Social Media as an Advocacy Tool
Mathilde Piard
Social Media Manager, Cox Media Group
Volunteer & Advisory Council, Atlanta Bicycle Coalition
@mathildepiard | #NBS13 & #BikeSM
http://j.mp/bikesmfacebook & http://j.mp/bikesmlinkedin
Uses of social media
• “Practical” stuff
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Advocacy
Promoting events
Enlisting volunteers
Driving membership
Promoting your partners
Customer service, answering questions
• Communication & Community
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Communicating with your audience
Educating your audience about bike issues
Increasing loyalty
Building a sense of community
Crowdsourcing (research, polls, surveys, photos, tips)
Advocacy
Advocacy
Promoting events
Promote your partners
Customer support
Building community
Uses of social media (recap)
• “Practical” stuff
–
–
–
–
–
–
Advocacy
Promoting events
Enlisting volunteers
Driving membership
Promoting your partners
Customer service, answering questions
• Communication & Community
–
–
–
–
–
Communicating with your audience
Educating your audience about bike issues
Increasing loyalty
Building a sense of community
Crowdsourcing (research, polls, surveys, photos, tips)
Media/News Orgs & Social Media
• Journalists and reporters are on social media and
use it as part of their reporting process. Reach
out to them there!
• Journalists and media orgs love to use social
media for crowdsourcing. Hop on the bandwagon
& participate where appropriate.
• Get the media to notice the scale of your
movement & initiatives.
• Empower your members & volunteers to use
social media for grassroots advocacy for your
causes.
Facebook
Ability
Profile
Page
Group
Connections
Friends
Likes
Members
X
X
Share task of administrating
Timeline (cover image, wall, milestones)
X
Facebook Insights
Use a Timeline App
X
X
Have a Canvas App
X
Create lists / Join groups / Chats with friends
X
Sending private messages
X
Privacy Settings
X
Geo and language targeting
Buy Facebook ads
Invite everyone to an event
X
X*
X
X
X*
X*
All your
friends
(manual)
Visibility to
your fans
All you r group
members
(one click)
Facebook
• Tagging:
• When should I post? Well, it depends. Use the following tools
(freemiums or free trials) to asses what works best for you and your
own audience based on your own analytics
– Crowdbooster
– Page Lever
– EdgeRank Checker
Twitter
• Glossary:
https://support.twitter.com/articles/166337-thetwitter-glossary#
• Hashtags, Replies, Mentions, Direct Messages
(DMs), Retweets (RT, MT), Lists…
• Tip: using periods or intro words before @ signs
at the beginning of a tweet (or not, depending on
what you’re trying to get out of the tweet)
Pinterest
Pinterest
Pinterest
Pinterest
Instagram
LinkedIn
Foursquare
Foursquare
Google+
Reddit
And more…
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Tumblr
YouTube
Flickr
Vine
Etc…
• How do I manage all that???
– Prioritize based on goals & objectives
– Use apps like Hootsuite
One last tip for the road…
Don’t TYPE anything (to social media, but also
on any keyboard) you would want
– Grandma
– God
– Google
… to know…