Beyonce 'I Was Here' Helps Inspire One Billion Social Media Messages

With a little help from Beyonce, World Humanitarian Day inspired 1 billion messages on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms on Sunday (August 19, 2012). People were encouraged to perform a humanitarian action - however big or small - and it seems everyone got into the spirit.

Droga5 - the company that helped organize for worldwide event - said the campaign reached its billion-message goal. World Humanitarian Day was mentioned in 1,029,763,492 messages, with 20 minutes to spare. Andrew Essex, chief executive of the company, told Yahoo News on Sunday, "This could arguably be the largest mobilisation of good intention in web history, an amazing coming together of celebrity, brands and NGOs.Think of it as 'We Are The World' for the social media generation". Beyonce - who shot a music video at the United Nations specifically for the campaign told Anderson Cooper that her goal was to encourage the spread of "positivity no matter how big or how small". Beyonce's I Was Here' - was released on Saturday, though it probably didn't hurt that she tweeted about the campaign to her 5 million followers and changed her Twitter avatar to promote the initiative either.

World Humanitarian Day was designated by the U.N. General Assembly in 2009, to coincide with the anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 U.N. staffers.