What do you mean digital media advocacy? Discuss the steps to successful digital media advocacy campaign and steps to digital media advocacy strategies. Introduction The rise of digital advocacy is changing the way that public affairs practitioners, lobbyists and association professionals perform their traditional job roles. The increasing adoption of technology tools in the government relations space illustrates how much value these technology tools bring to the advocacy profession and the political arena in general. Digital Advocacy Digital advocacy describes efforts to mobilize constituents to participate in political advocacy through the use of technology. Digital advocacy concerns the ways in which you engage your audience online and inspire them to take action around your cause. https://powerfulpatients.org/2016/09/26/seven-steps-to-a-successful-digital- advocacy-strategy/ Steps to successful digital campaign 1. Define your goals Do you want conversions, followers, likes, responses to emails, to be #1 on Google searches? The options are endless in digital marketing but it is wise to decide what your main goal is going to be in your digital marketing campaign. If you want to send emails as well as run ads on Google and other social media platforms, consider hiring a digital marketing agency to help you out as this can be a huge task for a small business owner. There are several different types goals you can focus on. Some important ones that you should be aware of are brand awareness, follower growth, conversions and lead generation.

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What do you mean digital media advocacy? Discuss the steps to successful
digital media advocacy campaign and steps to digital media advocacy
strategies.
Introduction
The rise of digital advocacy is changing the way that public affairs practitioners,
lobbyists and association professionals perform their traditional job roles. The
increasing adoption of technology tools in the government relations space
illustrates how much value these technology tools bring to the advocacy profession
and the political arena in general.
Digital Advocacy
Digital advocacy describes efforts to mobilize constituents to participate in
political advocacy through the use of technology.
Digital advocacy concerns the ways in which you engage your audience online and
inspire them to take action around your cause.
https://powerfulpatients.org/2016/09/26/seven-steps-to-a-successful-digital-
advocacy-strategy/
Steps to successful digital campaign
1. Define your goals
Do you want conversions, followers, likes, responses to emails, to be #1 on Google
searches? The options are endless in digital marketing but it is wise to decide what
your main goal is going to be in your digital marketing campaign. If you want to
send emails as well as run ads on Google and other social media platforms,
consider hiring a digital marketing agency to help you out as this can be a huge
task for a small business owner.
There are several different types goals you can focus on. Some important ones that
you should be aware of are brand awareness, follower growth, conversions and
lead generation.

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2. Figure out Your Target audience
What types of people do you want to target? If you already have a website and are
running analytics you can pull reports to see what kinds of people are shopping for
your products. If you are just starting out you will need to do some research. You
can check out your competition to see who they are targeting but don’t just target
their audience. You should find a niche market to target that they might be missing
out on.
You will need to first decide if you are targeting other businesses or consumers. No
you cannot target everyone. Find your niche market. A successful digital marketing
campaign has a well defined audience that is carefully crafted by you, the business
owner!
3. Choose the Channels You Want to Use
In your digital marketing campaign you will probably want to utilize as many
channels as possible. If you are a business to business company you should not be
using the exact same channels as a business to consumer company.
You can advertise on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and
even Pinterest. Google Ads are popular as well and can quickly get your company
website to the top of search results. Don’t leave email marketing out of your digital
marketing campaign. Sending emails is often neglected by companies but this is
one of the best ways to grow your business.
4. Define Personas
A persona is a detailed description of your ideal customer. This includes
information such as their age, their occupation, their wealth and class status, their
family situation, and any other variable that will determine how they are likely to
spend their money. Whereas your target demographics are fairly broad, your
persona should be defined in as much detail as possible.
5. Track your progress

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Constant monitoring should be provided to ensure that the strategy is working
effectively. This is done by assigning teams that would deliver this task.
Remember to learn from the mistakes and always find improvement opportunities!
6. Create a catchy content
In today’s online world there is so much freedom for creativity. It would be a
crime to not incorporate creative elements into your content to make it truly stand
out.
Most people with online access are bombarded by a plethora of advertising day in
and day out. This is the reason your marketing campaign needs to stand out.
Make sure to incorporate different forms of media and content which will resonate
well with your audience. Whether its a video clip, bold images or Gifs – do
something to attract their attention!
The typical consumer of today tends to have less and less time on their hands.
Keep your written content light, tight and catchy!
Use bold headlines, short phrasing and use a catchy campaign tagline and hash
tag to attract attention.
Steps in a successful digital media advocacy strategy:
A good digital advocacy strategy helps an advocate win! For wining there are
seven steps. These are in the following:
Step One: Set Your Communication Goals
The first step to any advocacy strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals
that you hope to achieve. What are you trying to accomplish? For example, you
might want to increase public understanding of the issues you advocate for,
mobilize supporters to take action, or raise funds to support your cause. You will
need to set SMART goals, which are:
 Specific

