Tag Archive for: patient advocacy

Applying Patient Advocacy Initiatives to Your Patient Journey #patientchat Highlights

Last week, we hosted an Empowered #patientchat on applying patient advocacy initiatives to the patient journey with special guest Seth Rotberg (@Srotberg15). Seth is a rare disease advocate and motivational speaker who is passionate about bringing his personal experience to better support the health community. The #patientchat community came together and shared their best advice and tips.

Top Tweets and Advice

 

You Have Power

 

 

 

 

Be Confident

 

 

 

 

Patient Advocacy Has Benefits

 

 


Full Chat

 

Patient Advocacy: Ten Tips to Develop a Stronger Social Media Presence

Social media is a powerful addition to our patient advocacy toolbox. We can use it to raise awareness of our cause, build a community of supporters, promote our key messages and highlight our patient advocacy activities. To help you strengthen your online presence and create more visibility for your cause, I’ve put together this list of ten actionable tips you can put into practice right away.

1. Optimize Your Social Profiles

Your social media profile should be considered a key element of your advocacy brand. What will people’s first impression be of you when they encounter your online profile? What might make them decide to follow you?   Review each of your existing social profiles with the following points in mind.

  • Is it time to use a more professional picture to represent yourself online? Upload an image that is clear and easy to see, like a head and shoulders shot, or your organization’s logo. Make sure to upload images with the correct dimensions for each social platform (check out this guide to social media image sizes).
  • You have an opportunity to personalize your profile on Facebook and Twitter by uploading a custom header image. Use this opportunity to bring more authenticity to your account, for example you might use a picture of yourself holding a sign with a hard-hitting message. Or perhaps there’s a project or campaign you are currently working on. If so, include an image to represent this in the header space.

Take Action: Complete all sections of your profile to convey a stronger message and identity.  Schedule a review date every few months to check your information is still current.

2. Focus on Being the Expert One Platform at a Time

Each year brings shiny new social media tools and new features for existing tools. It’s tempting to jump on board the latest social media platform with the aim of being everywhere at once; but rather than spreading yourself too thinly, focus on mastering one or two platforms really well before moving on to the next one.

Take Action: Look back on the past six months and ask yourself which social media platform worked best for you? Which gave you the most engagement? And which platform had the least engagement? Consider focussing your efforts on the high-performing platform and becoming known as the go-to expert on this channel before adding anything new to your social media mix.

3. Schedule Your Social Media Posts

The internet is global and if you want your message to reach further than your own backyard, you need to hit multiple time zones. Tweets have the shortest lifespan of any social media post. Even though the latest Twitter algorithm means that posts are no longer displayed chronologically, Twitter is fast-paced, and messages get buried quickly. To counter this, you need to share your post multiple times on Twitter to increase visibility. Scheduling tweets allows you to reach followers when they are most likely to be online (even if you aren’t there at the same time) and allows you to maintain a regular and consistent online presence.

Take Action: Use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your updates to reach more people, more often. Don’t just post the same update every time. Vary your updates by changing around the headline, highlighting a statistic or quotation or adding different images.

4. Curate Content

The ability to curate credible content to share with our communities is a key skill for patient advocates. Hereditary cancer advocate, Amy Byer Shainman believes “patient advocates not only have a responsibility to curate trusted content but that it is an imperative if you are even going to be calling yourself a patient advocate.”

Content curation is defined as the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest.  While this definition sounds simple, there’s a world of difference between simply gathering information and being an effective curator. A good curator knows how to find, aggregate, and synthesize reliable information, putting it into context for their communities and sharing it in a format that is easy to access and understand.

Take Action:  Set up Google Alerts for the healthcare topics of interest to you.  Google Scholar is also useful as it indexes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America’s largest scholarly publishers.

5. Create Visual Impact

You’ve surely heard this before, but it’s worth reiterating: images matter — a lot. In an age when people’s attention span averages 8 seconds (that’s shorter than a goldfish!) visuals are memorable and effective because they help people process, understand, and retain more information more quickly.

