“Deeper Connections”Using Social Media for Advocacy

Shana Glickfield, PartnerBeekeeper Group

About Beekeeper Group

Selected Clients

About Shana

Why Are We Here?

New ways of communicating open up new opportunities to get the messages coming from the coalition in front of stakeholders, legislators, media and other decision makers

Face-to-Face meetings are important, however it’s difficult and expensive to scale to big numbers

How to share the advocacy work you are doing with each other with other stakeholders, elected officials, press, the general public

I want to get you thinking about how to deepen connections and multiply your effect

What is Social Media?

Why Does it Matter?

Fundamental shift in the power of communication and the flow of information

Fragmentation of media landscape continues on a relentless pace

The people are now the media….and have the tools and means to matter!

vs.

You Are a Powerful Activist

You have powerful distribution tools.

You Have An Audience

Time Spent Per Month

Benefits of Engaging

• Brand Visibility• Crisis Management• Media Relations• Thought Leadership• Low cost / ROI• Building community• Humanizing

People Trust Their Peers

People no longer place a great deal of trust in institutions or the media

Only 23% rate the honesty and ethical standard of journalists as “high” or “very high”, while 31% said they were “low” or “very low”

Only 22% have a high degree of trust in the government

90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users.

Congress is Using SM

Congressional offices are integrating social media into their operations to better understand constituent opinions and for outbound communication

Nearly 2/3 of staff surveyed (64%) think Facebook is an important way to understand constituents’ views

Nearly 3/4 (74%) think that it is important for communicating their Member’s views

Be sure to “Like” the FacebookPage of your Reps. and Senators

What is Social Media?

Don’t Forget State/Local

All The Way to the Top!

And Media…

How Can You Use It?

Let’s dig a little deeper into some of the bigger social media sites and see how you can use them to increase your influence:

Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram

Using Facebook

It’s essential to “like” the pages of your elected officials and other

groups in a coalition

Be sure to tag people in photos, videos and updates – this increases

the reach and personalizes

Make sure you download the Facebook application for your phone to

easily upload photos and status updates

Remember – this is public and it can be seen by others

Using Facebook

Tag & Share Photos!

Tag Policymakers

Using Twitter

Tweet: A single update sent via Twitter

Follower: Other Twitter users who follow your tweets

Following: Twitter users you follow

Re-Tweet: Forwarding a tweet from someone else to your followers – this is encouraged!

Hashtag: A keyword attached to tweet with a # symbol to connect tweet related to an event or issue

At-Reply: Using the @ symbol before a twitter name in your tweet will alert that user and link to them.

Using Twitter

Using Twitter

Add the application to your mobile phone or set up your account to “tweet” via text message

Follow other organizations and key influential stakeholders related to your issues to build community

When updating via Twitter, be sure to use the appropriate hash tag for the issue

Mention legislators’ or media Twitter handles in your tweets that will be seen by their office and others who follow them

There are tools that allow for photos or videos to be appended to tweets - use them!

Hashtags!

Using Twitter Strategically

Using YouTube

First-person to camera telling your story, why you are here, and

what people watching can do works very well in this format

You can add annotation or links directly within the video

Again, be sure to use appropriate hashtags and take the time to

write the description - used for search engines

You can also upload video to Facebook and other platforms as

well such as Twitter

Using YouTube

Photo Sharing Sites

Using Instagram

Questions or Comments