ImpactWayv and an Empowering Ambassador Program Further Spotlight Youth Trending Toward Social Good
By Linda Smith
Social Media can be an incredibly powerful tool. It can entertain, inform and bring together individuals from varying walks of life and geographies. If harnessed properly, it can showcase the best of humanity.
However, these benefits can be often overshadowed by the misinformation epidemic plaguing the likes of Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. These channels sometimes harbor the potential to breed contempt and downright hatred, foment division and lead to some of the less ethical elements of human behavior.
This can be particularly tough on adolescents, millennials and the Gen-Z community. Recent studies have shown that many place a high value on social media “likes”, sometimes above and thus to the detriment of their own self-worth, or even their health.
One organization gets this, however, and thinks they have a solution.
Dan Rubino, George Dolatly and Benji Bernstein co-founded ImpactWayv, a social media platform focused on social impact. The platform highlights the purpose-driven work, interests and activities of nonprofits, businesses, and individuals, creating an open forum to raise and engage in social issues, and showcase the many ways in which so many are working to create a better world.
ImpactWayv offers a way to cut through the traffic and white noise of social media interactivity, allowing us all to direct our attention toward something positive and more meaningful. “As the first purpose-built platform focused on social impact, we are trying to eliminate some of the more toxic aspects of social media. That starts with the concept of ‘Impacts’ instead of ‘likes’”, a spokesperson told me.
“‘Impacts’ are our proprietary engagement metric. The whole idea behind ImpactWayv is to actually quantify—in a cumulative and fun way—how users are effectively spreading awareness and having a positive ripple effect across the different causes (or Wayvs), they care about.”
Individuals earn Impacts each time they spread awareness to others through the platform, and when they inspire others to do so as well. The interactive, gamified nature of the platform shifts the user’s mindset toward: “How can I create a positive impact in my digital community and beyond, and on the causes that I care about, with my next post?
How can I inspire and influence others to take action? How can my next post empower my peers to have a positive impact on others and make a difference in the world?”
In higher education, effective leveraging of the metrics highlighted by ImpactWayv can offer admissions offices a birds-eye view of talent matched with goodwill, cutting through an often convoluted application process.
ImpactWayv believes they are creating a streamlined metric that will play a major role in the school admission process, as well as in employee recruitment.
When it comes to college or job applications, there’s no singular method of genuinely understanding or measuring character and social conscience. So what are the decision-makers — admissions officers and recruiters — to do? They could guess or use their ‘gut’ feeling, as imprecise as that may be. Perhaps they could peruse Facebook and other social media channels, but those are cluttered with superficial posts and irrelevant information.
ImpactWayv provides another way.
“We have a ready-made tool where decision-makers can look at one platform and get right at the heart of what a prospective student is about and how they are contributing to society. What is their social impact? What have they been doing, and for how long? What do they hope to do? And what does that say about their values? All these questions can be answered through a direct link to a person’s social involvement. ImpactWayv provides that link.”
As awareness grows about the ImpactWayv platform, there is enormous potential on all sides of the selection process. Admissions staff and job recruiters now have the opportunity to seriously consider the platform’s “Impacts” when assessing an individual’s authentic commitment to social good. On the other side, college and career counselors can encourage students to create a profile on ImpactWayv as a fun and interactive way to communicate the depth and breadth of their social good interests and achievements.
And the evaluation process works both ways. College applicants and job seekers can also vet universities and companies when deciding where to apply by considering the level of student body social engagement, as well as the corporate social responsibility of prospective employers, as reflected in these entities’ ImpactWayv profiles. So it is also to the advantage of universities and companies to highlight their social good efforts and positions on the ImpactWayv platform.
ImpactWayv thus provides a one-stop reference point for applicants and institutions alike.
And for the most socially-conscious young leaders, ImpactWayv just launched its Ambassador Program. It is a unique opportunity for students and young professionals who have a passion for social good to inspire like-minded individuals to make ImpactWayv their premier social media platform.
“Our Ambassadors will take a leading role among their peers to show the creative and fun ways the platform can be used to highlight the causes they care about and their activities in supporting those causes — for instance, through our newly launched photo and video capabilities — and to engage with others in making the world a better place.”
In addition, ImpactWayv Ambassadors will have the ability to influence the development of the platform via early testing of new features and focus groups. These skills, along with those they will build through engagement with other social impact thought leaders, businesses, nonprofits, do-ers and shakers will provide a unique highlight for Ambassadors to showcase on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles.
The message from ImpactWayv is that when we use the power of social networking to come together for the greater good, we can not only showcase, but also truly galvanize, the best in humanity to achieve greater collective impact.