When we help our clients with their social media strategies, we focus on how to use the right tools, at the right time, to meet our objectives. The goal is to effectively use social media (and other interactive communications) for marketing/business purposes.

This newsletter article isn’t about that.

This article is a personal case study of how John Golden (my business partner and husband) and I used CaringBridge, Facebook, and Twitter to communicate with family and friends about the sudden and tragic loss of our son, Julian Golden.

Social media (and interactive communications tools) enabled us to communicate to a huge number of people without the pain of repeating the story over and over. And ultimately, these same tools preserve Julian’s memory and continue to build his legacy through the Children’s Cancer Research Fund in memory of Julian – valued at $18,200 as of 4/1/11. Here’s how…

CaringBridge

CaringBridge has been an EatonGolden client since 2007. And even before we had a business relationship with them, we admired how this non-profit organization uses interactive communication tools to support families who are experiencing a significant health crisis. When communicating with a specific audience to meet a specific objective, specialized social media tools like CaringBridge are critical.

Our most recent work with CaringBridge was assisting them with the user experience of registering and creating a new CaringBridge site. We never imagined – never wanted – to have a reason to be an actual user.

But our lives changed forever on February 16, 2011 when our son was diagnosed with Leukemia. Less than two weeks after our client launched their updated site creation process, I found myself an actual user. I created Julian’s CaringBridge site, and made my first post.

From 2/17/11 through 3/4/11, I made at least one post a day. Not only was it therapeutic for me to write those words, it enabled our friends and family to stay up-to-date on the status of our situation while sparing us the pain and energy of repeating the information over and over.

There was an increasing number of requests from family and friends asking, “What can we do?”

So on 2/23/11, we set up a Children’s Cancer Research Fund in his name and requested donations via CaringBridge.

For 15 days, CaringBridge was my journal and my lifeline. The growing number of messages on Julian’s CaringBridge Guestbook page provided an amazing amount of support and comfort during the hardest experience of our lives.

The hardest and longest CaringBridge post was on 3/4/11, the day after Julian got an infection, went into septic shock, and lost his brief but brave battle with Leukemia. I made my final post on 3/13/11, the day after Julian’s Celebration of Life.

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