7 Tips for Promoting Environmental Action Through Social Media

Social media has changed the way we communicate and interact with one another. If you’re part of a movement and want to spread and share your message, social media gives you the platform to voice yourself while engaging millions of other people around the world. Whether it’s through Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, there are plenty of platforms available to reach your target audience.

If you’re an activist, an entrepreneur, or a marketer, it’s time you take advantage of what social media has to offer and use it to advance your green agenda. Here are 7 tips on how to get started.

Create an Engaging Profile

Facebook is probably the best social media platform for targeting other people who may have interest in the green movement. Remember though, when creating your profile, think about what your goals are, who will manage your social media presence, and how you hope to go about getting your message across. A good place to start is to research similar groups to yours and how they’ve decided to approach this problem. Using these considerations, you should be able to create a fairly engaging profile.

Post Relevant Content

It’s becoming a bit of a cliché these days, but content is definitely king. Creating quality content or sharing valuable information is essential to generating interest from other people. In order to grow a fan base of followers who’ll take interest in and share your content, it’s important you know how your content will be perceived and the message that it’s spreading. If it’s along the lines of your movement, then other people who want to be a part of it will show interest and “Like” your page.

Establish Your Expertise

If you decide to go out on a limb and comment on an issue, make sure you know what you’re talking about so others think of you as a credible source of information. If you’re using social media as a sales channel and not as a place to network will become clear to other users quickly. If you want to grow a following, show people your passion on the issues you care about and present yourself as genuine and authentic.

Listen Closely and Respond Quickly

One of the fastest ways to fail at advancing your agenda on social media is to ignore it. If you want people to be proactive and engage your social media profile, it’s important that you treat every message or comment seriously. If someone asks a question, answer it. If someone else has a complaint, listen to it and try to find a solution. The more you engage people online and show that you care about their concerns, the more they’ll want to stick around.

Use Well-Targeted Hashtags

Initially it was just Twitter that used hashtags, but now Facebook uses them too. People on both social media sites use hashtags as a convenient way for people to sort content according to the subjects and categories it falls under. For example, if you search Twitter for #green or #environment, you’ll find content relevant to these topics. This is a great way to find useful content to share and other users who share in your interests.

Promote Your Social Media Sites

Once you’ve established a predominant social media site and gathered some momentum, be sure to include the link to your profile page on your website and email signature. In addition to the people you get to follow or like your page on the actual social media site, you’ll encourage others who may not know about it to join your movement. Adding social share buttons to your blogs or websites allows users to easily link to your page, which is a great tool for expanding your limits.

Measure Your Growth

Measuring social media growth is not like measuring your home energy rates. Social media interactions are often more qualitative than quantitative, meaning that measuring the results of your hard work is a bit challenging. Although they vary in how reliable they are, some people use sentiment monitoring software to measure qualitative variables.

However, typical metrics you can use to measure your success include the amount of followers and likes you have, the number of visits to your site from social media, and how long those people stay on your site. Tools like bit.ly, Google Analytics, and Klout are all great if you want to track your progress. Each one has its own purpose and will give you useful information so that you can improve your campaign.

Spreading your message to the masses is a lot easier with social media, but it does take a lot of effort and time to make it work for you. In the long run though, it’s all for a great cause because the green movement deserves to be in the spotlight!

Kristina Jackson is a freelance writer, journalist and author. She is a diverse writer who enjoys capturing experiences and turning them into literary works.