Social media has often been praised for its ability to reach millions of individuals, no matter how powerful, or unknown, a user is. Some musicians like Justin Bieber and Lana Del Rey got their start thanks to YouTube, and Facebook and Twitter have helped businesses and social causes communicate to many individuals in an effective and cost-efficient way. One non-profit discovered this lesson when employees used a photo on an organization’s Facebook page to convince their boss to invest in an outdoor movie screen.
Three staff members of Schenectady Jewish Community Center in upstate New York have been asking their boss, the executive director of the JCC, to purchase an outdoor movie screen for the center’s summer camp. Currently, the center only has a television to watch movies. As the Times Union explains, executive director Mark Weintraub “haphazardly” told the staffers if a photo of three holding a sign reading “our boss said if this picture gets 1,000,000 likes our summer camp can get an outdoor movie screen” received a million likes on Facebook, he would purchase the large movie screen.
Now, it seems, the joke is on Weintraub – the picture has received more than 302,000 likes from users all over the world, including Switzerland and the Middle East. Many of those who have liked the photo have little or not connection to the city, instead giving reasons such as “I am liking this because I think the name Schenectady is funny.”
Whether or not the photo can make it to one million still has yet to be seen, but the goal appears reachable at the current rate. In the past week and a half, the photo has been shared more than 16,000 times. If all goes as the staffers hope, the Schenectady JCC may find themselves with an outdoor movie screen this summer.