Visual content is 40x more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content according to research by Buffer. Furthermore, people connect more emotionally with images than text, and in an increasingly crowded digital landscape images can break through the online content clutter. The type of visual assets you can create include images, videos, infographics, quotes and GIFs.

Take Action: Add an image to all your online posts — even those that are text-based. Create a strong visual identity and maintain consistency across all your images by sticking to the same colours, fonts, and layouts. Read How To Create Professional GraphicsEven If Youre Not a Graphic Designer for more tips.

6. Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are a powerful way to increase your visibility on social media. According to Twitter’s own research tweets with hashtags show a 100 percent increase in engagement (clicks, retweets, likes and replies).  Jo Taylor, a moderator of the UK-based breast cancer Twitter chat #BCCWW, explains that “finding disease hashtags opens up connections. If you connect with others you will be able to meet others easily online and you will build and learn from there.”

Take Action: Visit symplur.com to find the relevant hashtags for your disease area. If you can’t find a hashtag related to your topic, you might consider creating your own. For more information on using hashtags strategically read Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Hashtags in Healthcare…But Were Afraid To Ask!

7. Live-Report Conferences and Events

Reporting live from an event is a way of engaging your followers by sending updates about an event as it occurs. It allows you to expand the reach of in-person events to provide valuable insights to those who are unable to attend in person. It’s also a way to increase your visibility as an attendee and enhance your credibility.

Live reporting tools include live-streaming using Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Periscope (Twitter’s live-streaming app).  You can also share posts to your Facebook page and share photos and video clips via Instagram and Snapchat during the event.

Take Action: Read The Advocate’s Guide to Reporting Live from Conferences and Events for more tips on live-reporting.

8. Take Part In Twitter Chats

Twitter thrives on its community and the more you connect with other users the more quickly you will grow your own following. Joining a Twitter chat is a super way to connect and engage. When you attend a Twitter chat regularly, people will get to know you and in this way, you can quickly develop and grow your own network of supporters.  If you’re not familiar with them, a Twitter Chat is a public Twitter conversation around one unique hashtag. This hashtag allows you to follow the discussion and participate in it.

Twitter chats can be one-off events, but more usually are recurring weekly chats to regularly connect people, for example #PatientChat held every other Friday at 10:00 am Pacific/1:00 pm Eastern. The chat will be hosted and the host will ask questions along the way to stimulate discussion and sharing of ideas. There are chats for most disease topics and a full list can be found by searching the database of the Healthcare Hashtag Project. This is also a useful resource to find Twitter users to follow. In addition you will find past transcripts of chats on the website so you can familiarize yourself with the chat and its norms before taking part.

Take Action: There are chats for most disease topics and a full list can be found by searching the database of the Healthcare Hashtag Project. And “if you can’t find a tweet chat you enjoy,” recommends patient advocate, Annette McKinnon, “start a new one, register it @symplur and build a new community.”

9. Create a YouTube Channel

People engage with video more than any other form of content (written, audio, images, etc.). YouTube with more than 1.8 billion monthly active users remains the online video leader. 4 million YouTube videos are viewed every day, and the average session duration of 9 minutes and 28 seconds. That’s more than many other social networks.

Take Action: While producing your own video may seem daunting, video creation has never been more accessible through smartphones.  You can also create simple videos for your channel using free tools such as Adobe Spark and Lumen5 (see my YouTube channel for examples of Lumen5 videos).

10. Maintain a Consistent Content Creation and Promotion Schedule

Social media is an ongoing commitment. You need to post consistently to stay in front of your audience’s eyes and keep growing.  One key to maintaining a steady stream of quality content is to re-purpose what you already have. Check your blog’s analytics (or Twitter and Facebook analytics) to see the most popular posts you’ve written or shared.  Can you expand on these to include new research or thinking? Perhaps the content can be turned into an infographic or a slide-deck.

