Presentation at the Melbourne social media forum by Chris Roberts from the Brotherhood of St Laurence, titled 'Integrating social media into advocacy campaigns: What’s the right mix?'
5. Twitter and the Brotherhood
• Twitter amplifies our voice and is used to provide
an instant message regarding an issue, cause or
campaign to our followers.
• The bulk of our followers on Twitter are media
organisations, other not-for-profits, active
community members and government MPs.
• Government MPs often re-tweet our messages if it
supports their agenda
6. Facebook & the Brotherhood
• Facebook has been the social media leader for the Brotherhood in
increasing our profile and growing our audience over the last 12
months
• Facebook supporters have on average more than 150 contacts in
their network. We can encourage them to share our information with
their friends and followers, creating a viral marketing campaign.
• We advertise on Facebook – and reach new audiences
7. Facebook & the Brotherhood
Facebook advertising
campaign commenced
10. How poor dental health affects
disadvantaged Australians
• Loss of teeth impairs eating, leading to reduced nutritional status and
diet-related ill health, particularly for children and older people.
• A quarter of Australians report that they avoid eating some foods as a
consequence of the pain and discomfort caused by their poor dental
health. Nearly one-third found it uncomfortable to eat in general.
• Oral disease creates pain, suffering, disfigurement and disability.
• Just under one-quarter of Australian adults report feeling self-conscious
or embarrassed because of oral health problems.
• Poor oral health is linked to other health conditions such as
cardiovascular disease, stroke, hepatitis C, pancreatic and oral cancers
and in some cases death.
11. Our advocacy campaign
We called for an immediate investment in
dental care for low-income Australians and a
commitment to a staged plan over five years
that would add dental care to Medicare for
all Australians.
15. Educating our audience
Through Twitter our messages were heavily re-tweeted by
individual and institutional supporters, including, Corinne
Grant, Anglicare, Dental Health Services, Consumer
Action Legal Centre, Richard Di Natale, Adam Bandt, and
The Circle – reaching an audience of over 100,000.
16. Clear call to action
• One clear message
• Pre-written letter
• Ease of sharing the message
25. What would we do
differently?
• Report launch should have coincided with the
website launch generating publicity for both
• Client stories to be promoted earlier
• The ‘celebrity endorsement’ distraction
• Launch earlier and maximise publicity
27. Where to from here?
• Using the database of email addresses gathered from the
campaign
• Developing a foundation for future advocacy campaigns
• Creating stronger ties with our supporters
• Increasing engagement with our social media audience
• Galvanising our social media following and encouraging
them to act on our behalf