Who Really Won the Twitter Wars? Families in Africa

@Twitter + Action = Anti-Malaria Nets 4 African Families; Change Lives in < 140 Characters

New York, NEW YORK - Thousands of mosquito nets are on their way to families in Africa to protect against the deadly bite of a malarial mosquito, thanks to individuals and celebrities who galvanized the micro-blogging and social networking site, Twitter, for World Malaria Day in April.

To help raise awareness, Ashton Kutcher rallied his Twitter army to take action and tweet about malaria and Malaria No More in April, pledging to donate 10,000 mosquito nets if he beat CNN to one million Twitter followers. The result? Millions of people learned about malaria and what they could do to end deaths from this preventable and treatable disease thanks to Twitter and traditional media that tracked the race online, in print and on television, including on Oprah and Larry King Live. And due to generous donations from people across the globe, more than 75,000 mosquito nets will be sent to families in Africa—enough to protect 150,000 people from malaria.

Individuals all over the world took action, mobilizing the grassroots sector in support of the malaria community's goal to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015. Twitter launched a flurry of action on and around World Malaria Day, including:

• Awareness about malaria spread exponentially on Twitter as millions of Twitterers learned about malaria directly from Ashton and millions more spread the world by re-tweeting
• A surge of traffic to MalariaNoMore.org, generating more visitors in April than the previous 12 months combined by individuals learning about the disease and the global effort
• A 10,000% increase in @malarianomore followers on Twitter to keep informed of progress
• Individual mosquito net donations from people in 42 countries, moved to do their part in the global effort to end deaths
• An outpouring of support on the Malaria No More petition to President Obama and Congress to urge support of malaria control funding
• A mass awareness effort on Twitter that made "World Malaria Day" a Top 10 Most-Tweeted phrase on April 25
• Millions of media impressions, bringing a message of malaria awareness to a broad audience

"It's no secret that grassroots involvement is a crucial element of any successful social change movement, but the Ashton/CNN Twitter race took mass participation to a whole new level,
said Scott Case, CEO of Malaria No More. "Every one of Ashton's followers is part of a global movement to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015—and they have helped make impact far beyond the reach of the tweet deck."

In addition to the unprecedented use of a new social media tool to shine a spotlight on a global disease, celebrities including Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Oprah Winfrey, Ryan Seacrest and others pledged mosquito net donations to Malaria No More. CNN, gracious in defeat, also pledged mosquito nets to fight malaria in Africa. Some of the best Tweets included:

• Most Re-Tweeted Message—Every 45 seconds a child dies from Malaria. Nets save lives. Support World Malaria Day = www.malarianomore.org.
• Ashton Kutcher—I'm calling to have a check made out for $100000 to the Malaria No More Fund
• Oprahcount me in for 20 thousand nets.
• Ryan Seacrest—just spoke to larry king, @CNNbrk is donating 10k mosquito nets. i will too.
• Demi Moore—Many of you have been asking so here is the info on Malaria- www.malarianomore.org and you can follow @malarianomore
• Unknown Twitterer—Some people ask why malaria is so important: It kills a child every 30 secs. It that doesn't fire you up for action, check your pulse.

In addition, Sean Combs, Mark Wahlberg and Digg founder Kevin Rose were among the dozens of influencers who sent out their own Tweets to raise awareness on World Malaria Day. Malaria No More is working to build on this new awareness and expand its social networks to engage an even broader audience on the web.

Thanks to Ashton, CNN, Twitter and the millions of individuals who became advocates for malaria control efforts, the race to end malaria deaths just got a new burst of speed.