Social media and its effect: They say social media is becoming very powerful these days and is affecting the online business market to a great extent. It started and increased exponentially with the social media sites gaining experience. People started using this sites with the beginning days of Orkut and Facebook. Orkut though isn’t much in news these days though Facebook is becoming increasingly popular. With more than 150 million users on different social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, etc. With time it became obvious that one can do a lot with social media. Some of the businesses and corporates framed the early examples of this when they established their online presence and made their brands very popular through SMM activities. However, little was known when the North American train carrying crude oil collided with the town in Quebec and exploded, that social media will play a significant role in the matter. It was all due to Vicky Villeneuve, who though it was her moral duty to help the townspeople to track and find their dearest and loved ones amongst the ones were suffering due to the collision of the train on that fateful day. Though she was new to the place and had nothing do to with it, Vicky, who has two kids of her own, though of supporting the people to find the ones belonging to their families.

What was done: By the time she started, the news has come already stating that there can be many who haven’t survived while the rest are badly hit by the train collision. The Good Samaritan immediately created a page for people to verify the ones who were found and who else weren’t. She thus, created a platform on the social media site along with Maxime Gagnon Desbiens, a friend, which was helpful for listing and showing the ones who were found and not among the people there. The results were finally understood with more than 300 people who were found and still the 183 who weren’t yet. As of now, there are 40 people who are missing and 5 are declared to be dead by the Quebec police. The founders are also happy that people were cooperating with them fast which really helped their thought and attempt. The Facebook page created by them saw rapid progress and pouring of news.

How it helped really: The authorities have been saying that the social media sites are really helpful and Facebook and Twitter had been exceeding their expectations in providing them with the valuable leads which helped a lot. As the official list from the Red Cross or the provincial police wasn’t available, Villeneuve was able to have the statistics and the answers all through social media. The professional who in in charge of the social media for the provincial force in the town, Gregory Gomez, Del Prado, was stressing on Twitter and Facebook asking people to follow the leads from it instead of other sites.