Take Action: Set aside one day each month to map out upcoming cause awareness days. Then use a simple excel spread sheet to create a calendar for social media postings. Include relevant hashtags and images.  A content calendar helps you maintain a consistent content production schedule, enabling you to plan for seasonal content, and annual campaigns.

Social media is an ever-evolving and fast-moving field, and with so much to learn and do, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. You don’t have to implement all these tips at once. Try adding one new strategy to your social media plan each week and measure its impact at the end of each month. This way you will know which of these strategies are moving you closer to a stronger online presence.

Here’s to your social media success!

 

Patient Advocacy: Six Steps to Craft a Compelling Message

Patient advocacy involves sharing your unique knowledge and experience of a disease or condition with the ultimate aim of raising awareness and influencing people to create a desired change.  This might include speaking at an event, telling your story in the media, or working with an organization to develop new treatment guidelines.  This month’s post will show you the steps you should take to create a compelling message to get key issues across to your audience.

1. Develop Your Key Message

The first step is to work out the key message you want to communicate. Asking yourself the following questions will help you focus on the main issues.

  • Why do I want people to know about this condition?
  • Is very little known about the disease?
  • Are doctors not very good at diagnosing it?
  • What is the impact of the condition for me and for others?
  • What improvements are needed? Locally? Nationally? Internationally?

An effective message is credible, clear and convincing – ideally you should be able to communicate it in less than one minute – for example, “Cancer-related fatigue is poorly understood, but has been reported in 30–50% of breast cancer survivors in the first 5 years after treatment.”  The recommended approach is to have one primary message supported by two or three secondary messages. Write down your core message first. The purpose of the secondary messages is to support the core message and to explain how it can be achieved.

Insider Tip

Patient advocate and blogger, Kay Curtin (@KayCurtin1), who is a stage IV Melanoma patient, suggests taking a look at what other organisations are doing before committing “precious time and resources on replicating what’s already been done.”  Christina Lizaso (@btrfly12), co-moderator of the #gyncsm Twitter chat, agrees. “Look first to collaborate and move things forward vs. starting from scratch,” she recommends, “then think outside of the condition – what is the most important thing for someone who has never heard of it to know?”

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Deciding who your target audience is and how best to reach them is the next step. There are several broad groups you might consider, including other people with your condition, healthcare professionals, the media, legislators or the general public. Which group you focus on depends on what you are trying to achieve.  The more specific you are in identifying your audience, the more effective your message will be. To follow on from my example above, if I want the guidelines for cancer treatment to include cancer-related fatigue, I might want to target healthcare professionals, other patient organizations who are campaigning on similar issues, and organizations like the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

3. Craft Your Message

A persuasive message can be summed up in three words “Make Me Care.” Sharing your story and the stories of others affected by your condition is the most powerful and compelling way you can do this.  As Jo Taylor (@abcdiagnosis) founder of After Breast Cancer Diagnosis says, “your story is everything – it raises awareness and shows the passion behind why you are trying to make change as a patient advocate.” Jo also believes your story connects you to others with a similar story, which in turns helps to build strong networks to bring about change. Dementia advocate, Pablo Barredo (@Diario1Cuidador) points out that stories help create bonds not just with patients but with their caregivers too. “Patients and caregivers want personal stories and people who will understand them, not scientific terms they may not understand,” he says.  “They need to feel connected to someone who speaks their own language and understands them.”

Insider Tip

When sharing your story, author and breast cancer blogger, Nancy Stordahl (@NancysPoint) points out that “you have to be willing to share from your heart. Be real. Be you. It’s all about being authentic. Always come back to that. Allow others to see your vulnerabilities. When others see that you’re authentic, you’ve made it easier for them to care, not just about you, but about your message(s). Once they care they’ll want to learn more.” Antibiotic resistance campaigner, Vanessa Carter (@_FaceSA) agrees that authenticity is key. “You have to keep telling your story from the heart,” she says, “which is not easy when you’ve repeated it for so many years. It takes a lot of practice. I think it’s one of the greatest arts of advocacy.”

