Advocating for kids is so convenient, it’s at your fingertips — literally. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube – the options and avenues to raise your voice are endless.
The digital era is growing at lightning speed. Social media has allowed us to open up to new opportunities, leaders and influencers. It’s allowed us to engage in ways we couldn’t before, and most importantly, it has narrowed the distances between us.
From an advocacy point of view, social media is one of the best tools we have to make a difference and be heard, especially when it comes to reaching to our lawmakers. In a 2015 social media study commissioned by the American Congressional Management Foundation, 76 percent of American policymakers reported social media enabled them to have more meaningful interactions with their constituents. What does that mean for you? Your tweets and Facebook posts matter!
It’s critical that we hold politicians accountable. With more and more people communicating with their digital devices, social media makes it easy to connect with politicians. It also gives direct access to elected officials and helps make your presence known to them. As more politicians use platforms like Facebook and Twitter to engage with constituents, it’s up to us to sharpen our digital expertise and interact with them.
Are you on social media, but don’t know where to start? Here are a few tips to help get you started:
- Be sure to follow and tag officials in your posts. For example, “[email protected], we urge you to #InvestInKids because all children deserve a strong start in life!”
- Leave comments on posts of elected officials to highlight issues that matter to you.
- Share pictures from your in-person meetings with their offices.
- Ask questions, especially around debates and forums.
- Send them messages with our action alerts.
If there’s one thing we should learn from the past, the power of social media does not go unnoticed. As we enter a critical election year in 2020, it’s up to us to highlight issues, particularly those affecting kids, in traditional and nontraditional ways. If we can’t physically reach our legislators or candidates, there’s always a digital way to get the word out. Together, we can invest in kids one hashtag and post at a time!