Everyone has a message to share. But apart from our friends and family, and our fervent supporters, we often don’t have the audience we wish we had.
Whether communicating for personal or professional reasons, we often struggle to captivate our audience(s). Our time is characterized by social media preponderance, and we all tend to think that social media are the ultimate channels for sharing our messages. I’m not saying we shouldn’t use Facebook or Twitter; easy and cheap doesn’t (always) mean bad. What easy and cheap (always) means is that everyone can do it. Social media’s prevalence diminishes its power, and our messages may not get through, even with fantastic targeting methods and big dissemination budgets.
So what can you do?
We shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking only in digital terms.
The pursuit of new technologies makes us blind to the real life beyond social media. People still go to school, work, and the gym. They still interact with others. This is your unique chance to start crafting your communication strategy – start mapping your TOUCH POINTS where you can interact with people who might find your cause interesting. Whether you write a blog about healthy eating or you work for an NGO to save a disappearing species, you can always start with this exercise.
Let’s say you want to design a campaign that encourages people to make better food choices to curtail overfishing. Once you identify the ‘model’ representative of your selected target audience, I invite you to consider where, exactly, you could meet him or her.
In real life, we would need to make a strategic decision about which group(s) of people we should target. For the sake of this text, let’s make an uninformed guess and choose parents between the ages of 35-45 who do the shopping for the entire family.
Imagine Johansson and Becky, the parents of two kids – a toddler girl, and an 8-year-old boy. Because they both work, they’re busy and tired. How could you interact with these parents? Kindergarten and school are the first places that come to mind, but let’s think further. Restaurants and cafés that are kid-friendly; parks; food take-aways. Maybe pre-cut frozen foods shops (like Pickard).
Mapping these places is your starting point. How exactly you will lead your campaign depends on many factors, but now you know which tools you can take into consideration.
You don’t always need to chase new social media trends. If you don’t know how Snapchat works, it’s not the end of the world. While it’s true we live in times of constant change, there are some things that stay the same. You’ll find the people you’re looking for if you look in the right places.
Christine Gosnay 