Be prepared that telling your story might make you feel emotional and vulnerable, so think carefully about how much you are willing to share before you make the decision to share it.  Let the audience know your boundaries. Be mindful too of boundaries if you are talking about a family member. How conformable are they with you sharing their story or aspects of your own story that may affect them? In Nancy’s words, “each person needs to find her/his own voice over time, figure out what works and feels comfortable for you, and then go with it.”

4. Create a Compelling Call-To-Action

According to the WHO, “you cannot mobilize people unless you ask them to do something. Aim to craft messages that will convince your audiences to act – rather than messages that simply communicate what you want to say.   As Christina Lizaso reminds us, “awareness is not the end goal – it should be taking you to education and to action.”

Think about what you want your listener or reader to do when you are finished telling your story? What will motivate them to act?  Outline clearly the next steps they need to take.  “Awareness should immediately be followed by an opportunity for action,” says breast cancer researcher and advocate, Jamie Holloway (@jamienholloway). While a “dramatic personal story is a more compelling ‘hook’ than just rhyming off a list of facts (no matter how alarming the facts are!),” says Carolyn Thomas (@HeartSisters), author of A Woman’s Guide To Living With Heart Disease,  “a story by itself isn’t the message.”

Insider Tip

Alison Cameron (@allyc375) feels strongly that sharing a personal story should be a starting point for action, not the end goal.  “For me, the personal story has its place yes, but is a starting not an end point, “she says. “The crucial thing is not to fall into ‘inspirational patient’ mode but to work with those listening to come up with concrete actions for change. I got very weary of being parachuted in to ‘tell my story’ then kicked out swiftly after being patted on the head and told how “inspirational” I am. What changed as a result of all that? Not a great deal.”

5. Communicate Your Message

Now that you have identified your target audience and crafted your message you need to think about how to communicate it. The most straight forward way of communicating is directly such as a face—to-face meeting, an email, or a phone call.  Plan ahead for how you will share your story.  What supporting material will make your story stronger? Can you share research data to support your key message(s)?  You don’t need to use too many facts, and detailed data – pick the data that is most relevant to your audience to help make your point; for instance, state data would be important to a state legislator, while patient outcome data would be relevant to healthcare professionals.  The WHO recommends you use facts and figures wisely – if you use too many it can overload and confuse your audience. Balance statistics with stories that convey the human cost of disease.

You should also use blogs and social media to spread your message to a wider audience. Bear in mind the content that works best on the platforms you have chosen. The continuing growth of visual platforms, such as Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram means that creating visual content is more important than ever. There is a reason the most widely shared content nowadays is highly visual because visuals can rapidly create an emotional response and convey an idea very quickly. The type of visual assets you can create include images, videos, and infographics.

Insider Tip

Jo Taylor created her own infographic to raise awareness of the signs of secondary breast cancer. There are many tools out there which can help you create appealing images without any design skill. I’ve put together a list of free tools here which you may find useful.

6. Promote Your Message

People are more likely to believe and understand a message heard from more than one source. Promote your key message(s) through social media and encourage people to spread it through their social networks too. Research shows that 69% of people share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world, and 84% share because it is a way to support causes or issues they care about. By making it easy for visitors to your website or blog to share your content, you increase the likelihood that they will take this action. Make sure your social sharing buttons are clearly visible on your site. This is the most obvious (though sometimes overlooked) way to encourage readers to share your content. By placing the buttons on the side or at the end of the article, people will be more inclined to share the article.

Insider Tip

Use a tool like Click to Tweet in your posts. This useful tool generates one-click tweet boxes or links that can be shared through your website, your blog, or via email, to increase social shares.

