There are many cynics who will say that we live in a hyper-connected world and its actually over-complicating our lives, rather than simplifying them. They say social networking keeps us at home in front of the computer and encourages anti-social behaviour. Some even think that there are too many brands just pushing their advertising messages in social media. Hopefully charity events such as this week’s second annual Twestival will go some way to muting these critics.

On March 25th, more than 175 cities will participate in Twestival, a global charity event. According to the Twestival website:

“Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good.  All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects.”

At the time of publishing, Twestival had raised over $200,000 for Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation that provides access to education for poor children.

Mashable.com suggests five ways you can get involved in Twestival:

• Attend a Twestival event
• Donate online
• Bid on the Twestival eBay auction
• Tweet your support
• Listen to Twestival FM.

Can’t get involved in Twestival, but still interested in how you can do good via social media? There are many other ways you can get involved. It’s no accident that charities are beginning to make their mark in social media, it’s all about community and helping one another, so the two go hand-in-hand.

Charity: Water is one organisation who are making an impact. They do the simple things right: they’re on Facebook and Twitter to bring attention to their cause and encourage viral sharing and word-of-mouth, they have a website with rich content: counters showing how much has been raised for particular projects.

Sometimes its hard for us to relate to big, international causes. Think about how social media has helped during natural disasters, such as the Victorian Bushfires in 2009. Photos and videos were shared on UGC sites which brought attention to the disaster and lead to people mobilising on Twitter to share links to charity donation information. Many showed their support for the victims by joining Facebook groups.

So now you’re inspired to do good, but don’t know where to start? It’s easy for anyone to get involved. Here are some tips on what you can do to help humanity online:

• Update your Facebook or Twitter status about a cause to let your friends know about it, don’t forget to include a link to the site of your chosen cause
• Show your support to a multitude of charities by signing up to the Causes application on Facebook
• Create a Chip-In counter and ask friends to donate to your favourite cause
• Sign up to Yahoo! for Good and add a badge for your favourite cause to your website, social network profile or blog

Showing support for a good cause has been made much easier with social media tools and applications. Now there’s nothing from being able to do more to help.

Related Posts:

• Trends: Most popular social networks of 2009 by search queries
• A rant about social media experts: mach I
• Best of the best in social media, web & tech 2009
• Weight Watchers: global firsts in digital marketing
• Social media wrap