SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN
Social Media Campaign
Number of Group Members: 3-4
Length of Campaign: 10 days
Number of Campaign Platforms: 2
Number of campaign manifestos: 1
Number of Posts: 50
Number of original short videos to post: 5
Number of original images to post: 10
Number of articles/films/books/blog posts related to campaign topic to post: 15
Number of engagement participants: 20 (yourselves excluded)
Point Value: 30 points
How do I select my group members?
It is up to you to decide whom you want to work with. Some groups will end up with four people and some with three. Try to find group mates with whom you think you can collaborate easily. Make sure you set up some system of communication (texting, Facebook, Slack) and that you check in with each other outside of class.
What will the social media campaign entail?
Although this is a bit of a reductive move, one can think of social media campaigns as being used to forward a product/company or an activist cause/movement. You are going to develop a social media campaign that focuses on the latter purpose, not the former. Your campaign will be geared at one of the following purposes:
1. To create awareness about an issue: You can pick an issue that you think needs further attention from the population at large or from a particular population (such as teenagers, members of a profession, or residents from a town) and develop a campaign that introduces them to the issue and explains why they should care about it.
2. To get people to take a particular action: For this campaign option, you want to think about an action you want people to take. It should be something fairly simple that can then be somehow “proven” through social media. Registering to vote and biking to work on Wednesdays, for example, can be easily shared by campaign participants through a photo using the campaign hashtag. Other more complex, long-term actions like starting to see a psychotherapist may not be well suited for this kind of campaign.
3. To create support for an existing organization: If you’re working for or have an established connection with an organization that is already doing activist work, you can create a campaign around forwarding and amplifying the work they are already doing.
What is a campaign manifesto and where will it be hosted?
In order for you to provide a sense of what your campaign entails and why/how you are launching it, you’ll want to write a campaign manifesto. You don’t have to call it that but you do want it to meet the goals of a manifesto:
1. Explain the issue you’re trying to address.
2. Establish why that issue is something that requires people’s attention and that requires that attention with urgency.
3. Summarize ways in which the issue has been addressed in the past.
4. Show how your approach to dealing with the issue through your social media campaign will help address the issue. You don’t have to claim that you will solve the issue with the campaign. You simply need to add to a collective effort toward solving that issue.
5. Provide clear instructions on how people can participate on your social media campaign. Including sharing the campaign hashtag with them.
6. Inspire visitors to spread the word about your campaign and the issue.
The length of the manifesto is flexible. Aim for something between 600 and 900 words but don’t worry if you go a little over or under. Try to keep it short, direct, and skimmable. Section divisions, lists, and images will help keep visitors interested and reading.
You need to post the manifesto somewhere. As with your blog post, it can be hosted in one of your existing websites or blogs or you can create a new space for it.
Do we need to create a hashtag for the campaign?
Yes, you will need to create a special hashtag for your campaign. That is what yourselves and others who participate will use in order to participate in the campaign. As you develop your hashtag, you’ll want to choose something fairly short, catchy, and that gets at part of your message. We’ll work through hashtag possibilities together in class.
What platforms will we use for the campaign?
You can select two platforms for your campaign. Your choices are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I suggest that you select the two platforms you collectively use the most on your own social media practices.
Will we create special accounts for the campaign?
Yes. The original posts for the campaign will originate from the two accounts that you will specifically create for the campaign (one in each chosen platform). However, being new accounts, they will likely not be as effective at getting the word out as your own established social media accounts. While all the original 50 posts required for the assignment should come from both accounts (the same 50 posts from each), you should use your own accounts to share, comment, and engage with that material.
What role will our personal accounts play in the campaign?
The more accounts involved for a campaign, the better. You want to choose social media platforms where you already have an established presence because those are the accounts you’ll use to get the word out about your campaign. If you don’t have a social media presence, you should create at least one personal account for this purpose in one of the two platforms.
What will be on the 50 posts we need to release over 10 days?
