Positive Business News

Xocial and Kids Now Join Forces for #LoveThySelfie Campaign at Toronto International Film Festival

Do-gooder “xocial” online community curates “competitive kindness” in their #LoveThySelfie campaign benefitting charitable organization, Kids Now. The campaign will be featured in advertisements at the Toronto International Film Festival.

 

Toronto, ON -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/13/2016 -- Attendees at this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which runs from Sept. 8 - 18, will discover a new form of "competitive kindness" courtesy of the xocial (pronounced "soh-shuhl") online community's #LoveThySelfie campaign benefitting Kids Now (kidsnowcanada.org).

Since 1999, Kids Now has been delivering a free after-school life-skills and leadership mentoring program to grade 7 and 8 students to help them become confident, resilient youth who can transition successfully into high school and prepare for a brighter future. Kids Now ran an incredibly successful #LoveThySelfiePledge campaign last summer whose social media reach—thanks to celebrity sponsors like Elisha Cuthbert, Colin Mochrie and Bif Naked—rivaled the Super Bowl.

This year, Kids Now is raising the bar with the #LoveThySelfie campaign on xocial that will run special advertisements at TIFF, the second largest film festival in the world, with 500,000 public attendees. It's a celebrity-soaked 11 days, and the perfect opportunity to send the message that we're all stars—just the way we are.

Participating in the campaign involves completing simple, fun and meaningful challenges that encourage positive self-image and earn participants points. TIFF attendees and people following TIFF in the media can join the Kids Now #LoveThySelfie via lovethyselfie.ca, or by searching for it on xocial.

xocial is an exceedingly optimistic online community, giving cause conscious and otherwise kindhearted individuals the ability to not only gauge how nice they really are, but also the opportunity to out-nice each other by completing positive social change challenges that build a better "XO Score"—a numerical representation of one's overall positive social impact.

"We want the competitive kindness movement to inspire the next generation of social responsibility, and it's fundamental to our methodology," said Colin Duetta of xocial. "It channels the universal human drive to 'compete' into actions that benefit the causes an individual cares about. Our approach increases the level of emotional engagement of people who are actively supporting causes. While traditional philanthropy focuses on financial giving or attending singular or one-off events, our platform engages both first-time and lifestyle volunteers in supporting social causes regardless of the level of their skill, special interest or financial donation," says Duetta.

Duetta continues, "Besides allowing individuals to quantify their level of goodness or 'nice-ness,' our XO Score methodology provides a benchmark that helps spur the spirit of competition—the favorable kind where everyone ultimately wins. The numerical measurements allow users to compete with each other to see who can do the most good. Our XO Score also put the phenomenon of social media and online networking to more productive use. Instead of measuring popularity, xocial measures an individual's or organization's positive social impact. We want technology to make people better parents, friends, coworkers, bosses and citizens, and also help enable businesses to promote the greater good."

Individuals can revel in the knowledge they are making a real difference; families can be brought closer together; teams can better bond; businesses can establish a new hub of corporate social responsibility and amplify existing efforts; employers can create a more positive workplace culture; charities can create more buzz and attract, engage, and retain the next generation of do-gooders; and teachers can instill real-world lessons on using technology to help others... not just for "selfies."