Anyone who has been following the Ice Bucket Challenge campaign knows that social media has become an integral part of fundraising events and campaigns. Without question, social media creates heaps of buzz for campaigns and makes events a lot more interactive and fun.

But it can be pretty hit and miss. The experience can be chaotic and fragmented, and it’s very difficult for participants to get an overview of the many participant/observer conversations that are occurring simultaneously from moment to moment.

Some people post to Facebook, others to Twitter or Instagram. Some people use a hashtag, some don’t, and often the same event or campaign will have more than one hashtag going at the same time. And if people are posting photos, it can be difficult and time-consuming to collate the photos for sharing and displaying them.

Our good friends at Mogul have come up with a great new solution called Strea.ma (Mogul are the guys who look after The Agitator website for us).

Matt Miller from Mogul describes Strea.ma as “a new cloud-based web application that aggregates and displays social media updates on a given event or campaign from the world’s favorite social networking sites.”

We call it a Twitter wall on steroids!

Using Strea.ma, you can create your own personal real-time social media display on anything from a projector to a big screen, on your computer, or even on your smartphone. When you’re using Strea.ma, everyone can see your event or campaign’s stream of social media content unfolding in real-time. That means fast — almost instant — updates.

And when people see a stream of social updates on Strea.ma, they are much more motivated to join the conversation around your cause, share a thought, or upload a ‘selfie’. So your cause gets a lot more activity on the social networks, more visibility, more engagement, more followers,  and … more donations. You get the picture.

Because it’s web-based, you can use Strea.ma wherever and whenever you want:

• Embed your stream on your campaign or event website.
• Put your stream on a giant screen at your event.
• Put your stream on a screen in your office.

So imagine, you’re at the next big fundraising conference, sipping a coffee in the hospitality area (or something else in the bar), and up on a constantly-changing giant screen on the wall the messages and photos are flowing …

• “Craver’s ‘Retention Fundraising’ seminar was fabulous. Overflow repeat scheduled for 10am tomorrow.”
• “Isn’t Agitator Tom cuter in person?!”
• “Blackbaud open bar next door, now.”

Or at your marathon fundraising event: “Anonymous donor matching the pledges of next 20 finishers.” And “Here’s Kevin finishing 121st.”

In the short time since it was launched, nonprofits, marketing agencies, and event organizers in the US and around the world have started using Strea.ma and are loving it, but don’t just take our word for it — check out the testimonials from satisfied customers on the Strea.ma website.

If you want to try out Strea.ma, there’s a free 7-day trial and if you like what you see, until Christmas they’re offering a 50% discount just for Agitator readers. That’s even better than their usual nonprofit pricing.

So if you want to supercharge the social media around your event or campaign, visit Strea.ma – and tell ’em Roger and Tom sent you!

Roger and Tom