Can your communications reach, inspire and engage people to change public perceptions and policies?
Many campaigns on rights, development, and sustainability never get the deserved visibility, publicity, and support. Communication professionals in non-profit organizations often struggle with their workload and lack of resources. This list is my attempt to summarize my 25 years of learning-by-doing in professional communications, combined with formal and non-formal education. I am aware that complex questions cannot be answered with simple answers, but a checklist like this one can help to boost a foundation for a good public advocacy campaign.
Yes, I am old enough to remember the campaign around the Millennium Development Goals that we created a few years before the social media era with the slogan “Where will I be in 2015?”. The first day when we launched the campaign, we displayed a (physical) banner on the main street, just a few steps from the entrance to our office building. Of course, “everyone” saw it - at least all the people who came to the office that day. For me, it was a quick win, as I demonstrated the skill to make our slogan visible. Today, almost 20 years later, I have the right perspective to analyze it as well as to compare it with the modern campaigns that are displaying slogans on our virtual “main streets”. I feel for my younger colleagues and their struggle to capitalize from the quick wins of the visibility of slogans. The older I am, the harder it is to impress me - but in the best possible way. With the time distance, it is easy and comfortable to expect bigger changes and more significant campaigns.
The following checklist may help - but only if the campaign has a clear goal - to build up on a quick-visibility-win and to contribute to a public good. In the end, another fuzzy campaign can merely contribute to the digital noise, missing the point and invoking only indifference.
Check no. 1: Do you really understand your audience?
One of the biggest risk factors in communication is weak or unclear targeting. When you define who you want to reach with your campaign and what you want to achieve, it becomes much easier to formulate the messages, define tactics and strategies.
If you missed defining your target audience at the beginning, it’s better late than never to correct and prevent further frustrations and losses.
Check no. 2: Do you assume telepathy?
It is easy to assume common sense when we express our thinking, logic or demands. However, it is wise to assume that common sense is not so common. This is valid for messaging, collaboration and management of communications equally.
Check no. 3: Are you assuming visibility?
Your attitude is something like: “I just want to work. I am a specialist/technical person/manager/...I am not interested in getting (more) attention. The importance of my work/topic/idea/mission will speak for itself.”
Good for you. Unfortunately, many other campaigns that are less important, less ethical or less socially responsible do not assume their ideas would “speak for themselves”. They communicate, promote and know how to grab attention. Many others - ideas, businesses, organizations and people who are not as creative as you are, not important as your work is, not socially or economically valuable as your work is - understand the importance of communication. Especially in the era of online abundance of opportunities to present, promote and attract supporters and clients, your hesitance to participate can significantly limit your chances to get what you are worthy of.
Check no. 4: Are you assuming Optional Invisibility?
From time to time, you get the inspiration and motivation to plan, prepare and publish several of social media posts. Once in a while, you get a media request for an interview and from time to time you decide to afford the professional PR/marketing/communication service, agency or a consultant. Other than that, you put on your “invisibility cloak” ...
This could work only in case the invisibility cloak existed. The last time I checked, the majority of non-profits were very visible even when they did not communicate: their message was somewhere between “I do not care for my audiences” and “I have more important things to do”.
Check no. 5: Are you practicing Detachment Strategy?
Your organization relies on a PR department, or communication team to do the communication, without bothering the experts or managers? Do you believe dedicating a budget for communication or promotion can justify a detachment from communication?
Similar to the previous point, the fact that an organization has many priorities and “more important things to do” cannot justify a neglect of another managerial responsibility - one to establish respectful and valuable relationships with the “external” world - including beneficiaries, donors, sponsors, neighbors, suppliers, partners... Regardless of how important the individual conversations are, negotiations and meetings, all the time when you are not in direct contact with your audiences, they are exposed to your brand or image. The fact that your project or organization exists is a good enough reason to communicate. It is a simply missed opportunity if you allow prejudice, guessing and lack of understanding to form your brand image. Also, even with all good intentions and best efforts, can you be sure a junior communication colleague or an overwhelmed PR manager can read your mind all the time?
Check no. 6: Are you simply Copycatting?
Do you often become aware of missed opportunities too late, probably when you see somebody else doing a campaign you like or if your competitor gets the publicity that you secretly wanted? Sometimes you think that anyone can do it, regretting you didn’t think of it first? A successful campaign or publicity they are getting is likely a result of months of planning, bigger budgets or other prerequisites you are not aware of. Of course, the inspiration from successful examples should initiate your better planning, but don’t forget that a simple replication could be counter-productive.
Check no. 7: Do you communicate Everything to Everyone?
Ambitious as you are, working on such important tasks, in a “specific” market or a society, you do not see the rationale for defining the target audiences or specific focus in your messaging. With so many people who should be concerned about your work, you find it impossible to decide where to focus. Simply, everyone should hear about you and your work/project/objective/mission. Needless to say, the probability of reaching, inspiring and engaging relevant audiences can be quite low.
Check no. 8: Do you implement The Message Board Strategy?
If you believe that the best use of social media is free placement of your messaging, probably you can expect only friends, team members and partners to react and share your contents. At the same time, if you avoid actively asking for feedback, you may never be quite sure how well understood your content is. Treating social media as a free message board is another missed opportunity. If you are forgetting or neglecting the “social” of social media, you risk missing some important signs and signals that could connect you with your audiences. This does not necessarily mean that you can respond to everyone's expectations; this doesn't force you to satisfy everyone. This is just reinforcing the point about the audience segmentation and focus. Trying to communicate with everybody about everything is the most expensive strategy.
Check no. 9: How strong is your Defense Strategy?
Although having an impeccable reputation is your utmost important priority and you cannot risk getting into a media crisis, your organization may risk more opportunities shifting its focus only on negative aspects of communications.
Check no. 10: What is the level of your Professional Arrogance?
You do not have time or patience to explain to every single person the complex terms, and sophisticated knowledge you communicate? You cannot see the value of publicity, especially if the audience cannot appreciate an additional communication step to bridge the knowledge and jargon gap? Indeed, not all audiences are worthy of investment in communication. If you are clear about your priorities, focus and objectives, an additional task to explain, simplify and produce user-friendly communication will be required, especially if you hope to get support from these audiences.
Finally, I hope a checklist like this can help more people to understand why sometimes non-profit campaigns contribute to the feeling of helplessness, disappointment and confusion. At least, thinking about these questions helps me to protect my mental health, faced with too many “awareness-raising” campaigns, in which I simply do not see the relevance, clarity or call-to-action.
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