Digital campaign communications

Glyn Thomas

glyn@glyn-thomas.co.uk

@glynmthomas

• Worked a consultant for a range of NGOs, charities and non profits in Europe, Asia and Central America
• Mencap, Mind, Dignity in Dying, ShareAction, Positive Money, War on Want, Global Justice 
• Save the Children, International Tibet Network, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth
• Worked with digital agency more onion; now freelance

• Trends in digital campaigning
• Principles for effective digital communications:
  • Email
  • Social media
  • Webpages
• Content 

• Sign petition
• Email 1 – please donate £20
• Email 2 – please donate £20
• Email 3 – watch video, PS donate £20
• Email 4 – please donate £20
• Email 5 – please donate £20
• Email 6 – you’re great, PS donate £20

• Hello, this is [your name] calling from [institution]. Have I reached [name]? 
• How are you [name]?   …   Good. I’m glad to hear it! 
• Did I catch you at a good time? …   [OPTIONAL: When is it ever a good time, right!] 
• Now, I understand you hold a degree in [program] from [institution], is that correct? 
• [OPTIONAL open-ended question related to student/alumni experience.]

• 56% read a story on social media that made them want to do more
• 41% watched a video
• 40% saw a photo
• 36% read or heard through social media about other people taking action

• Drive traffic - email, social media channels, partners
• People land on the page 
• People share

• One email per week – not a monthly email with 4-6 stories in it.

• Template design - mobile first / responsive

• Include a range of content – asking people to do something interspersed with reporting back, general updates, useful information etc

   

• Where
• When
• Tell Us 
• Inspire 
• Warns 
• Amuses

• ReTweet
• Follow
• Social Media
• New Blog Post
• Check Out
• Help
• Top
  

• Created
• Improved
• Increased
• Developed
• Reduced
• Researched

• Short and concise content - not using lots of abbreviations. Make it easy to read
• Tweets shorter than 100 characters get more engagement
• Facebook posts with fewer than 40 characters

• Tweets with hashtags attract 2x more engagement (retweets, favorites, replies)
• There’s 21% more engagement on Tweets with 1 to 2 hashtags.
• If you increase the number of hashtags more than 2, the engagement levels fall by an average of 17%.
• Almost 40% of Tweets with hashtags get Retweeted.

• Facebook - image based posts 39% more engagement
• LinkedIn - image based posts 98% more comments
• Linking to YouTube results in 75% more shares
• Twitter - including images 200% more engagement compared with simple text tweets

• The page you send people to is vital
• Mobile optimised
• Form fields
• Clear error messages
• Navigation
• Mouseflow
• Copy

• The page you send people to is vital
• Mobile optimised
• Form fields
• Clear error messages
• Navigation
• Mouseflow
• Copy

Facebook: 4161 / 503 / 12.09%
Twitter: 6378 / 28 / 0.44%
Email: 243 / 30 / 12.36%
(63 people clicked the share by email button, and 15 people chose to share by email. Those 15 people brought in 30 new people.)

• Getting attention of politicians
• Engaging people
• Recruiting people
• Timeliness
• Grassroots led
• Content that resonates

• 7 July 2015
• Get off bus/tube one stop early and walk
• Tweet picture
• Created intrigue - strong visual content

• 2015 General Election campaign
• Pledges from candidates
• 600 tweets - 100 pledges

• Spam for good
• Nice tweet to everyone on Twitter
• Creative twist - gets attention
• Unexpected / subversive
• Taps into something being debated - trolling/abuse

• Social Listening
• Fairtrade - 100,000 emails to Asda and Tesco
• Social content

• Tweets from hospital
• Story / narrative
• Mix of content
• Engagement
• Humour
• Authentic

• Mobilising people directly affected
• Brand 
• Easy win