Social media power: generating action online for an issue you care about

When to use this resource: 

• You’ve been rallying support for a cause, and are looking for new avenues to spread the message 
• You need to get a decision-maker’s attention and want to make a big, visible push 

Outline of resource:

• Using social media to encourage others to take action
  • When to use (and not use) social media 
• 3 simple steps to launch a ‘call to action’ on social media
  • Decide your goal
  • Set your message
  • Ask others to share your message

Key points:

1. Generating actions and support on social media can be a powerful way to supplement real-world work on an issue and expand your reach
2. Decide your goal and what you’re hoping to accomplish with this action, write a brief and compelling message, and ask others to take action
3. Keep it simple

Using social media to encourage others to take action

Social media is an important way that we connect with other people. It allows us to easily keep in touch with a wide array of people in our life, past and present; it presents opportunities to break out of our bubble and meet people we’d never meet in real life; and it makes taking action on issues we care about easier than ever. 

Using social media to generate action will be most effective if either your ‘audience’ (the people you think would take action) and/or the ‘target’ (the person with the power to do the thing you’re rallying people to ask for) are highly active on one or more social media platforms. For example, you want the mayor of your city to increase the budget for town beautification projects, but asking her yourself didn’t make much difference; if she’s very active on Twitter, having people tweet at her about the importance of beautification projects may be a good way to elevate your message. Or, maybe your mayor isn’t on social media, but there’s a very active Facebook group for people in your neighborhood and a lively Reddit community for your county – having those dedicated online communities where potential action-takers gather can help you inspire actions such as having people call or email the mayor’s office. 

You should try to reach people in multiple ways (social media being just one of them) and focus your energy on whatever approach will yield the best success. For other ideas on how to take action, here are resources on contacting your public officials, writing letters to the editor, and gathering petition signatures. 

When it comes to rallying others behind an issue you care about, social media can be a powerful way to supplement real-world work and expand your reach. Here are 3 simple steps to launch a ‘call to action’ on social media. 

1. Decide Your Goal 

How you approach creating an online action depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Goals for social media actions could include: 

• Getting the attention of a key decision-maker on your issue. 
  • Ex: Tweeting at your congressperson telling them to vote yes/no on a bill 
• Generating petition signatures 
  • Ex: You want your state legislature to act on an issue, and you’ll build the biggest buzz by having all supportive messages reach all the legislators, so petition signatures are more impactful than having people just tag their own representatives on social media 
• Generally raising awareness about an issue 
  • Ex: There’s an emerging problem in your city that nobody knows about, so you spread a message that includes a hashtag of the name of your city, and ask local friends and neighbors to post so more residents learn about it

2. Set Your Message 

Once you’ve determined what you’re trying to accomplish with an online action, you need a standard message to effectively convey that, and to make it easy for others to replicate the action. Your message usually needs to be brief – two or three sentences – in order to grab the attention of social media users and fit into platforms’ character limits.

No matter what your social media action is, you will need to prepare two brief written messages: 

1. The ‘action’ message: what you are actually asking other people to post 
   1. Key components of the action message: the problem, the solution, why it matters, and the call to action 
   2. Ex: “Residents of #WashingtonBoro deserve clean water and a healthy environment, but plans to expand Highway I-49 will destroy our riverfront. @Senatorwhoever, vote NO on the funding for this dangerous and short-sighted plan!”
2. The ‘pitch’ where you ask people to take action
   1. Key components: identify your audience of action-takers, the problem, the solution, why it matters, and the call to action for them
      1. See here for more on how to make a strong pitch 
   2. Ex: “For my friends in #WashingtonBoro: there is a proposed plan to expand I-49 which would bulldoze the forest along the Washington River and increase pollution in our waterways. Join me in opposing this plan and fighting for clean water and a healthy environment. Please share a post on social media tagging your senator this week, before Congress votes to approve funding for this dangerous project! Take action HERE (link)” 

Once you have your core messages down, decide what else you need to prepare for your action to be effective. That could include: 

• Identify the pages/accounts for key decision-maker(s) that you want people to contact 
• Create an online form for people to sign your petition  
• Create a hashtag that’s easy to remember and conveys key aspects of your message 
• Make a clear, simple graphic that reinforces your written message 

To make it easy for people to take action, you can put the message (including all relevant @ tags, hashtags, or links to petition forms) and the accompanying graphic in a shareable document and link to that document in your ‘pitch’ message, so prospective action-takers can copy/paste the action directly from the document. 

3. Ask others to share your message! 

Of course, you should start by taking action yourself! Post the message and graphic on your own account/page in exactly the way you’re asking others to do. 

Use a variety of methods to reach different audiences of prospective action-takers, including: 

• Ask family, friends, or neighbors to take the social media action (via text, email, or direct messages on social media platforms) 
• Find relevant online spaces (ex: Facebook groups for your town or focused on the issue you’re working on) 
• Find others talking about the issue/from your local area by doing a search for keywords or other hashtags related to the issue/local area, and chiming into any public conversations with people who might want to take action 
• Search for organizations that work on the issue or are active in your local area, and pitch them on sharing the ‘call to action’ with their members/followers.