The 50 posts will include 5 original short videos, 10 original images, and 15 links to relevant information, such as articles, films, books, and blog posts related to the issue your campaign is addressing. That totals 30 posts. The other 20 can be whatever you want to do as you craft your campaign. Here is some advice for how to approach these posts:
Your manifesto: You should share your manifesto and pin it to your page.
5 original short videos: You can film these with your phone and post them directly. Try to figure out what the tone and style of the campaign is and to make sure the videos match it. For example, if your campaign is for people to learn about the mental and emotional benefits of walks in the forest, you can make five videos of individuals and families happily enjoying their time in the woods. If your campaign looks at creating awareness of the long-term effects experienced by victims of sexual harassment, a more serious tone would be required in order for your campaign to suit the gravity of the subject.
If you are dealing with a painful topic, you don’t need to use graphic images. You could, for example, show images of women who walk into screen and remain in silhouette in order to pinpoint the ways in which sexual harassment can make a person feel like the light has literally drained out of their lives. The more creative, metaphorical ideas will connect better with audiences. I would suggest that your five videos work as a series in terms of theme and style. You can also use them as examples of the kinds of videos people can use to participate in the campaign. Shorter videos will work better. Aim for something that is 6-30 seconds in length.
10 original images: The images can be photographs or they can be something you design like infographics. A number of social media campaigns work by asking participants to take a selfie doing something, like holding a sign where they write one reason why they care about climate change. If that is the case for you, your ten images could provide examples for your participants of what you’re hoping they’ll do as they engage with it. You can also, for example, design postcards where you share particular statistics related to your campaign. If you’re creating awareness about mental and emotional struggles faced by veterans, you could create a series of postcards that list the percentage of veterans affected by different ailments. If you are going to create these postcards, make sure that they share similar design elements—fonts, colors, alignment—so they can work as a series.
15 links to relevant information: One of the keys to successful social media is to create connections with others who share similar interests. For your campaign to have the biggest impact, you want to share relevant information, research, art, etc. that is related to your issue. If you’re creating awareness about bipolar disorder, you can share books, articles, documentaries, and opinion pieces from those experiencing the disorder who provide strategies for living satisfying lives with the disorder. When you share these pieces, you have two choices:
1. Take a pull quote from the piece and put it in quotes before the link.
2. Write a couple sentences on why you think this piece is particularly relevant to your campaign and what it brings to conversations about your issue.
When you share these links, you MUST tag the author, the publication and any other relevant accounts. Your post will have a lot more reach if you do so, since they are likely to comment/share/like your post and they may click on the hashtag to learn more about your campaign. If that happens, they may even join you, which will help your campaign’s ethos and reach.
20 posts that can be whatever you want them to be: As you work through your campaign, you’ll begin to see what has the most effect in terms of participant interactions. It makes sense to create more of those posts. If you are particularly gifted with images or video or if you find that you have more research that you want to share, go ahead and use those. Make those posts whatever works best for your campaign and your team’s skills.
Do we need campaign participants?
Yes. You need 20 social media accounts besides your own to engage with your campaign. Engagement, for our purpose, means that they share your campaign and/or comment on it. If you are asking them to perform a particular action, engagement can also mean that they did what the campaign asked.
Social media is about mobilizing our connections. Use your connections (including your classmates who are similarly needing help with their campaigns) to have people participate. This may require you asking people face-to-face, texting them, calling them, and so on.
Do we need to interact with campaign participants?
Yes. If someone participates in your campaign by sharing, commenting, and/or doing what you invited them to do—post a short video of them recycling—you want to engage with them in this way:
1. Like their post.
2. Share their post.
3. Comment on their post. You can congratulate and thank them. You can also say something witty or humorous if what they post merits it. If they post something painful, respond with compassion.
One group member should set time aside each day to respond to this participation from the campaign’s main account.
How will we schedule the posts?
Your 50 posts can be scheduled in advance using Hootsuite or a different social media management platform of your choice. Spread the posts over the 10 days of the campaign’s duration, taking into account that weekends are usually less populated on social media for issue-oriented posts. You should have three to four scheduling sessions for these posts. The first one, at least, should be before the campaign.
