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Toolkit: Promoting and Raising Awareness on Refugee Rights

Using Social Media for Awareness-Raising Purposes

Choosing your social media platform - Where to begin?

Social media has changed dramatically since its inception. What started as a way for individuals to connect, share personal thoughts and communicate is now a powerful tool that organizations and individuals use to cultivate, to engage with and to educate people.

How many do I have to choose?

Focusing on too many social media networks can sacrifice content, engagement quality and the adequate attention a social network needs to grow. If you have limited resources, focusing on fewer networks will result in deeper engagement and better results. Following the guide below, will help you choose your platform. 

Facebook

Best for: Awareness-raising, real-time conversations, engagement, community building  

Free useful features: 

  • Private groups: creating a private Facebook group can tremendously support your organizing efforts; engage volunteers, share files, coordinate actions or events on a more personal level. Find out how you can use Facebook groups to engage with active members and stakeholders.
  • Facebook live broadcasting: this tool is great for chatting on live video and giving your audience a chance to connect with your team. Here’s a useful article to get you started: How Your Nonprofit Can Get Started with Facebook Live Today 
  • Facebook Insights: this is one of the most powerful and user-friendly analytical tool for  is one of the most powerful analytical tool to get an overview of your audience's interaction with your page and posts. Here's is a great on Facebook Insights 101.
  • Facebook post - detention comic Facebook post - mythbusting

Tips

  • Photo and video content will outperforms all other types of posts.
  • Post regularly: ideally, you should post at least once per day, 4 to 7 times/week
  • Curate and share related content from relevant sources and network partners
  • Schedule some of your posts ahead of time Keep your messages concise (140-200 characters)
  • Pay (a little) to play: every now and then, boosting a high-performing post by $5-10 can go a long way!

Go easy on the soliciting: If you post solicitation messages too frequently you risk fatiguing your supporters. It’s OK to have a small percentage of your posts geared towards promotion and soliciting, but they should just be a small fraction of the posts you share for engagement and educational purposes.

For a list of tools and advice on how to choose the best social networks for your organization, campaign or project, as well as content curation and scheduling tools, click here.