The Power of Social Media
This story is an amazing tale of how the power of social media can benefit everyone. We have all seen viral posts on Facebook of silly videos, and it is understandable since laughter truly is the best medicine…but when something important to an individual is lost, and another person finds it, and is able to return that item in less than 24 hours, that is 21st Century powerful!
It all started last week as I was preparing to mow the grass in my yard. My business office is in the back of my home, and I try to keep it tidy as possible in case a customer comes by to visit. My worker and I came by to do some paperwork for a recent job, and decided to mow the grass and clean up in front of the office. There seems to be a lot of beer cans and bottles thrown on the side of the road, on both sides of the road. We live off of Savannah Hwy near Ravenel, SC. We try to clean it once a week. In the process of cleaning, we found an almost perfectly intact iPad in a very tattered and torn case. Having several myself, I realized that the info contained could be very important and so I called up my Website guy, Robert Velarde for some advice on how to find out who owned it. We ended up trying to charge it, but it did not respond. We then put the device in a big bag of white rice and there is sat for almost a week. We then took it out, charged it, and just like magic, the screen came alive!
What we found was a screen picture of a gentleman and a lady eating at a local Mexican Restaurant called Maria’s…I recognized the background of the picture. On the advice of Robert Velarde of Twif Marketing, I took a picture of the screen with my iPad and posted it on my personal Facebook page. I then left my office for “Meet the Teachers” night at Allegro Charter School where my oldest son will be attending this year. While I was in that meeting my FB notifications started going crazy…time and time again my post was shared. Facebook must have realized my intention and around 8 pm sent me a message telling me that my privacy settings were too strict and nobody was seeing the post. With the help of my wife, Natalya Anderson, a local real estate agent and technology wiz, we reset my privacy for that post to public. Now everyone could see it!
The above was the original post that went viral. My son asked to shoot a video of the owner receiving the iPad, and so, work clothes and all, we shot a video in front of my John Deere Drill Rig Tractor.
Video Of Rob Byrd receiving his lost iPad
The reward for this was the realization that people can work together for the common good! The world is smaller than you think, and one person can make a difference! It was a great lesson for my kids to end their summer!