How will the work be divided between members?
My suggestion is the following:
1. Write the manifesto together.
2. One member works on videos and images and on what your social media accounts will look like.
3. One member researches the relevant information links and the social media accounts related to those links.
4. One member writes and schedules the posts.
5. Everyone needs to commit to using their own social media accounts to share campaign posts. Although daily would be ideal, every other day is fine as well.
6. Create a schedule in which each member is in charge of responding campaign engagement during that time. It is up to you to decide how long you want those periods to be as along as everyone does equitable time. For some of you taking 24-hour turns may be easier, while some may prefer doing it in three-day periods, and so on. Whoever is in charge of the account at that point will like, share, and comment on participants’ engagement with the campaign.
Length of Campaign: 10 days
Number of Campaign Platforms: 2
Number of campaign manifestos: 1
Number of Posts: 50
Number of original short videos to post: 5
Number of original images to post: 10
Number of articles/films/books/blog posts related to campaign topic to post: 15
Number of engagement participants: 20 (yourselves excluded)
Point Value: 30 points
How do I select my group members?
It is up to you to decide whom you want to work with. Some groups will end up with four people and some with three. Try to find group mates with whom you think you can collaborate easily. Make sure you set up some system of communication (texting, Facebook, Slack) and that you check in with each other outside of class.
What will the social media campaign entail?
Although this is a bit of a reductive move, one can think of social media campaigns as being used to forward a product/company or an activist cause/movement. You are going to develop a social media campaign that focuses on the latter purpose, not the former. Your campaign will be geared at one of the following purposes:
1. To create awareness about an issue: You can pick an issue that you think needs further attention from the population at large or from a particular population (such as teenagers, members of a profession, or residents from a town) and develop a campaign that introduces them to the issue and explains why they should care about it.
2. To get people to take a particular action: For this campaign option, you want to think about an action you want people to take. It should be something fairly simple that can then be somehow “proven” through social media. Registering to vote and biking to work on Wednesdays, for example, can be easily shared by campaign participants through a photo using the campaign hashtag. Other more complex, long-term actions like starting to see a psychotherapist may not be well suited for this kind of campaign.
3. To create support for an existing organization: If you’re working for or have an established connection with an organization that is already doing activist work, you can create a campaign around forwarding and amplifying the work they are already doing.
What is a campaign manifesto and where will it be hosted?
In order for you to provide a sense of what your campaign entails and why/how you are launching it, you’ll want to write a campaign manifesto. You don’t have to call it that but you do want it to meet the goals of a manifesto:
1. Explain the issue you’re trying to address.
2. Establish why that issue is something that requires people’s attention and that requires that attention with urgency.
3. Summarize ways in which the issue has been addressed in the past.
4. Show how your approach to dealing with the issue through your social media campaign will help address the issue. You don’t have to claim that you will solve the issue with the campaign. You simply need to add to a collective effort toward solving that issue.
5. Provide clear instructions on how people can participate on your social media campaign. Including sharing the campaign hashtag with them.
6. Inspire visitors to spread the word about your campaign and the issue.
The length of the manifesto is flexible. Aim for something between 600 and 900 words but don’t worry if you go a little over or under. Try to keep it short, direct, and skimmable. Section divisions, lists, and images will help keep visitors interested and reading.
You need to post the manifesto somewhere. As with your blog post, it can be hosted in one of your existing websites or blogs or you can create a new space for it.
Do we need to create a hashtag for the campaign?
Yes, you will need to create a special hashtag for your campaign. That is what yourselves and others who participate will use in order to participate in the campaign. As you develop your hashtag, you’ll want to choose something fairly short, catchy, and that gets at part of your message. We’ll work through hashtag possibilities together in class.
What platforms will we use for the campaign?
You can select two platforms for your campaign. Your choices are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I suggest that you select the two platforms you collectively use the most on your own social media practices.
Will we create special accounts for the campaign?
