Harness Social Media for Social Change

Convert online engagement to offline action

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Some see social media as the magic bullet for social change—the ultimate community-building and social mobilization tool that puts power into the hands of the little guy.  Others argue it doesn’t so much inspire social change as “slacktivism” where likes and retweets substitute for real action. Whether online engagement can be converted to offline action is under debate.

What’s the evidence?

The research seems sparse. However, some researchers credit twitter as an important organizational tool in movements like the Egyptian Rising (Alexander, 2016, para 4) and Occupy Wall Street (Scott & Maryman, 2016, p. 3). Certainly social media was a powerful advocacy tool in the hands of Saudi Arabian teenager, Rahaf Al-Qunun, who recently captured international attention with her plea for asylum and now lives in Canada. And, although this week’s Bell Let’s Talk campaign has been alternately praised as a prime example of corporate social responsibility and criticized as a giant advertising campaign, there is no denying that it has raised over $100 million dollars for mental health since 2011, and registered over a billion interactions (Bell Let’s Talk, 2019).

A U.S. meta-analysis by Scott and Maryman (2016, p. 11), which examined social media as an advocacy tool, also offers insight. It found people who used the internet were more likely to engage in civic action than non-users. Indeed, one study found Facebook users were more likely to vote than non-users.  This tendency seems to extend beyond the political realm. Their research also highlighted a nationally representative survey that revealed that 82-85% of social media users are active in some kind of voluntary group or organization, more than the U.S. national average of 75%.

A building block to expand your community

While social media as a stand-alone advocacy strategy is unlikely to achieve your advocacy goals, it does get you on the ground floor.  It overcomes barriers like geography, disability and timing (Scott & Maryman, 2016, p 3). It expands the pool of potential new supporters from which you can recruit and build relationships over time, gradually increasing their level of engagement. The challenge is to move them from low-level engagement where they click and share, to moderate actions online such as signing petitions and finally to high-level, off-line activity, like volunteering (Scott & Maryman, 2016, p 4). In short, social media increases the chance for change.

An inexpensive way to level the playing field

Social media is especially attractive for small organizations and nonprofits with strained budgets. Compared to traditional advocacy activities like face-to-face meetings and ad buys, the start-up costs for social media advocacy are relatively low (Scott & Maryman, 2016, p 4).

What you need to know to get started…

Social media may be low cost, but it’s not free

• Dedicate staff time. Genuine engagement requires quick responses and thoughtful interactions. Consider a 2012 study found that organizations that use social media effectively spent about 2.5 hours a week on Facebook alone (Scott & Maryman, 2016, p 12).
• Earmark money for resources to plan, monitor, evaluate and modify to your social media strategy as needed. If your needs are simple, one of these free social media monitoring and listening tools may be enough or you may need to buy something more sophisticated (Whalley, 2018).
• Invest in subscriptions and/or paid content. It will help you maintain a good flow of posts.
• Commit time to improving your organic posts. Check out Neil Patel’s blog post (2016), Facebook’s Algorithm Revealed: How to Remain Visible in the Cluttered News Feed? At a minimum, let your followers know they can use the “See First” feature of Facebook’s newsfeed preference tools to ensure your posts appear at the top of their Facebook newsfeed (Patel, 2016).

Lay the groundwork

Before you jump in with both feet, take time to plan out your social media strategy for social change.

• Clearly define your target audience. How old are they? What platforms do they use? How often do they use those tools? For what purpose do they use them? Information? Entertainment? How technically savvy are they? The answers to these questions will help you pick which platforms are best for your cause and better allot your resources. For example, older audiences like to receive information and put more stock in credible sources that align with their social groups or political parties. Younger people expect to participate and share information and they do this based on what interests them Scott & Maryman, 2016, p 13). This Pew Research Centre report on social media use in 2018 (Smith & Anderson, 2018) offers insights on the various platforms.
• Set goals for your social media communications. Decide how you will define success and what metrics you will gather to measure that success.
• Identify pivotal individuals who believe in your cause and can influence key decision makers.
• Put together a social media style guide to steer employee and volunteer participation. Georgy Cohen’s blog, Creating a social media style guide (2012) will get you thinking.
• Individual campaigns need plans too. That’s all the more important if you’re a small organization where every penny count. While you may want to use different platforms, the infographic below offers a great checklist for non-profit advocacy campaigns.

Reproduced with permission from a Co-Communications presentation at the 2012 Annual Connecticut Nonprofits Conference.