Wrapping Up

Raising awareness is the first step on the path to change. Change won’t happen right away and it will require patience and persistence. Siobhan Freeney (@breastdense) founder of Being Dense, an organization which raises awareness of breast density and its associated links to breast cancer and screening, believes “awareness is the precursor to change,” and you need “resilience, research, passion and patience” to succeed.  If success feels slow in coming, don’t lose heart.  As triple negative breast cancer blogger, Catherine Foy (@mytripleneglife) points out, “without you realizing it, your story may have given hope to someone struggling.” Even if your story hasn’t changed the world, it may, to quote Kay Curtin, “change somebody’s world.”

Patient Advocacy: Understanding Your Illness

The news that you, or a loved one, has a serious illness can be a terrible blow.  You may be faced with an array of emotions ranging from shock to fear to anxiety. You will likely have many questions and concerns about what the coming days and months will bring, and the impact living with this illness will have on your life and the lives of your family. Although you may be reeling from the news, it’s important that you learn as much as you can about your diagnosis, its symptoms, how it may progress and what treatment options are available. In this article, you will learn which questions you should ask your healthcare team and where to find reliable and trustworthy information to become better informed about your health condition.

1. Obtaining Information From Your Doctors And Healthcare Team

Having answers to your questions can help you understand your illness better and feel more in control about your treatment decisions.  How much information you want is up to you. Some patients feel overwhelmed by too much information at this stage.  Others say they didn’t receive enough information.  While information upon first diagnosis is vitally important, you may be in shock and in a heightened emotional state which makes it difficult to fully comprehend all the information you are given. If possible, bring a trusted friend or family member to appointments with you to take notes. If this is not possible, ask your doctor if you can record the consultation so you can focus on listening, and go back and review what was said later.

Medical care is a conversation and to have influence in that conversation you have to speak up. Never be embarrassed to tell your healthcare team if you don’t understand something they’ve said. Sometimes doctors use medical jargon without realizing they are not explaining things in terms we understand. Repeat what the doctor has told you to be sure you understand and ask for clarification if needed.

Some questions to ask your doctor about your diagnosis:

  • What are the symptoms of this illness?
  • What should you do if you notice new symptoms or if existing symptoms worsen?
  • Do you need any further diagnostic tests?
  • What are your treatment options?
  • What are the side-effects of the recommended treatment?
  • What are the benefits vs the risks?
  • What happens if you do nothing?
  • Are there other treatment options available?

Finally, ask your healthcare team if they can recommend further reading, support groups and other resources to help you learn more about your illness.

2. Finding Reliable Information Online

As you move along the patient journey and better understand your illness, you may want higher levels of information. However, you may find the information healthcare professionals provide has not keep pace with your increased needs. This is the point where many patients turn online to seek more information. While the Internet can be a useful source of health information, it’s important to know how to critically evaluate the information you find online. Always discuss what you find with your healthcare team and ask them to put the information into context for your particular situation.

Here are some questions to help you determine the trustworthiness of online sources of information.

  • Who has produced the information?
  • Does the organization have commercial interests or another reason they are promoting this information?
  • Is the name of the organization and their aims in setting up the website clearly shown?
  • Does the site provide contact details if you have any questions?
  • Is the information on the website up to date?
  • Does it cite the source of the information that is being presented?
  • Does the site link with other reputable sites that give similar information?

3. Evaluating Medical News Reports

Whether it’s published in hard copy or online, medical news reports can mislead people into thinking a certain drug or treatment is the next breakthrough in a disease.  As patient advocates we must learn to read beyond the headlines to filter out the good, the bad, and the questionable.

The following questions will help you evaluate the reliability of medical news reporting.

  • Does the article support its claims with scientific research?
  • What is the original source of the article?
  • Who paid for and conducted the study?
  • How many people did the research study include?
  • Did the study include a control group?
  • What are the study’s limitations?
  • If it’s a clinical trial that is being reported on, what stage is the trial at?

Always try to read an original study (if cited) to critically evaluate the information presented. Understanding research literature is an important skill for patient advocates. For tips on how to read a research paper click on this link.