Yes. The original posts for the campaign will originate from the two accounts that you will specifically create for the campaign (one in each chosen platform). However, being new accounts, they will likely not be as effective at getting the word out as your own established social media accounts. While all the original 50 posts required for the assignment should come from both accounts (the same 50 posts from each), you should use your own accounts to share, comment, and engage with that material.
What role will our personal accounts play in the campaign?
The more accounts involved for a campaign, the better. You want to choose social media platforms where you already have an established presence because those are the accounts you’ll use to get the word out about your campaign. If you don’t have a social media presence, you should create at least one personal account for this purpose in one of the two platforms.
What will be on the 50 posts we need to release over 10 days?
The 50 posts will include 5 original short videos, 10 original images, and 15 links to relevant information, such as articles, films, books, and blog posts related to the issue your campaign is addressing. That totals 30 posts. The other 20 can be whatever you want to do as you craft your campaign. Here is some advice for how to approach these posts:
Your manifesto: You should share your manifesto and pin it to your page.
5 original short videos: You can film these with your phone and post them directly. Try to figure out what the tone and style of the campaign is and to make sure the videos match it. For example, if your campaign is for people to learn about the mental and emotional benefits of walks in the forest, you can make five videos of individuals and families happily enjoying their time in the woods. If your campaign looks at creating awareness of the long-term effects experienced by victims of sexual harassment, a more serious tone would be required in order for your campaign to suit the gravity of the subject.
If you are dealing with a painful topic, you don’t need to use graphic images. You could, for example, show images of women who walk into screen and remain in silhouette in order to pinpoint the ways in which sexual harassment can make a person feel like the light has literally drained out of their lives. The more creative, metaphorical ideas will connect better with audiences. I would suggest that your five videos work as a series in terms of theme and style. You can also use them as examples of the kinds of videos people can use to participate in the campaign. Shorter videos will work better. Aim for something that is 6-30 seconds in length.
10 original images: The images can be photographs or they can be something you design like infographics. A number of social media campaigns work by asking participants to take a selfie doing something, like holding a sign where they write one reason why they care about climate change. If that is the case for you, your ten images could provide examples for your participants of what you’re hoping they’ll do as they engage with it. You can also, for example, design postcards where you share particular statistics related to your campaign. If you’re creating awareness about mental and emotional struggles faced by veterans, you could create a series of postcards that list the percentage of veterans affected by different ailments. If you are going to create these postcards, make sure that they share similar design elements—fonts, colors, alignment—so they can work as a series.
15 links to relevant information: One of the keys to successful social media is to create connections with others who share similar interests. For your campaign to have the biggest impact, you want to share relevant information, research, art, etc. that is related to your issue. If you’re creating awareness about bipolar disorder, you can share books, articles, documentaries, and opinion pieces from those experiencing the disorder who provide strategies for living satisfying lives with the disorder. When you share these pieces, you have two choices:
1. Take a pull quote from the piece and put it in quotes before the link.
2. Write a couple sentences on why you think this piece is particularly relevant to your campaign and what it brings to conversations about your issue.
When you share these links, you MUST tag the author, the publication and any other relevant accounts. Your post will have a lot more reach if you do so, since they are likely to comment/share/like your post and they may click on the hashtag to learn more about your campaign. If that happens, they may even join you, which will help your campaign’s ethos and reach.
20 posts that can be whatever you want them to be: As you work through your campaign, you’ll begin to see what has the most effect in terms of participant interactions. It makes sense to create more of those posts. If you are particularly gifted with images or video or if you find that you have more research that you want to share, go ahead and use those. Make those posts whatever works best for your campaign and your team’s skills.
Do we need campaign participants?
Yes. You need 20 social media accounts besides your own to engage with your campaign. Engagement, for our purpose, means that they share your campaign and/or comment on it. If you are asking them to perform a particular action, engagement can also mean that they did what the campaign asked.
Social media is about mobilizing our connections. Use your connections (including your classmates who are similarly needing help with their campaigns) to have people participate. This may require you asking people face-to-face, texting them, calling them, and so on.
