Changes to Digital Advocacy in the COVID Era
By Todd Van Etten, Chief Digital Strategist
Last week, I had the pleasure of joining Campaigns & Elections Magazine and One Click Politics for Digital Advocacy Day, a program to share insights and learnings about digital advocacy in the age of COVID-19. During the event we focused on current trends in advocacy advertising, and how recent events—be they COVID-19-related or due to digital platform limitations—have altered the landscape and caused changes in how we traditionally approach achieving client goals.
As our clients know full-well, THG’s digital team paid very close attention to all of the changes in digital advertising that have occurred in the last year and effectively modified strategies and tactics based on what was delivering the best performance in this constantly changing environment. I’m proud of what we were able to do as the impact of these new approaches delivered some incredible outcomes.
If you’re interested in hearing the full conversation, you can stream the event below, and of course give us a call if you’d like to learn more about what we can do for your organization or cause. In the meantime, below are my three key takeaways from the Campaigns & Elections discussion:
While general advertising inventories were way up during the pandemic—in some cases up more than 50%–the types of advertising that work well for advocacy campaigns stayed stagnant or were removed entirely.
“Slacktivism” isn’t inherently bad—it’s just a matter of knowing how to learn from people that aren’t willing to take meaningful actions for you. They can often be the best barometer of what’s working and what’s not.
Don’t wait for a crisis to seek out other ways of accomplishing your goals online. If Facebook ads are giving you everything you need, spend some time to see if you’re able to replicate their performance on other platforms. Because you never know when they will go away.