How Bethenny Frankel’s Used Twitter to Raise Millions for Disaster Relief

Bethenny Frankel, founder of Skinnygirl Cocktails, the low-calorie cocktail, is personally leading the charge in raising money and sending personal aid to the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

One-upping fellow entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, she has not only contributed her own money but has gotten other organizations to sponsor planeloads of supplies.

However, it is really her use of social media, specifically her Twitter account that has set her apart from her fellow entrepreneurs. By actively reaching out and responding to her followers and friends on Twitter, she has been able to personally solicit supplies and donations for disaster relief.

Bethenny Frankel personally delivered supplies for Puerto Rico

After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Frankel who is well known for her no-nonsense, take-charge personality from her reality show the Real Housewives of Manhattan, was one of the first to fly out to help the devastated islanders. She chartered four planes and flew out with 20,000 pounds of supplies to Puerto Rico on October 1st.

Since then, her aid efforts have only increased. What started as 4 planes of supplies and nearly a million dollars in donations has quickly turned into over 40 planes and up to five million dollars in disaster relief, as she references in a recent twitter post.

The power of Twitter to increase disaster relief efforts

Frankel, who has over 1.5 million followers on Twitter, has used her prowess as a leader of a successful company and her personal celebrity to aid affected individuals, raise more donations, and coordinate logistical efforts.

Frankel takes the aid effort personally, directing help to individuals who need it most. In one recent interaction, her organization searched for a friend’s sick father and offered to fly him to the United States.

In other tweets, Frankel helped gather donations for distribution, such as this interaction of an offer of clean water from a Louisville, KY organization by the company Water Step.

Even the smallest details did not escape Frankel as she coordinated the logistics of cargo containers involved in the relief effort.

While celebrities and entrepreneurs have also used Twitter to raise donations and awareness, only Frankel is using it as a way to engage with a world of people who need help or who would like to help.