Supporting Animals: How The Animal Rescue Site Does It

If you love animals and aren't sure how to help them, The Animal Rescue Site is a good place to start! Their busy website shows numerous ways to help animals, some of the ways costing no money. You can show your support in numerous ways as well because, in addition to their website, they have five different Facebook pages, a MySpace page, a Twitter account, and a YouTube video.

Facebook

The Animal Rescue Site has five different ways for you to be a Facebook fan. You can select the one that suits you best or choose to support them all:

• The Official Animal Rescue Site Fan Page


• The Animal Rescue Store Fan Page


• The Animal Rescue Store Application Page


• The Official Animal Rescue Site Cause Page


• The Official Animal Rescue Group Page

Combining the members of all of the Facebook pages, there are over a million fans. I'm sure some of these are duplicates, but each Facebook fan page helps the animals in a different way and all bring further attention to their mission of providing food for some of the eight million companion animals relinquished to shelters in the U.S. every year.

MySpace

The Animal Rescue Site has a MySpace page with only 5,588 following, falling far behind its Facebook pages. However, The Animal Rescue Site uses every social media outlet available to get support for its cause. MySpace is a chance to reach people, and they take the opportunity to get more people involved.

Through MySpace, they also have a blog that discusses how to use The Animal Rescue Site to help animals. The blog gives information on some of the good deeds their charitable partners have been involved in, like helping animals in Haiti and Chile and saving abandoned animals in kill shelters (isn't kill shelters an oxymoron?). The blog isn't very personal and is more of an informercial.

Twitter

The Animal Rescue Site has 6,242 followers on Twitter. Tweets that go out involve animals that need a home, feel-good stories about animals that have found a home, information about different acts or petitions to sign to help animals in need, but also good deals on items they can purchase at The Animal Rescue Site store. The varied messages make them more interesting than getting tweets of only one type. Information on ways to help animals, though, is in every tweet. I thought the tweets were inspiring to read. They certainly bring attention to the many animals in need and provide a way to help.

YouTube

The Animal Rescue Site has a small presence on YouTube. There is only one video under their name, basically a commercial telling about how you can help animals by clicking on their site or volunteering at a shelter. The Animal Rescue Site, though, collaborates with The Fund for Animals, The North Shore Animal League, and The Petfinder.com Foundation. Some of these organizations have videos on YouTube as well showing rescues and telling stories about abandoned or abused animals.

The Animal Rescue Site has a large social media presence. My favorite (and, in my opinion, the most effective) segment is the "Rescued Animal Stories" tab on their website. I started reading each person's post and couldn't stop. If you have a tissue, sit down, go to The Animal Rescue Site's website, and read. These stories will touch your heart, and inspire you to save an animal. By creating all these sites, The Animal Rescue Site is ensuring their organization gets found. I got a little confused about what site did what, but I was impressed by their passion.