+ Erin Turner CLC NSW Quarterlies Online communications strategies

+ Presentation overview Introductions The basics of a communications strategy: defining who you are communicating with and why Overview of online tools – what will work well for you? Getting the most out of online communications

+ Online communications success stories WLS NSW twitter account In their Words by Homeless Persons' Legal Service: Commit to Community Radio:

+ Planning: without it, you’re tweeting into a void Where to start with a communications strategy? Communicate to a specific audience Communicate for a specific reason Have a plan and have systems Be interesting

+ Have systems, write them down Who drafts your content ( , post, tweet)? Who approves the content? How quickly does this need to be approved? How do you write? Have a (brief) style guide, write it down What is your privacy policy? How do you source images and content? Make sure you get permission LINKShttp:// /19/creating-an-editorial-style-guide/ /19/creating-an-editorial-style-guide/

+ Have a plan to deal with criticism … and abuse. Define criticism and abuse Tell the public and your staff about your policy For example, Lawstuff facebook policy: Please be respectful of our community, and please comply with Facebook’s conditions of use. Some basic rules: - We are a children’s and young persons’ organisation so please keep language clean - Be respectful to others, even if you disagree with them - Please don’t make personal attacks against others - Please don’t post spam or links to other websites - By all means ask a general legal question. But don’t ask for personal legal advice that’s what Lawmail is for: The Lawstuff team will remove any comments which don’t play by these rules. While we would like to support every good cause and charity, we find it difficult to endorse/verify all the links posted to our wall to worthwhile causes. Therefore, we are sorry to say that these posts may be removed.

+ Will you feed the trolls? Trolling: deliberately posting disturbing or upsetting content. Likely to be abusive. Do you ignore and delete? Or report and fight back? Or something in between?

+ Group discussion You work at a small CLC. No one has specific responsibility for media and communications work. You don’t use social media… yet. A new staff member wants to start a twitter account to promote a project for young LGBTI people in the area. Interns are excited and want to help. Who should have responsibility for drafting and approving content? Talk about the risks of your choice. What is the line between abuse and criticism when promoting a service for vulnerable young people? How would you deal with online abuse? The situationWhat would you do?

+ Choose the right tool to communicate with Pick a communications tool after you know who you are talking to (audience) and why You do not need to use every online tool Use existing groups and networks to get your message across

+ Who uses what? If you use social media in Australia, you are most likely to be on facebook. A lot.

+ Facebook Australians love facebook Monitoring and evaluation tools are built in Designed for organisations (make sure you use a page, note personal account) Strong potential for sharing content This is a static medium: your posts remain forever Beware of blurring personal and work activities Facebook is out to make money– it will cost you more to promote your service See What’s great?Challenges

+ Twitter: a “micro-blogging” site Instant communications Politicians and decision makers personally use twitter Use to connect with other organisations – like attracts like on twitter Great to participate in discussions and debates: #qanda #auspol #debate Twitter may have a left-wing bias (but this is changing) It’s not as popular as you think it is – only 15% of social media users are on twitter People expect instant responses, requires small constant bursts of effort What’s great?Challenges

+ Tumblr and other blogging tools Content storage with ability to host and respond to comments Tumblr is for the gif lovers Why aren’t you using your website? Tumblr has 2.8 million Australian users, WordPress 2.9 million What’s great?Challenges

+ Youtube: video sharing community Great place to store content and share through other tools Powerful if used well 11 million unique Australian viewers each year Notoriously abusive (but you can disable comments!) Producing quality content takes time and skill Not accessible… unless you make it so! See Sociability: social media for people with a disability nline-media/social-media What’s great?Challenges

+ Instagram: photos!/Vine: videos Vine is an easy video tool – you can make and edit short videos Instagram is photo sharing site that integrates well with facebook, twitter All content can be created with your smartphone Is it worth investing time in developing your account? Can be better to use these as content generation tools for primary social media See What’s greatChallenges

+ as a communications tool Not your – mass mailing tools like mailchimp, campaign monitor, constant contact etc. Send out hundreds or thousands of s to supporters Track your progress – who opened, what they clicked, how many times, did they send it to anyone else Try an A/B split campaign

+ Easy techniques to use well

+ Petition sites: Change.org Do-it-yourself campaign actions: Do Goodr ( ) Pay-someone-to-do it campaign sites: Using a service from EMC, Make.Believe or another consultant Campaigning and advocacy tools

+ Group discussion You are either: A CLC represented in your group who wants to communicate more with X audience, for X reason OR A CLC offering legal services to new migrants. You want to raise awareness of the harm of racism against new migrants (especially refugees). You’d like to target politicians but involve new migrants. Which tool (or tools) do you choose? Think about how much time you will need to devote to each tool. Why? The situationDiscuss

+ Send signals, not noise Signals are relevant, speak to people, reference specific things, call for action Noise is pointless

+ Write briefly and write well What do you want people to do when they read your , see your tweet or face your book? Your “call to action” is the most important part of your communication For read top left to bottom right Short sentences, no jargon Be creative

+ Monitor, evaluate, improve Look at what works and ask your audience what they like Measure what works: Klout and in-built tools Report and improve Be clear about whether you’re measuring outputs (number of likes, retweets) or outcomes (campaign success, amount of funds raised)

+ Speak the language of the internet Have fun. Use cat pictures.

+ Activity – how can you improve this? Write it better. As the peak body for community broadcasters, both television and radio, in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, we are writing to you about our ongoing advocacy and campaigning activities to promote the sector to key stakeholders. We are requesting that your organisation, if resources permit, participate in our campaign. Please click on the link below and complete the form to contact your local political candidate. The you send through this form will ask political candidates to provide additional funding to much-needed community broadcasters, many of whom face closure should funding not be delivered.