Ben Stiller recently produced a viral video campaign based around Stillerstrong, a charitable farce on Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong campaign. Stiller’s aim has been to convince his viewers to support a desperately impoverished school in Haiti. Several celebrities, and even former American President Bill Clinton have sounded off for Stillerstrong. The site’s current donation count is sitting right around $122,389. This considerably sizable sum has been raised in only a short time, and can only be expected to grow larger.

These days, when people need to get a message out to the world, they don’t go to television or radio—they go to the social web. Each day, social media increases its pace in the race for a worldwide audience’s attention. Right now social media and traditional mass-media outlets are neck-and-neck, but social media is consistently edging ahead.

The evolution of the methods by which audiences are reached has proven to be incredibly democratizing. Spending ludicrous amounts of money to reach people is no longer a requirement that businesses or individuals are forced to bear. For the price of effort, electricity, an internet connection and an antiquated computer, anybody can be heard almost everywhere.

It’s fascinating to see social media’s immense influence on society, and it is inspiring to see that influence being used to help others. The online community is becoming more and more seamless with the global community. It’s only logical that communities that become intertwined benefit by working to each other’s aid, and that’s what social media is all about: community.