Introduction to Social Media | Building an Online Advocacy Campaign Page No. 1 / 32
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Building an online advocacy campaign Page No. 1 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign In this resource, we will show how social media can be used to advocate for social change, through a case study of the UNHCR’s online advocacy work. Page No. 2 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign What is advocacy? Advocacy is any action that speaks in favor of, recommends, or argues for a cause, or that supports, defends, or pleads on behalf of others. Advocacy means actively supporting a cause and trying to get others to support it as well. It is an effective tool to change practices and policies. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE Who can be an WE ARE TRYING advocate? TO CHANGE THE Anyone who cares about the cause can be an advocate, as can WORLD anyone who was mobilized by a campaign. The main goal of any advocacy campaign is to raise awareness about its cause. Following that a campaign will ask people to contribute: to donate, volunteer, or spread the word, etc. Advocates use their voices to share ideas, persuade people to believe in an issue, and join them in creating change. Advocates are the first candidates to be volunteers. Page No. 3 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign Examples of advocacy campaigns Advocacy takes many forms. It can be about raising awareness about an issue (like education for girls), or mobilizing people around a cause (such as fighting domestic violence). Other examples of advocacy include: defending same sex marriage and asking officials to speak for it, encouraging people to vote in Water For People thanked people on their places where they might boycott elections, asking for Facebook page after a fundraising campaign to donations to rebuild a city, asking for the release of provide clean water. prisoners, and proposing changes to national policies affecting a particular group of people. Page No. 4 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign Examples of advocacy campaigns Live Below the Line is an annual anti-poverty campaign, which challenges participants to feed themselves on the equivalent of an extreme poverty line income for five days. The goal of Live Below the Line is to raise awareness by enabling participants to gain a small insight into some of the hardships faced by those that live in extreme poverty. Live Below the Line also raises money for poverty reduction projects across the globe. Page No. 5 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign Examples of advocacy campaigns This picture taken by Swedish fashion photographer Carl Stolz, is a part of an awareness and fundraising campaign by the Dutch charity organization Cordaid, Mensen in Nood (People in Need) where people in need are posing with the typical attributes of consumer culture. Here, the price of a handbag (€32) is compared with the price of a whole week of food (€4). Page No. 6 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign The pillars of an advocacy campaign 1. Decide on the fundamental elements of your campaign You need to decide on your campaign’s core before you begin: the goal, the target audience, and the social networks that your audience prefers. The goal of UNICEF’s campaign against polio was both to raise awareness about the importance of vaccination against a particular disease and to raise funds for their vaccination effort. This explicit call-to-action prompts users to donate money in addition to liking the campaign’s post on Facebook. Page No. 7 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign 2. Shed the light on the 3. Ask for help validity of your cause by Advocacy is about convincing people why your cause is right using multiple types of and then asking for their help. You need to be direct and ask your followers to be your advocates by promoting your content campaign. Beyond retweeting and sharing your posts, ask them to share their own ideas, opinions and testimonials via different formats: videos, blog posts, or pictures, etc. This will In order to convince people of the validity of your cause and expose your campaign to more people. persuade them to advocate for it, you need to share content that answers the question: why is your cause right? This can be figures, facts, personal stories, news, slogans, etc. 4. Include your call to action As already stated, there is no recipe for the most engaging type of content. You have to experiment with content to see what Every advocacy campaign has a specific call to action: works best, and the best time of day to post your content. donating, voting, volunteering, signing a petition, and so on. Include your call to action in your posts, and be clear on how your audience can help. Page No. 8 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign 5. Try different tones for Examples of tones: your posts Some organisations stick to one voice for their advocacy Humorous: campaign, in line with their goal, their reputation and their “Why buy the cow when you get mama’s milk for free” target audience. Their posts can always be formal and is a slogan for breastfeeding advocacy informative, or funny and direct. Reasonable: As you start out, you can try different tones to your posts “Do you know that your change can make a change?” while keeping in mind that you have a reputation to is a slogan used in fundraising campaigns maintain, a goal to achieve, and an audience to target. Ambiguous: “What a quid got to do with ending poverty?” is used by Live Below the Line Blunt: “Volunteer! Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can” Challenging: “Can you spare some time to make a difference?” Page No. 9 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign 6. Engage The main element of any advocacy campaign is interaction. You can be active in the conversation started by your campaign by answering questions, and by sharing or retweeting your followers’ posts. Initiate conversation yourself by asking questions or soliciting opinions. You can use contests to encourage people to participate, expanding the conversation and the reach of your campaign as a result. An example of a competition as a part of an advocacy campaign from Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs Page No. 10 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign 7. Post updates about your progress When your campaign starts to gain momentum, you need to share updates, and/or testimonials (from beneficiaries or volunteers), to keep your followers aware of what you achieve. They have the right to know; they also can be motivated to ask others to join in. 8. Show people why their contribution matters Describe or show your audience what their endorsement means on the ground. You can explain what you hope to achieve, or you can post testimonials from people who An update from the WHO about the Global benefited from your campaign. Producing and sharing Tuberculosis response in 2015. This is a way to a short video is a great way to show the impact of your tell your followers that their contribution can campaign on peoples lives. make a difference. Page No. 11 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign UNHCR #withrefugees as a case study UNHCR is one of the most active and popular UN organisations on social media, and they are using social networks in a very clever way to mobilize people to stand with refugees. One of their ongoing campaigns is #WithRefugees petition launched in June 2016“ to send a message to governments that they must work together and do their fair share for refugees“ and This is the cover photo of UNHCR on Facebook, “to show that the world stands #WithRefugees“ which is also the main picture of the campaign. The petition asks governments to: • Ensure every refugee child gets access to education. • Ensure every refugee family has somewhere safe to live. • Ensure every refugee can work or learn new skills to make a positive contribution to their community. Page No. 12 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign A. The Goal The goal was to deliver #WithRefugees petition to UNHCR is still sharing content about refugees, about UN headquarters in New York ahead of a landmark people who are standing with this cause (individuals, international summit on refugees and migrants, on 16 volunteers, personalities, organisations) and is still calling September 2016. That first goal was achieved, and the on people to sign the petition. petition was delivered with over one million signatures. In the next slides, we will examine the content that The ultimate goal is to continue the campaign “until a was shared, the format used, the tools, the language, global compact for refugees is signed in 2018”. the people that endorsed the campaign, examples of engaging content, and everything that is contributing to Indeed, the campaign is still gaining momentum: the campaign’s growth. individuals, organizations, public figures, and celebrities from around the world are endorsing the campaign and spreading the word each in their own way. Page No. 13 / 32 Social Media 1 - Introduction to Social Media | Building an online advocacy campaign B. Content types UNHCR used several types of content to ask people to sign the petition like: Videos of people asking others to sign the petition: The petition was launched on 14 June 2016 in a video message where more than 60 global celebrities joined with refugees and aid workers to echo the message, “we stand with refugees, please stand with us”.