all proceeds going to Japan Red Cross – in days.
His Quakebook hashtag was quickly adopted, his tweet retweeted and links to his blog tweeted round the globe. He was inundated with responses. And not just from those submitting accounts, but with offers of help.
Sub editors, designers, bloggers and publishers were keen to get involved in the process.
‘Our man’ kept everyone updated via the Twitter hashtag. Yoko Ono endorsed the book and other celebrities with a high Twitter profile were lobbied to promote it. A Facebook page and a YouTube channel were also created enabling Quakebook to be promoted exclusively through social media.
A week after the idea was launched, a digital version of the book was set to be produced with Amazon approached to sell it. The hope of ‘Our man’ was to also publish a hard copy version – for those who still like to see and feel what they’re reading!
Twitter is no longer just about sharing 140 characters of meaningless personal ‘news’. It’s about engaging with a global audience - a rallying cry that can be heard worldwide. And a call to action which it is difficult to ignore.

Suzanne Ostler
Account executive