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 Measurable
 Attainable
 Realistic
 Timebound
Specific – define your goals as clearly as possible.
Measurable – put figures on what you want to achieve e.g. increase visits to the
website by 40%; gain 100 new Twitter followers or Facebook Likes.
Attainable – make your goal attainable in terms of the resources and capabilities
you have.
Realistic – to be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are
both willing and able to work.
Time bound – your goal should be grounded within a time frame.
Step Two: Define Your Target Audience
Who does your message need to reach? Obviously, you want to reach as many
people as possible, but by choosing which audience to prioritize in your digital
communications you will improve your reach, enhance relevance and put your
resources to the best possible use. Find answers to basic demographic questions
about your audience, what issues they are concerned with, alongside which online
communities inform, inspire, or influence them. You can then tailor your content
more specifically to match your audience.
Step Three: Choose the Right Social Channels
Once you’ve identified your target audience, map this information to social media
behavior to help determine which social channels to concentrate on. Publically
available reports, like Pew Research Center The Demographics of Social Media
Users, can help you with this step. Social media are dynamic and constantly
changing. When you develop your digital advocacy strategy, be prepared to be
flexible. As new networks emerge you might want to add them to your strategy,
but it’s important to always relate this back to your goals and your audience to
ensure it fits your plan.
Step Four: Create Compelling Content
What is the key message(s) you need to convey to your target audience? How will
you communicate it? Sharing the stories of
real people affected by your cause will be the most powerful and compelling

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content you can create. Share this content via blogs, videos, podcasts, email, etc.
Bear in mind the content that works best on the platforms you have chosen. The
continuing growth of visual platforms, such as Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram
mean that incorporating visual content into your digital strategy is important.
Whichever type of content you create include a clear call-to-action. Make it clear
and unambiguous what the next step is after reading or viewing your content; for
instance, sign a petition, share on Twitter and Facebook, or donate to your cause.
Step Five: Implementation
Time is probably the biggest challenge in implementing your strategy. To achieve
results and credibility you have to be prepared to commit time regularly to
producing and promoting content and engaging with your audience. Decide on
how much time you can realistically devote to implementation. Do you have time
to write regularly for a blog? Would it be better to make short videos instead?
Create an editorial calendar and list the dates and times you intend to post blogs,
Facebook posts, Twitter updates, etc. Use a scheduling tool,
like HootSuite or Buffer, to schedule you social media updates in advance. There
are numerous tools and applications, many of them free, which can help you spend
your time more efficiently and productively on social media.
Step Six: Monitor Social Media
It’s important to monitor social media on a regular basis to keep on top of what
people are saying about you, your organization, campaign, or issue. It also gives
you an opportunity to find relevant online discussions related to your cause, allows
you to adjust your strategy in real time and guides you to key online influencers
and opinion leaders who can help amplify your message. Setting up a
simple Google Alert (email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on
your queries) with relevant keywords is a good place to start. Use a tool like Hash
tracking to monitor a particular hash tag, related hash tags, and the top influencers
of that hash tag.
Step Seven: Measure and Evaluate
The final step is to measure and evaluate your progress, adjusting your strategy if
necessary. Some key metrics to track are the number of followers you attract and
retain, which social media channels drive the most traffic to your website, the
number of comments you get, and how many times your updates have been
shared. Google Analytics will provide you with detailed analytics to measure your

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website performance. Each of the main social platforms also has their own
analytics built in. Other useful tools include:
 TweetReach measures the reach and exposure data for your tweets
 SumAll measures your Twitter follower growth, mentions, and engagement
 Klout measures your online social influence via a “Klout Score”, which is a
numerical value between 1 and 100.
 Spredfast measures data gathered from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
Flickr, to show how many people you’ve reached and whether or not your target
audience is engaging with you.
[ https://powerfulpatients.org/2016/09/26/seven-steps-to-a-successful-digital-
advocacy-strategy/]
Conclusion
To many nonprofit organization staff and lobbyists, political engagement from the
grassroots level to the membership level is essential to meeting policy goals.
Digital advocacy is increasingly becoming the source of success for policy
victories by purpose-driven groups.