Same-Sex Marriage: New Infographic Shows How Facebook Turned Red to Support Marriage Equality

WASHINGTON, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A new infographic by Rad Campaign (www.radcampaign.com/hrc) shows how the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) turned their red logo to support marriage equality into a viral success over night.

On March 25th, the Human Rights Campaign posted a red version of its logo on their Facebook page in anticipation of the Supreme Court hearings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The status update read: "Who's wearing red tomorrow? Show your support for marriage equality – make your image red tomorrow." And that is exactly what many of their 1.4M followers on Facebook did.

Over the next 24 hours, 2.7 million more Facebook users updated their profile picture compared to the previous Tuesday, according to data released by Facebook. Many of the profile images were either HRC's red logo or a creative take on the logo. People adapted HRC's logo with pop culture images from Game of Thrones, the comic Peanuts, Star Wars, and more. As of April 1^st, HRC's Facebook post had been shared over 71,000 times.

Celebrities ranging from George Takei to Madonna to Kim Kardashian and Beyonce helped the red logo to go viral, and shared messages of support. Takei had over 138,000 Facebook Shares as of March 30th.

"The infographic about marriage equality shows that people from all over the U.S. were inspired to change their profile photo in support of same-sex marriage," said Allyson Kapin, co-founder of the web agency, Rad Campaign that works with nonprofits to develop websites and social media campaigns.

The average age Facebook user who shared the post was 30 years old. According to Facebook data, people living in college towns from Michigan State, Duke University, Ohio University, University of Iowa, University of Colorado, and University of Texas at Austin were most likely to change their profile picture.

For additional information visit www.radcampaign.com/hrc

SOURCE Rad Campaign