Four charities who truly understand what is needed to bring about social change, share their experiences of how they have used social marketing to success.
Social marketing is all about using traditional marketing principles to improve people's lives and the physical, social and economic environment in which they live. It's something you'd think pretty much all non-profit organisations are skilled at. After all, charities spend all day every day doing social good don't they? But like so many government bodies, lots of non-profits get social marketing horribly wrong. The patronising advert on the side of the M42 demanding you to stop carrying a knife or stop eating so much junk food often does more to alienate the very people it was put there to help.
Like social media (
although the two should never be confused), social marketing is about entering into a dialogue with your 'customer'. As
Mark Stuart's excellent artice on the opportunities and dangers of social marketing has revealed, it's about building a trusting relationship over time. This means you need to be a bit more subtle in how you approach things - simple finger wagging doesn't work.
We've asked ENABLE Scotland, Dog's Trust, Bullying UK and Quarriers, four charities who truly understand what is needed to bring about social change, to share their experiences of social marketing.
"Quarriers provides a wide range of support for adults, children and young people. Our Condemned campaign focuses on the challenges facing young people with housing support needs," explains Quarriers' Marc Bowker. "It was born out of feedback on housing issues from young people Quarriers support. These issues were collated and then matched with existing government policy within the areas where issues were raised with the help of our policy officer.
"The young people were involved in creating the look of the campaign every step of the way. The campaign looked at highlighting four key areas: the continuing use of substandard housing for young homeless people; a benefits system that is fundamentally flawed; barriers to moving forward; and rural housing for young people
"To date, the Condemned campaign has simply raised awareness of the issues above with a planned second phase later in the year to tackle the government policies. The methods used to raise awareness of the Condemned campaign in which photography and video were specially commissioned included:
- A brochure highlighting the issues was produced and sent out to MSPs.
- A 10 minute video featuring the young people displaying poor housing.
- A Bebo skin using the same design as the brochure.
- A widget was developed in house using the same look and feel of the campaign highlighting the issues. We publicised this through our Bebo, Facebook and Twitter networks. If you go to our Bebo page you can see the widget there.
- We set up a Facebook Cause page so people could physically show their support for the campaign.
"The Condemned campaign was officially launched at the Q2 Young People’s Conference at Hampden Park in June. This gave the young people ownership of the campaign and was designed to get them talking about it amongst their networks. It also received TV and radio coverage."
Bullying UK
"Social marketing is a core part of any charities work but in the case of Bullying UK, the UK's leading anti-bullying charity, we use technology tools to empower our messages and spread them through word of mouth to the widest audience possible," says John Carnell of Bullying UK. "Take our Poster Creator for example, every poster created by a user has a mobile version of the poster created, the poster can be shared online via our Widget or printed out and displayed, mobile phone compatible posters can be downloaded and shared via MMS. All created in real-time when the user submits the poster to our gallery.
"To date users have created 23,500 posters all for free and each one helping to spread our message just a little further. When a poster is shared online it can go to a choice of over 80 sites and is automatically displayed on Flickr and sent across Twitter all in real time.
"What this creates is a social marketing circle between the online and offline worlds that carries the message that 'Bullying's not cool' into every community and includes everyone no matter if you are just walking past a poster, created it yourself or had it sent to you by a friend on Facebook or your mobile phone. Everyone becomes part of the message even if they only have time to pass it on to friends."
Dog's Trust
"The Dog'sTrust campaigns on dog-welfare related issues to ensure a safe and happy future for our four-legged friends," Jacqui Darlow and Alex Goldstein explain. "Through our social media networks we put our social marketing messages out to the public. Our key messages are to rehome not buy, neuter not breed and microchip for easy identification.
"To ensure our supporters listen and take in our message we don’t make a one-way broadcast and demand change. We create an environment where they can talk to each other and us about Dogs Trust, dogs or anything else relevant. When we need to encourage a change in attitude or behaviour these people are then more receptive to what we have to say.
"We’re lobbying MPs to support compulsory microchipping. How better to communicate our reasons to the people who would be asked to put this law into practise than to join the debate on Facebook and listen to their concerns and queries?
Neutering is another contentious subject and we can often watch minds change because we’re there to answer questions and explain the misconceptions surrounding it. The main influencers are those that have changed their minds. There is nothing like an ex-smoker for telling people they should give up and the same applies for people who do rehome, neuter or microchip. They become our advocates. The essence of spreading a message is talking, be it by us or by others.
"Conversations are marketing whether online, in person or any other way. Where you are trusted you are respected and your supporters are more likely to listen to your appeals to change behaviour."
"ENABLE Scotland is the leading charity for people with learning disabilities. We have a bold vision, but we’re aware it’s not the 'sexiest' of causes," says ENABLE Scotland's Rosie McIntosh. "We wanted to reach people who have never thought about learning disability - but our primary target audience was the media professionals who could speak to them on our behalf.
"Our ads were bold, provocative and just a bit cheeky. They featured taglines like Do you want me to sit up and beg? and If I ate out of a dog bowl would you like me more? They were displayed for free on trains and buses with low official exposure, but media coverage included television, radio, blogs and unprecedented column inches. It took off on blogs BBC online, generating debate from Inverurie to Indonesia.
"Our campaign reached journalists who would never have seen learning disabilities as their remit. Some enjoyed playing us off against animal charities; others ranted about old ladies leaving their savings to the cat and dog home. Some disagreed with the message, but they were all glad to have a good story.
"Our campaign has raised the profile of ENABLE Scotland. It has placed the issues we fight for firmly on the public agenda and given us a bulging address book of media contacts. Ultimately, it has given us what we need to improve people’s lives."
Have you seen any of these campaigns? Have they helped shape your attitudes? Let us know in the comments section below.