Content tips

You’ve laid the groundwork and now it’s time to create and share your content. Scott and Maryman’s meta-analysis (2016, pp. 12-13) found general consensus around the following strategies:

• Post positive stories
• Make your messages relevant, short and easy-to-read.
• Include links to more information
• Favour personal stories over statistics
• Include calls for action more often. These are more likely to be shared, yet some research shows the majority of not-for-profits use social media primarily for one-way information sharing. Indeed one study of a random selection of social work organizations in the U.S. found that only 8.1% of tweets sent out called on followers to act.

Here are a few more tips to keep in mind:

• Use images and video. Did you know live video is three times as popular as recorded video? (Patel, 2016).
• In Facebook, use link posts and make it newsworthy if you can. Link posts get twice as many clicks as photo posts. Facebook’s algorithm slightly favours content that is newsworthy or trending. (Lee, 2014)
• Create a unique hashtag for your campaign or mission. It allows you to track your campaign on Twitter and Facebook and find potential new supporters and influencers. Read, 5 Ways to Use Social Media to Support a Digital Advocacy Campaign to find out more. (Dan, 2018)

Schedule it!

Schedule your content in advance. As Dominique Jackson’s explains in his blog, 4 Steps for Creating a Social Media Calendar (2017) a consistent schedule of quality posts is key. Here are a couple more important takeaways from this blog:

• Be strategic in who you follow and retweet. Make common cause with other organizations to amplify mutual messages and stimulate ideas and interactions in each other’s networks.
• Pick the right time and day for your posts. Optimal times depend on the platform but the rule of thumb is to avoid peak times when competition is highest. Check out this infographic for the best days and times to post (Kolowich, 2018).

Track and analyze

I can’t stress enough how important it is to track, analyze and report on whether you’re meeting your goals. Only by beginning to measure will you understand what works for your organization’s cause.

Make social media part of your advocacy strategy

Social media can’t replace traditional advocacy activities like face-to-face interactions. But whether you’re an individual, a nonprofit with a mission or a corporate giant like Bell, social media is a critical complement to your overall communications strategy as you drive change and build community around your cause of choice.

Do you know of an individual or organization that has successfully used social media to create social change? What do you think contributed to that success?

Tweet: Do you want to harness social media for social change? https://bit.ly/2HIr5Xt

Facebook Post: (To be posted as a link post to blog)
Tips on advocating for your cause using social media
[Photo of volunteers holding cellphones]
Harness Social Media for Social Change
Convert online engagement to offline action

References:

Bell Let’s Talk (2019). Growing the global conversation and supporting Canada’s mental health [Webpage]. Retrieved from https://letstalk.bell.ca/en/results-impact/

Alexander, M. (2016, April 17). Social media and social change: An evolving narrative [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://sites.northwestern.edu/mashaalexander/2016/04/17/social-media-and-social-change-an-evolving-narrative/

Cohen, G. (2012). Creating a social media style guide [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://meetcontent.com/blog/creating-a-social-media-style-guide/?doing_wp_cron=1549033338.3857901096343994140625

Cyr, D. (2012). Using social media marketing for non-profit advocacy [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://cocommunications.com/2012/11/19/using-social-media-marketing-for-nonprofit-advocacy/

Dan, C. (2018, September). 5 ways to use social media to support a digital advocacy campaign [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.muster.com/blog/4-ways-to-create-social-media-buzz-for-your-digital-advocacy-campaign-0

Jackson, D. (2017, September 25), 4 steps for creating a social media calendar {Blog Post]. Retreived from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-editorial-calendar/

Kolowich, L. (2018, May 15). The Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-times-post-pin-tweet-social-media-infographic

Lee, K. (2014). Anatomy of a perfect Facebook post: Exactly what to post to get better results [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://buffer.com/library/anatomy-of-a-perfect-facebook-post

Patel, N. (2016). Facebook’s algorithm revealed: How to remain visible in the cluttered News Feed? [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://neilpatel.com/blog/facebooks-algorithm-revealed-how-to-remain-visible-in-the-cluttered-facebook-news-feed/

Scott, T. & Maryman, V. (2016, March 15). Using social media as a tool to complement advocacy efforts. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 7(I), 1-22. https://www.gjcpp.org/en/article.php?issue=21&article=121

Smith, A. & Anderson, M. (2018, March 1). Social media use in 2018 [Report]. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/

Whalley, B. (2018, December 17). The 13 best free social media monitoring tools for every marketing team [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29437/20-free-social-media-and-brand-monitoring-tools-that-rock.aspx