Social Media Campaigns for Advocacy Presentation for AU Human Rights & Media Class

Kyra Stoddart Online Marketing Manager Amnesty International USA

I. Overview

II. AIUSA Social Strategy

III. Your Social Strategy

IV. Example: Troy Davis Campaign

V. Example: Cheney Campaign

VI. Example: Kashmir Campaign

Overview: Amnesty International’s Mission

• Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights.

I. Overview

II. AIUSA Social Strategy

III. Your Social Strategy

IV. Example: Troy Davis Campaign

V. Example: Cheney Campaign

VI. Example: Kashmir Campaign

AIUSA Social Strategy: Goals

We recognize the importance of social media in shaping public thinking and use social media to increase the organization’s online visibility and advance our campaign goals by:

• educating the public about our human rights issues;

• engaging and mobilizing our current members and activists; and

• recruiting and mobilizing new members and activists.

AIUSA Social Strategy: Objectives

A strong social media strategy should not only focus on getting the message out to a mass audience, it should focus on reaching influencers, developing relationships, encouraging conversation and obtain insights.

1. Fostering awareness of human rights issues

2. Recruiting and mobilizing activists and members

3. Listening and Learning

4. Relationship Building

5. Brand Building

6. Driving traffic

AIUSA Social Strategy: Where We Are

AIUSA Social Strategy: Facebook Good for:

• Mobilizing people to take action quickly

• Reach wide audiences through Facebook’s easy sharing tools

• Obtaining feedback

• Hosting online chats

www.facebook.com/amnestyusa

AIUSA Social Strategy: Twitter Good for:

• Mobilizing followers to take action quickly

• Targeting legislators, corporations or other officials directly on Twitter.

• Interacting with supporters

• Reaching key influencers (media, celebs, etc)

www.twitter.com/amnesty

AIUSA Social Strategy: FourSquare

Good for:

• Increasing visibility through tips on places

• Targeting human rights violators (corporations or other targets) by leaving tips en masse

• Reaching new activists and members

www.foursquare.com/amnesty

AIUSA Social Strategy: YouTube

Good for:

• Increasing visibility

• Viral nature of video

• Reaching new activists and members

AIUSA Social Strategy: How We Measure Impact

Insights

I. Overview

II. AIUSA Social Strategy

III. Your Social Strategy

IV. Example: Troy Davis Campaign

V. Example: Cheney Campaign

VI. Example: Kashmir Campaign

Social media: Your strategy

Create your strategy. Set out a clear goal that your social media campaign will help you achieve. You should think about:

– Who is your audience?

– What do you want them to do?

– How will your social media campaign help your overall program or campaign goals and objectives?

Social media: Measuring success

Determine how you will measure your success. These are some things you may want to measure:

• Reach: the number of people you’re speaking with.

• Engagement: how compelling is your content? (track click-throughs, retweets, comments, likes, impressions)

• Influence: Are you converting people to take some sort of action?

• Attrition Score: Are your followers sticking around?

Social media: Measuring success

• Recommended tools to help you manage your social media profiles and measure your success:

Facebook Insights

I. Overview

II. AIUSA Social Strategy

III. Your Social Strategy

IV. Example: Troy Davis Campaign

V. Example: Cheney Campaign

VI. Example: Kashmir Campaign

Troy Campaign: Overview

This is an actual license plate

• Troy Davis was on death row in Georgia convicted of killing an off-duty police officer in 1991. • The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. • Since the trial, all but two of the 9 witnesses from the trial recanted or contradicted their testimony. • One of the two witnesses who did not recant was implicated as the real killer by 9 individuals who signed affidavits.

Troy Campaign: Goal

To pressure the Parole Board to grant clemency for death row inmate Troy Davis by generating public support (especially in Georgia) for clemency.

Troy Campaign: Objectives

Implement an online campaign to generate a lot of attention, buzz and support for clemency during the “Hot Phase” (the day an execution warrant is announced to the day of the clemency hearing – roughly 7-10 days) .

Troy Campaign: Tactics - Twitter

• Collaborate with NAACP to tweet daily “doubts” during Hot Phase w/ hashtag #TooMuchDoubt to drive people to: 1. retweet the “doubt”

messages 2. sign the clemency petition 3. attend the big clemency

event in Atlanta (if they are close by)

• Enlist individuals with

strong twitter followings (such as celebs) to tweet.

