Tips For Navigating Audience Communication During Social Change
In this time of important social movements and awareness, it’s good to think about how your organization or business should respond. Change happens, and how you choose to address that change and talk about with your patrons matters.
PUBLICITY TIPS
Plan your reaction: Big news items can (and should) change your communications strategy and timeline. Don’t jump in immediately just to be a part of it -- really take the time to understand what’s happening before reacting.
Think about relevance: Not everything that happens is an opportunity. Think about how your organization's mission is, or could be, relevant to the news cycle. Do you have something of value to add? Or are you trying to create a hook or angle that isn’t there just to be seen?
Understand what’s in your control: You cannot control the national narrative; you can only control your actions and response to it. Discuss options with your staff and stakeholders, so you can all decide on the best course of action.
Be prepared to pivot: If you had a big announcement, event, or campaign planned, you might need to sit it out for a couple of weeks. Sometimes the best thing you can do is put things on hold, follow what’s happening, and wait awhile while you decide how, and if, you want to address it.
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS
Consider the impact: Think about how current events have impacted your organization and your audience. In some cases, it’s possible that it might not - in which case, see the “sit it out” PR tip above.
Decide how you want to address it: Are you serving as an ally or planning to make changes to your org’s operations? No matter which option you choose, make sure you define what that means before declaring it.
Vet all trends: Remember the black squares on Instagram trend? In the end, that social media trend did more harm than good for the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Give it a minute; don’t jump on a social trend immediately. Make sure you investigate who the source is, and also pay attention to what the community most affected by this “helpful” trend is saying about it.
Use only relevant hashtags: Similar to the trend problem, there’s a tendency for content creators to jump on a hot hashtag and use it, even if their post doesn’t have anything to do with that issue. Don’t throw #covid19 or #blm on there if it isn’t relevant to your post. Stick to hashtags that are truly related to what you’re sharing.
Be aware of Performative Allyship:
Don’t change your logo colors to a rainbow for Pride month and ignore the LGBTQ+ community the rest of the year.
Don’t post a single message in support of Black Lives Matter or Stop Asian Hate without taking action to enact real change.
Don’t claim your org is diverse and inclusive without providing transparency about who your board and staff members are.
Things you can do on social to raise your own awareness:
Diversify your feed: seek out and follow members of affected communities; look at, and absorb, what their posts are saying. LEARN from them.
Implement practices that include introductions with land acknowledgements and pronouns
Share posts and resources that educate and inform your audience about what’s currently happening and give them options on how to help.
Use inclusive language in every post. Words matter: make sure you choose them carefully.
We can’t stress this enough: PLAN AND PREPARE before you fire off a press release, make a comment to a publication, or post something on social media. It’s better to take a breath and take the time to think about how you and your organization can respond to current events, then to jump in without being prepared.