From the food, to the shopping, to the beautiful scenery, San Francisco has always been one of my favorite cities! Back in 2013 the city teamed up with Make-A-Wish Foundation to help fulfill the dream of a little boy battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Miles Scott’s wish was to become Batman. With the help of thousands of volunteers, city officials, businesses, and supporters San Francisco was turned into “Gotham City” – the fictional home city of Batman.
It wasn’t long before the campaign went viral using the hashtag #SFBatkid. This campaign quickly became one of the largest and most elaborate Make-A-Wish projects ever staged. All of San Francisco found themselves taking part in the heartwarming adventure. Thousands of people took the time out of their busy routine to volunteer and take part in the emotional quest to make the boy’s dream come true, including the mayor himself. Even more people got involved online sending their encouragement via tweets, Instagram photos, and Facebook updates. President Obama notably congratulated Miles via his first ever Vine video, saying: “Way to go, Miles. Way to save Gotham!” It wasn’t long before this young boy’s wish gained worldwide attention. This campaign is a perfect example of how social media marketing can bring the community together to accomplish a wonderful cause.
Not only did this campaign achieve the wish of a deserving young boy, it also generated a great deal of publicity for the Make-A-Foundation. Make-A-Wish foundation reported that they saw an increase in offers of help across all areas including donations, volunteers, referrals, and other services. This campaign goes to show that social media can also play a large role in increasing brand awareness for non-profit organizations. It is estimated that this campaign generated an estimated 1.7 billion social impressions.
To read more about this story or to make a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation visit the link below:
http://sf.wish.org/wishes/wish-stories/i-wish-to-be/wish-to-be-batkid
nicolesfavoritethings 
What a wonderful organization that has spread from the United States where it originated to across Canada making wishes come true to medically fragile children. This was the coolest event and also showed how a community came together to grant this child his wish.
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Yes I agree! This story was able to gain traction and go viral in short amount of time. The great thing about it is that it was able to inspire and give courage to others just like Miles.
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I think stories that are inspirational will always get attention, its key that the concept of make a wish is not lost in the story which did not happen here
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Love, love, LOVE Batkid, I saw clips from the day on youtube, it’s amazing how the community came together and made the little boys dream come true
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pretty amazing, cool to see a whole city come together.
Thanks for sharing the story!
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In today’s day and age, it’s nice to see a heart warming story that was made possible by social media.
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This would have never been possible without social media. This is well written and very informative. Thanks for sharing!
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Heart warming
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A great team effort to make this happen resulting from the nice gestures of a huge number of people. As mentioned, the whole situation is great PR for Make-A-Wish Foundation with a big help from social media. Also, the S/O from President Obama is big!
PS:
San Fransisco is also one of the few cities I’ve been to outside of Canada and from what I remember, I also liked it alot!!
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Another great post! Your blog is full of interesting information and is very well written. Keep up the great work!
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