Introduction
Does your group want to reach out to supporters and engage them in campaigns? You can do that through:
- Reaching people on their mobile phones
- Social media
- Websites
This article gives an overview of the options within each of these channels, when to use them, and top tips for success.
Reaching people on their mobile phones
Text messaging
Use when:
- Reaching out to a cold list or “digital door knocks”
- Driving action-taking from your contact list
Read your text message scripts out loud to a loved one not directly involved in the campaign to ensure you’re communicating like a human, removing jargon, and maintaining brevity.
WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, KakaoTalk, etc.
Use when:
- Organizing a base that heavily uses these messaging apps in their personal lives
Take advantage of “group” features on each to both go into existing groups and organize there, as well as to create your own. For groups you manage, consider whether chat should be on or off, and consider when phone numbers/other members are visible or not.
Signal, Telegram, or other security-focused messaging platforms
Use when:
- Coordinating a high-security action with trusted people
Consider disappearing messages, especially for high-risk communications.
Calling/phone-banking tools
Use when:
- Working to persuade a large segment of community members about an issue or candidate
- Reaching out to base members who respond best to phone calls
Consider autodialing tools when doing mass community outreach, but only use manual dials for volunteer or donor engagement.
Social media
Livestreams
Use when:
- Seeking mass political education around an issue
- Ensuring a direct action reaches media, electeds, and constituents
To maximize basebuilding, build simple ways to opt-in by text or email into your livestream, including on the visuals from the action/event, in the comments on the livestream, and announced multiple times verbally by the speakers. Ensure that there is someone responsible for comments and engagement on the livestream.
Existing Online Communities
Online groups managed by others, for example the neighborhood Nextdoor, a Facebook Group for workers at a specific company, a Discord, or a subreddit.
Use when:
- Basebuilding, if your base is active in an online community
- Persuading a constituency or community on a candidate or issue
Understand each existing online community and tailor your engagement to the culture and practices of the space – do not copy-paste the same message. Often, it’s more welcome to participate as an individual organizer rather than an organizational account.
Get started:
- Search for some facebook groups, discords, or subreddits where your people might be
- What is one current topic or theme you could engage in on this community?
- What is one way you could tailor some content to create a new discussion in this online community?
Online communities you create
Eg Facebook Group, WhatsApp Group, Discord etc.
Use when:
- Basebuilding among an audience that already uses that platform
Invest in leadership development and manage the time impact on staff by creating a volunteer-run moderator and content team with primary responsibility for the online community.
Facebook group
- Advantage – Strongest moderation tools; most familiar tool to many groups; Easy for people you don’t yet know to find
- Disadvantage – Political alignment; lower daily use among youth
WhatsApp group
- Advantage – Gather mobile numbers for follow-up; notify cell phones for urgent calls to action
- Disadvantage – Political alignment; only basic moderation tools; not a go-to app on all continents
Discord
- Advantage – Easy for people you don’t yet know to find; integrations/automations; discussion threads
- Disadvantage – Unfamiliar to many, especially non-gamers or older members
Slack
- Advantage – Integrations/automations; discussion threads
- Disadvantage – Hard to for people you don’t yet know to find you; unfamiliar tool to many, especially those who don’t work office jobs
Signal/ Telegram
- Advantage – Gather mobile numbers for follow-up; notify cell phones for urgent calls to action
- Disadvantage – Unfamiliar to many, especially non-activists or older members
TikTok
Use when:
- Political education, if you are comfortable creating video tailored for the platform
- In rare cases, action-taking, when a video goes viral
Consider personal outreach to accounts that are influential in your geography or issue instead of creating your own account. See The Influencer Toolkit for Campaigns & Causes.
Use when:
- Political education, especially with visual or video, where your base uses Instagram
- Some action-taking, either via links in Stories or when content (especially a Reel) goes viral
Make an easy workflow for someone to see content then click and take action, combining link stickers, link in bio, etc., and repeat the instructions frequently across posts and stories.
Use when:
- Political education and action-taking, for bases that are on Facebook (especially older, more rural, and non-English language speaking audiences)
Strongly consider groups and livestreams to increase engagement, as organic engagement on Pages is very low (in recent years on average 6% of a Page’s fans.)
Use when:
- Visibility of actions and campaigns to corporate targets, elected targets, and media
- Activating grasstops activists and coalition members on a campaign
Use tools such as Tweepi to grow your account strategically with an eye for the media, corporate, or elected targets you want to be in front of on Twitter.
Use when:
- Reaching targets or a base that are employees of a specific corporation
Consider the highly targeted and personal outreach that tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator can enable: targeting by job title, employer, etc.
Paid online ads
Use when:
- Getting new organizing leads and you have capacity to follow up on signups
- Ensuring your campaign is in front of a corporate or elected target, or an important secondary target they care about
- Persuading an audience of community members about a candidate or issue
- You have a time crunch and some budget available
Facebook & Instagram ads are strongest for listbuilding or getting organizing leads (along with Google Search for issues that already gets tens of thousands of people searching per month), while YouTube non-skippable video ads are strongest for persuasion
Websites
Organization website
Use when:
- Moving people from considering being a part of your campaign to joining your email or text list
- Giving targets and potential constituents the fuller story of your organization, its history, and power
Microsites
Use when:
- Quickly creating a call-to-action linkable from across online and offline worlds
- Sharing a set of shaming information on a target
Coalition website
Use when:
- Directing people to calls-to-action for a coalition campaign and building a list of contacts related to that campaign that you can share across the coalition
Top tips for website success
- Make sure you have one (only one!) action you want people to take is visible on both computers and mobile phones without having to scroll
- Stay laser focused on load times, using a free tool such as gtmetrix to evaluate it on both desktop and mobile
About Social Movement Tech
Social Movement Technologies collaborates with campaigners and activists around the world to build people power for justice in the digital age. They provide organizing strategy, training and campaign support. They run lots of digital organizing courses, free and paid, including:
- Developing your Digital Campaigning Plan
- Livestreaming for Organizing
- Text Messaging for Organizing
- Is your Activism working? Measure it
- Managing Google Ad Grants for Organizing
- Good Design for Organizing
- Digital Security for Activists
- Transitioning to a Remote Team
- Twitter: Why every campaigner should use it
- Top tools and tactics to bump up your online organizing game
- Snapchat for Organizers
- Telegram
One can sign up and receive their recordings on top tools and tactics, using Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok for organizing, digital security for activists, and tips on working remotely and managing campaigns and teams remotely.