Troy Campaign: Tactics - Action Sharing

Enable supporters and action takers to easily share the action to increase awareness and recruit new action takers

Troy Campaign: Tactics - Online Marketing

Targeted text and banner ads across the Google Ad network, Facebook, Twitter and key progressive websites.

Facebook ad Google Ad Network Banner

Promoted Tweet

Troy Campaign: Other Tactics

Online:

• Facebook messaging across AI profiles (domestic and international)

• Blog post series

Offline:

• Aggressive press outreach to generate articles, TV and radio interviews

• Public rallies

• Grassroots campaigning

Troy Campaign: Outcomes Tremendous amount of press coverage

Troy Campaign: Outcomes

• AIUSA collected almost 300,000 petition signatures

• Delivered over 650,000 total signatures

• Traffic to our website increased 400% for the month and daily traffic on Sept 21 increased 4000% fueled by social networks and Google search

• Facebook active users grew by 65%

• Twitter followers grew by 8%

• Online marketing ROI was double to triple our average online marketing campaigns.

Troy Campaign: Twitter Outcomes • Dozens of celebrities tweeted for Troy including Russell Simmons, Big Boi, Kim

Kardashian, Joan Baez, Tom Morello, John Legend, Tim Roth, Jared Leto, P. Diddy, Bianca Jagger (among many others)

• On September 21st, three Troy related terms were trending on Twitter • #TooMuchDoubt and #TroyDavis hashtags tweeted hundreds of thousands of

times

Troy Campaign: Next Steps

• Work to keep the momentum going to end the death penalty in the US by engaging the almost 200k new Amnesty supporters that have come in through this campaign.

• Partnering with MoveOn.org and other partners to reach out to new audiences for death penalty abolition.

I. Overview

II. AIUSA Social Strategy

III. Your Social Strategy

IV. Example: Troy Davis Campaign

V. Example: Cheney Campaign

VI. Example: Kashmir Campaign

Cheney Campaign: Overview

• In August we launched a campaign aimed at bringing Bush and Cheney to justice for human rights violations by taking advantage of media attention surrounding the Cheney memoir “In My Time” release and book tour.

• The goal was to increase the number of action takers of the “Hold George W. Bush and Dick Cheney Accountable for Torture” online action.

• Online we used a combination of email, social media and marketing to drive traffic to the action form to increase actions numbers and raise awareness.

Cheney Campaign: Online Action Targeting Attorney General Eric Holder

Cheney Campaign: @FakeCheney Created @FakeCheney parody Twitter account

Cheney Campaign: @FakeCheney

• Twitter is a cost-effective way to engage supporters, celebs, and new audiences

• @FakeCheney was retweeted by celebs like John Cusack and Morgan Fairchild

• @FakeCheney drove traffic and awareness

• Creative online tactics can generate media hits in themselves, particularly on blogs

Cheney Campaign: Other Channels

• Promoted Cheney action via Facebook

• Promoted Cheney action through paid online ads

• Held offline actions at key locations during the Cheney book tour

Cheney Campaign: Today Show

Cheney Campaign: Take-Aways

• Edgy offline and online tactics get results

• Well known bad guy + good timing = online and media success

• Example of firing on all cylinders – real-world campaign action at Today Show, innovative online tactics, media outreach

I. Overview

II. AIUSA Social Strategy

III. Your Social Strategy

IV. Example: Troy Davis Campaign

V. Example: Cheney Campaign

VI. Example: Kashmir Campaign

Free Faizan: Overview

• In February 2011, 14-year-old Faizan Rafiq Hakeem was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir for throwing stones. Police held him for over a month without trial—and could have been held for up to two years under the under the controversial Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act.

• Even though he was a minor, authorities claimed medical tests proved he was old enough to be treated as an adult.

• Amnesty called for Faizan’s release, issued an urgent action, and then took to Twitter.

Free Faizan: Tweeting for Freedom

• On April 1, launched #freefaizan Twitter campaign and Amnesty activists directed tweets to the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah @abdullah_omar,

• Being an active Twitter use, Omar replied to the tweets, saying “We are looking at his case sympathetically & will decide in the next couple of days” and eventually reconsidered the case.

Free Faizan: Tweeting for Freedom

Free Faizan: Take-Aways

• Possible to influence design-makers through Twitter as long as you have the right target.

• Omar Abdullah is an active Twitter user so it was the right channel to reach him.

• Don’t rule out Twitter in the arsenal of ways we can reach decision makers, in addition to e-mail, phone, letters, rallies, media.

QUESTIONS?