Using Social Media Strategies to Increase Environmental Awareness

Using Social Media Strategies to Increase Environmental Awareness Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD MooseCamp/Northern Voice 2009 The University of British Columbia February 20 th , 2009 Vancouver, Canada

Agenda

Why use social media (when I have so much other stuff to do)?

What are the lessons I have learned from others’ use of social media?

Elements of a social media campaign and a few case studies

How can I make use of social media to raise awareness of environmental issues? And... How can YOU make use of SM?

Summary

Why use social media when I have so much other stuff to do?

Building a presence online

Creating a work portfolio that can be accessible and showcases who I am and what I do.

Find and absorb information that is available (more online than offline)

“ Those age 65 and older are nearly 3 times more likely (index of 296) than average to read the print edition of newspapers 6 times per week, while those age 18-24 are 38 percent more likely than average to not read a print newspaper at all during a typical week.”

Comscore (2008) http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2109

Creating networks of like-minded people

Social networking around same kinds of issues

Raising awareness

Building up the profile of issues I am interested in and making my personal concerns explicit in a way that creates interest in others.

Elements of an awareness-raising social media campaign

Target audience and demographics

Who is your target and what do you expect them to do when you deploy your social media strategy?

Issue selection and galvanization mechanism

What is the issue you’re fighting for?

How are you going to galvanize the public/convince them?

Platform selection and deployment

What kind of platform and justification for its use

Life cycle and stabilization

Pre-launch strategizing

Launch (soft/hard)

Follow-up and continuity

Assessment and evaluation

Target audience & demographics Issue selection & galvanization mechanism Platform selection & deployment Life-cycle & stabilization DeSmogBlog Mainstream media & PR folks Global warming Blogs Short-medium term Earth Hour Canada General public Energy conservation Twitter and Facebook Short-term Vote for Environment.ca Average Canadian voters (>18 yrs old) Environment as an outcome of political decisions Twitter/blog & Facebook Very short term Save the Great Bear Forest Average Canadian folk Biodiversity conservation Flickr/Facebook/Twitter Medium term RaulPacheco.org Academics & general public Wastewater, public policy Twitter/blog –Facebook/Flickr Long term

My own case