Reuniting people with their lost possessions - the strength of social media

You may have noticed a tweet I posted yesterday evening. I'd been onto Facebook and a friend from Scotland had found a camera case containing a memory card. He found a picture of a couple on it and had uploaded it to the site in an attempt to track them down and reunite them with their holiday photographs. He doesn't use Twitter and so I offered to share it on there for him.

It turns out that social media users love feeling like they can help someone out. I often see photos of lost teddy bears, but this was my first experience of seeing how wide something like this can spread. The initial Facebook post was shared 7,225 times. He also posted it on the Lomond Shores page which had 2,185 shares and 570 shares from the What's on in East Renfrew site. 

On Twitter, the post is still being shared but has been retweeted well over 9,000 times, which is impossible to comprehend, and that's without thinking about all the modified tweets. The post also trended in Australia, New Zealand and America. I've picked up 150 extra followers, presumably all keen to hear the happy outcome.

The comments were worth a read, lots of people identified the glacier in the photo, with the top suggestions being locations in Alaska and New Zealand, and a number of jokers hoped the couple pictured weren't having an elicit affair. However, one author suggested he's use that as a plot for his new book, so some good has come of it! Some people managed to identify the man's ski jacket brand (and even glasses!) thus working out the couple were British. Honestly, it's amazing what you can work out from a photo. 

There were a couple of suggestions that you should take a photograph of your address in case you lose your memory card, or use the meta data so it can be traced to you, which I'll definitely bear in mind.

One comment suggested I'd hear from the Daily Mail, and ironically I have, as well as the Independent. It's not my story to share, but it's the sort of thing they love and I'm happy to say it was a success in this instance. My friend who originally found the card has been contacted by someone who recognised the couple and has spoken to them today and the memory card should be back with them tomorrow.

I do love a happy ending, now if someone can just tell me how to stop these retweets, so I can start using my phone again, that would be grand!

By way of an update, you can read more in The Independent's report here.