Do we need to interact with campaign participants?
Yes. If someone participates in your campaign by sharing, commenting, and/or doing what you invited them to do—post a short video of them recycling—you want to engage with them in this way:
1. Like their post.
2. Share their post.
3. Comment on their post. You can congratulate and thank them. You can also say something witty or humorous if what they post merits it. If they post something painful, respond with compassion.
One group member should set time aside each day to respond to this participation from the campaign’s main account.
How will we schedule the posts?
Your 50 posts can be scheduled in advance using Hootsuite or a different social media management platform of your choice. Spread the posts over the 10 days of the campaign’s duration, taking into account that weekends are usually less populated on social media for issue-oriented posts. You should have three to four scheduling sessions for these posts. The first one, at least, should be before the campaign.
How will the work be divided between members?
My suggestion is the following:
1. Write the manifesto together.
2. One member works on videos and images and on what your social media accounts will look like.
3. One member researches the relevant information links and the social media accounts related to those links.
4. One member writes and schedules the posts.
5. Everyone needs to commit to using their own social media accounts to share campaign posts. Although daily would be ideal, every other day is fine as well.
6. Create a schedule in which each member is in charge of responding campaign engagement during that time. It is up to you to decide how long you want those periods to be as along as everyone does equitable time. For some of you taking 24-hour turns may be easier, while some may prefer doing it in three-day periods, and so on. Whoever is in charge of the account at that point will like, share, and comment on participants’ engagement with the campaign.
Social Media Campaign Planning Presentation
What will the presentations entail?
You will give a five-minute presentation in class during which you will answer the following questions for us:
What platform should I use for the presentation?
Photoshop, Google Slides or a Prezi.
When will the presentations take place?
Over one class period on 11/13.
You will give a five-minute presentation in class during which you will answer the following questions for us:
- What issue(s) are you thinking about?
- Is your purpose to create awareness about an issue, to get people to take a particular action or to create support for an existing organization?
- If you have more than one issue in mind, what are the pros and cons of each?
- Why have you selected the issue(s) you’re envisioning?
- What images and videos do you hope to develop to complement the work?
- What are the difficulties that worry you about this issue?
- Where will you host your manifesto?
- What team members will take which role?
What platform should I use for the presentation?
Photoshop, Google Slides or a Prezi.
When will the presentations take place?
Over one class period on 11/13.
Drafts for Peer Review
What do we need to bring for peer-review?
You should bring the following:
1. Your hashtag (or hashtag possibilities if you haven’t decided yet).
2. Your manifesto in full.
3. Two sample videos with the accompanying text for sharing them.
4. Three sample images with the accompanying text for sharing them.
5. Five sample relevant information links with the accompanying text for sharing them.
You should bring the following:
1. Your hashtag (or hashtag possibilities if you haven’t decided yet).
2. Your manifesto in full.
3. Two sample videos with the accompanying text for sharing them.
4. Three sample images with the accompanying text for sharing them.
5. Five sample relevant information links with the accompanying text for sharing them.
Assignment Delivery:
Paste the links to your manifesto, the two social media accounts you created for the campaign, and the links to the hashtag itself on both social media platforms to an email you send to [email protected]. All group members should be Cc-d in this email. The subject of your email should be Social Media Campaign followed by your last names, i.e. Social Media Campaign Kattan Gomez Ronaldo.
Assignment Deadlines:
11/13: Social Media Campaign Planning Presentation.
11/18: Social Media Campaign Draft due for Studio Style Review Session.
11/25: Social Media Campaign begins.
12/4: Social Media Campaign ends.
12/6: Social Media Campaign Final Draft due by 11:59pm.
11/18: Social Media Campaign Draft due for Studio Style Review Session.
11/25: Social Media Campaign begins.
12/4: Social Media Campaign ends.
12/6: Social Media Campaign Final Draft due by 11:59pm.
Questions
If you have questions about the social media campaign, feel free to email me, stop by my office hours, or make an appointment.