
Zappos.com decided to help provide aid to those in Haiti once the news of earthquake hit, but we weren't quite sure how we wanted to go about it. Of course donating a large chunk of money would be the obvious way to provide aid, but we also wanted to raise awareness to our customers and to point them in the right direction, thus we provided a link on our Zappos.com and 6pm.com sites to the American Red Cross Donation page.
But of course we weren't going to let our customers do all the work, and as soon as Zappos' CEO, Tony Hsieh, saw Alyssa Milano's twitter challenge, that was it. Her twitter challenge said this: "*Tweet Challenge* I just donated $50,000 to UNICEF for #Haiti relief. Which corporation will match my donation?" So Zappos matched her donation of $50,000 along with a few other companies and Alyssa's twitter challenge managed to raise $300K thus far and 100% of every donation will go directly to supplies that include tarpaulins, water-purification tablets, oral rehydration salts, family water kits, medical supplies, medical kits, food, shelter, and protection.
Now this my friends is the true power of twitter.