African Chief Uses Twitter to Bring Community Together

It has already been stated time and time again how socially powerful the micro-blogging site Twitter can be in the non-virtual world, and how important it must be to all SEO campaigns. Here's another inspiring story from the Associated Press on how Twitter is being utilized to impact a community in a positive way.

In Kenya, the administrative chief of a village has been using Twitter to communicate with the members of his community, and to definitely do more than share his various thoughts throughout a day. Chief Francis Kariuki, through his Twitter handle @Chiefkariuki, spreads crime and emergency alerts, news, and more to his audience of 28,000 residents in the area around and including his village, Lanet Umoja, which is located 160 miles west of Kenya's capital of Nairobi.

Through his tweets, Chief Kariuki manages to bring community members together to fight or help when emergencies and dire situations arise. For example, when the chief received news of several burglars robbing a school teacher's home, he tweeted for village residents to gather outside the home, and frighten the thieves away. Another instance is when an elderly man fell into a latrine pit, Chief Kariuki tweeted for everyone to come help pull the man out – and they did.

Chief Kariuki says that, since he started tweeting about events, the crime rate in Lanet Umoga has diminished significantly. Whereas news of break-ins used to come on a daily basis, reports of such activity have ceased in the past few weeks. This is most likely due to tweets the chief sends about every theft or crime that takes place, right when it occurs. This includes one earlier this year about a stolen cow, which resulted in the cow being abandoned by its abductors and found hours later tied to a pole.

Mashable also reported on this story, noting how social media has managed to become an important presence in all parts of the world, and to all types of people. Seeing how much power and wide reach Twitter has provides only further proof of how integral it should be to any business's SEO campaign.