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ATLANTA 2009/09/30 -To build awareness and activism around its recently launched “more birthdays” movement, the American Cancer Society, the Official Sponsor of Birthdays today announced the formation of the American Cancer Society Blogger Advisory Council. The Council members will work with the Society to determine how best to use social media to galvanize the movement for more birthdays in the virtual world by encouraging women to take an active role in fighting cancer. The Society’s movement for more birthdays seeks to save lives from cancer by helping people stay well, helping people get well, by finding cures and fighting back against the disease.
“The American Cancer Society’s success in fund- and awareness-raising began in 1936 with a group called the Women’s Field Army. It was a legion of volunteers whose sole purpose was to wage war on cancer,” said the Society’s Chief Mission Officer Terry Music. “We’re hoping our blogger council can help us harness the powerful network of women in social media to ignite this same passionate activism in the virtual world.”
The American Cancer Society Blogger Advisory Council members include eight well-known women bloggers with an interest in philanthropy, health and cancer issues:
“It’s a wonderful message—and you don’t have to be a cancer survivor to be involved,” writes Darryle Pollack of the “More Birthdays” movement at her site, www.blog.darrylepollack.com.
Blogging is a powerful source of information sharing for women. A recent study shows women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs and social networking sites as a source of information (64 percent), advice and recommendations (43 percent) and opinion-sharing (55 percent). There are 42 million U.S. women online weekly doing some form of social media activity. Women who blog are significantly more active across all forms of social media, and are thus ideal conduits of information and knowledge sharing.
In addition to the Blogger Advisory Council, the American Cancer Society has an online presence for the more birthdays movement at morebirthdays.com, on the officialbirthdayblog, on Facebook and Twitter.
About the American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society combines an unyielding passion with nearly a century of experience to save lives and end cancer for good. As a global grassroots force of three million volunteers, we fight for every birthday threatened by every cancer in every community. We save lives by helping you stay well by preventing cancer or detecting it early, helping you get well by being there for you during and after a diagnosis, by finding cures through groundbreaking discovery and fighting back through public policy. As the nation’s largest non-governmental investor in cancer research, contributing about $3.4 billion, we turn what we know about cancer into what we do. As a result, more than 11 million people in America who have had cancer and countless more who have avoided it will be celebrating birthdays this year. To learn more about us or to get help, call us anytime, day or night, at 1-800-227-2345 or visit cancer.org.
Becky Erwin
National Director, Media Relations
American Cancer Society
404-417-5860
becky.erwin@cancer.org
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