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Digital Organizing

The Pennsylvania Immigration & Citizenship Coalition

Christina Castillo, RadComms Pittsburgh

Satvika Neti, RadComms Pittsburgh

Kim Dinh, Pennsylvania Immigration & Citizenship Coalition

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Who is PICC?

The Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC) is a diverse coalition of over 60 member organizations across the state. PICC leads and supports campaigns to advance immigrant rights at the local, state, and federal levels; builds immigrant electoral power through voter registration and education; supports grassroots community-led organizations through training and capacity building; and helps increase access to immigration services through the PA is Ready! project.

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In the chatbox: Introductions!

Name
Organization or Campaign (if applicable)
How are you doing?
OR
How have you engaged with digital organizing in your work?

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Agenda

What is Digital Organizing?
Digital Tactics & Best Practices
Messaging
Analytics

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What is Digital Organizing?

Organizing: building, engaging, activating communities
Digital Organizing: using digital tools to build power by recruiting and mobilizing people
Relational Organizing: organizing the people in your life to take action

Using the tools you already have to talk to people you already know
Both community organizing and digital organizing use relational organizing!

We know that Organizing is about connecting with people and the communities they exist within to affect change.

Digital IS organizing. As an organizer, your job is to meet people where they are. Increasingly, people are online – so you need to be online too.

Building COmmunities: growing a Facebook or Twitter audience, and collecting volunteers’ email addresses and cell phone numbers.

Engaging Communities: posting content that cuts through the internet, and keeping your community primed, engaged, and ready to take action.

Activating COmmunities: strategies to mobilize your Facebook friends, group members, and Twitter followers – as well as how to email and text people to get them to take action.

Relational Organizing is one of the most powerful ways to organize and mobilize people to take action. Relational organizing is a very simple skill you already know how to do. It’s about working with the people you already know. Both community organizing and digital organizing use this. It’s a simple concept: a volunteer reaching out to someone with whom they already have a relationship is much more effective than getting a cold call from a stranger. Think about the last time that you organized a party, a 5k, or encouraged friends to sign a petition on Facebook. How did you invite them? Did you text them? Snapchat? Instagram?

While it’s great there are so many ways to reach and engage people now, that also creates some capacity constraints on our end. Because it means we have to think about changes in technology and tools in how to best organizing people--one person can’t do it all. How do we build effective strategies and ways of working to maximize our use of digital and technology within organizing?

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Everyone is a content creator!

More content created now than ever before!
Content must be collaborative without sacrificing quality
Content must be participatory in the movement to help with membership and engagement
Shift from viewing people as consumers of content to co-creator

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Adapt and stay relevant!

Know your audience
Adapting to the emerging tools to reach and connect with communities

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In the chatbox: How comfortable do you feel with digital organizing?

1 - Not Very Comfortable
2 - Somewhat Comfortable
3 - Very Comfortable

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Digital Organizing for Movement Work

Satvika Neti + Christina Acuna Castillo

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Introductions!

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Basic Digital Best Practices

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Best Practices

Consistency in messaging - know your audience
Build a narrative - it’s about telling a story & building relationships
Engagement paths - use daisy chaining!
Build out large scale digital & comms plan & email pipeline
Build online plan around offline events & offline events around online plan
People who go to our events should leave with….
Don’t fall for vanity measures!
Be prepared for crisis moments - have a plan ready! (or create them)
Brandjacking
Theory of Change should be communicated through everything.

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Theory of Change

If….., then…...
Why are we doing what we’re doing? What’s it going to take to achieve our outcomes?
Related to mission/vision, but it’s about supporters feeding into the WHY

HOW does signing this petition help achieve the final outcome? HOW does buying this ticket or donating help achieve our goals?

A good Theory of Change makes action LOGICAL.

Would I take this action?

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And most importantly….

Literally none of this matters.

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Messaging

Does your messaging provide material relief?
Does it leave it out especially marginalized group?
Does it legitimize or expand a system we are trying to dismantle?
Does it mobilize the most effected for ongoing struggle? Is this building power?

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Tokenism

Targeting vs Tokenism
Intersectionality/centering voices
- Being authentic about who you are representing
Visual strategy and navigating trauma porn

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Trophyism

Fundraising
Oversharing someone’s story
What happens with Tokenism goes too far?

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How do you design?

Design with people. Not for them.

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Emailing ...

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Best Practices

Segment your lists!

Exclude people when you need to - email is about engagement not numbers
Engagement based targeting/nested sending/A/B testing

Welcome series/re-engagement series
Always link images to something
Data is not everything, but pay attention
Subject lines <90 chars
“Satvika Neti, WGF” > “WGF” - always introduce a new person when emailing from them
Write like a human
Don’t use bit.ly links

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Call to Action

Only one Call to Action per email (exception: newsletters)
Make sure your Call to Action is always on the screen - TL;DR & Call to Action should be within first two paragraphs
Think about Theory of Change - would I click on this?

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Social Media ...

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Best Practices

Content should be something the audience WANTS to interact with
Always upload media (videos, etc) to the platform you’re posting to
Try not to link out if you can (esp FB->Youtube)
Ask: Where is my audience at? Which platform? & How does the platform want to be used?
Don’t clickbait
Hashtags - do the research, keep them short (<12 chars), pair with an already existing hashtag, and don’t use too many (<12, esp on Instagram)
Add instant replies/away messages if not already
Hide comments, don’t delete
Build a calendar - know when things are happening (ex 1, ex 2)

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The “Algorithms”

Facebook

Rating from 1-5

Priority is yes/no
Primacy is what order (rare to see something <3.5 for you)

Live videos are always going to get hijacked though (>10 mins), and now watch parties
Active vs passive signals
Buckets (Who? When? Content? Engagement?)
Reactions are worth more than likes

Twitter

Engagement (THIS tweet’s engagement vs OTHER tweets by same user)
Who tweeted it? What’s their relationship?
Follower count > following count

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Other

Reddit -> #IamA’s/#AskMeAnything, can get very narrow in geography & subject matter content
Snapchat filters
Instagram videos/pics
Pinterest boards
Tinder
Buzzfeed

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Examples of Digital Organizing in COVID-19 Times

Social-Distance Safe Car Rallys
Virtual TownHalls
Vigils
International Examples

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Analytics

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Things to Know

Impressions vs reach vs traffic vs engagement
Data vs metrics vs analytics
Use pixels & source codes
Depends on what you’re trying to test & get
Use this to start out testing
Look for benchmarks! (images vs videos; urgency framing vs momentum framing, etc)
Have a good system to track results of tests & what’s working
Always check in regularly on analytics & test results (24 hrs for email, ~3 days for social media)

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Story of Self & Storytelling

Next Friday, May 29th, 12pm-1pm

Register Here: https://bit.ly/piccwebinar529

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Contact Us

Kim Dinh

Statewide Capacity Building Coordinator

Pennsylvania Immigration & Citizenship Coalition

kimdinh@paimmigrant.org