Mr. Splashy Pants Becomes Social Media Hit

You never know what's going to go viral. Take, for instance, Mister Splashy Pants, a humpback whale that Greenpeace made its poster beast to head off whaling in Japan.

Alexis Ohanian shares the fun -- and effective -- tale of the swimming social media sensation in a new TED video, "How to Make a Splash in Social Media." In four minutes, Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, shows how groups can leverage social media to make social change.

As he notes, an effective social media campaign can level the playing field when you don't have a budget -- because it often costs nothing. To make that happen, however, he reminds us that you have to be genuine and you have to be open to losing control of the message.

"It's OK to lose control," he notes. At the same time, "It's OK to take ourselves a little less seriously." That's for sure...

And if you like this video, here's a few other posts to check out:

• Seth Godin on standing out, being remarkable
• LBCC makes multimedia fun

-rp-