So you’ve got 10,000 Twitter followers. Your Facebook page is blowing up. You have a huge following and you are feeling pretty good about yourself. You have built up a great community and you have spread your message, but you are also sitting on the power to create some real positive change.

I am inspired by Mashable’s latest effort, Summer of Social Good. They have made it quick and easy to donate to some great organizations and they have harnessed the power of their influence to encourage their readers to do some good.

Honestly, this is something we should all be doing as marketers in the social media realm. You may not have the cash on hand to donate, but you can easily use your influence to inspire some of your followers to donate their time and money.

I thought up a few quick and simple ideas on how any business can do some good through social media:

1) Run contests that encourage people to volunteer. (ex: We are giving away a Macbook Pro. The first person to volunteer 30 hours at the Denver Rescue Mission gets the prize.) Twitter contests are getting pretty popular. If your followers are willing to re-tweet a message or leave their house for a scavenger hunt, certainly you can get them to volunteer for a nice prize.

2) Get involved with sites like http://www.snapimpact.org orhttp://www.globalgiving.com and find something that inspires you. Encourage your online communities to go and check out their content and possibly donate to a cause.

3) Build relationships with local non profits in your area (only a google search away). You can help them by simply tweeting a link to their site every day, or giving them space on your wicked cool Twitter background.

Your followers are donating their time to read your updates, interact with you, and support your efforts. It is just as simple to donate some time to do some good in the world.

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