Mothers Against Drunk Driving has launched a new campaign aimed at people who are active on social media.
The new initiative, dubbed "#getmadd", launched Wednesday and hopes to spread awareness through Twitter and Facebook by using a simple hashtag.
MADD wants the phrase "Drive Sober" to hit peak awareness levels during prom season in an attempt to prevent impaired driving.
"With prom season coming up, we thought it was a great time to launch this campaign," says Courtney Courtnage, MADD's marketing and promotions volunteer. "Social Media has a big influence, especially with the younger targets, so by reaching them while they're going out and enjoying prom and end of the year parties, we can hopefully reduce the number of impaired driving accidents."
Courtnage says they wanted to incorporate a hashtag because it is a great way to keep a steady flow of content.
"Hashtags are really useful because they allow people to post and create a steady stream of content around one particular idea, then by searching that hashtag they can see everything related to it, so it really keeps everything connected," says Courtnage
In order to get the word out, MADD encourages twitter users to spread #getmadd.
**This story was written by Alec Ross, a student in the Broadcast Journalism program at Fanshawe College. Alec is currently performing an internship with BlackburnNews.com