4. Learning From Peers

From helping us to uncover a diagnosis and finding the right doctors and treatments, to learning about everyday coping tips, turning to our peers can make all the difference in how we live with our illnesses.  Much of this peer-to-peer learning takes place through social media discussions on patient blogs and in Facebook groups and Twitter chats. On Facebook you can connect with other patient advocates and join Facebook groups related to your disease or health condition. On Twitter you have a greater mix of patients, physicians, healthcare professionals and medical researchers coming together to discuss healthcare matters. It is becoming increasingly popular for attendees at key medical conferences, such as ASCO, to “live-tweet” sessions. You can follow along on Twitter using the conference hashtag which you should find published on the conference website. Another way to learn on Twitter is to join a Twitter chat related to your health condition. Twitter chats can be one-off events, but more usually are recurring weekly chats to regularly connect people. There are chats for most disease topics and a full list can be found by searching the database of the Healthcare Hashtag Project.

Final Thoughts

Understanding your illness is the first step on the path to advocating for yourself and others.

Being an advocate involves asking lots of questions, conducting your own research, and making your preferences known to your healthcare team. By doing this, you will be better informed and in a stronger position to get the treatment that is right for you. If this feels overwhelming to you right now, go at your own pace, and reach out to others who have walked this path before you. There is an army of patients who are standing by, ready to share their healthcare wisdom and practical coping tips with you. Seeking their advice will help lessen the fear and isolation you may be feeling, give you a sense of shared experience and connection, and help you feel more in charge of your healthcare decisions.

How To Boost Your Online Advocacy Through Blogging

Are you looking for a way to boost your advocacy activities online? One of the best ways to do this is to create a blog. Many patients blog about their illness as a way to advocate for better treatment and care and to provide guidance and support for other patients. Blogging shows your commitment and passion for your cause.  Because a blog is interactive (by allowing readers to post comments) it is also an extremely effective way to build a community and engage more people in your cause. If creating a blog is part of your plans for 2018, but you are not quite sure where to start, this step-by-step guide will get up and running in no time at all.

Step 1 Choose a Blogging Platform            

The first step is to choose your blogging software. Free blogging platforms are designed to be easy to use with pre-existing templates which you can personalize. Popular platforms include Blogger, Tumblr and WordPress. I use a WordPress site for my blog Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer.  The free version at WordPress.com is a good option if you want to try out blogging with little or no financial outlay. If however, you would like more functionality and the freedom to host your blog yourself, then you should choose WordPress.org.  I will focus on setting up a WordPress blog throughout this guide.

Step 2 Choose a Domain Name

Your domain name (also known as your URL) is your address on the web. Choose a domain name that is short, memorable and descriptive.  If you choose the free version of WordPress, your domain name will look something like this: yourname.wordpress.com. If you wish to omit ‘WordPress’ in the url, you have an option to pay an annual premium which costs around $18.

Step 3 Pick a Web Host

Web hosting is where your website lives on the internet. Every online site needs web hosting. If you choose WordPress.com your blog will automatically be hosted by WordPress.  If you decide to go with WordPress.org you will have to purchase hosting with a separate hosting company. There are many hosting companies to choose from, but the only hosting service officially recommended by WordPress is BlueHost.

Step 4 Install Your Blog

If you have chosen the free version of WordPress your blog will be installed automatically.  If you have purchased a hosting account, your provider will walk you through the steps needed to get your WordPress blog up and running.

Step 5 Configure Your Blog Settings

Now it’s time to set your blog’s title, tagline, language and visibility options.

Go to the General Settings of your WordPress dashboard.

The first setting you will see is Site Title. Your site title can be anything you’d like – it doesn’t have to be the same as your blog’s URL or your username.

Tagline is next and is a short description to describe what your blog is about. For example, the tagline of my blog is “Making Sense of The Breast Cancer Experience Together”.  Until you personalize your tagline the default is displayed as follows:

The Language option lets you select the language you wish to use on your blog.

Finally, the Privacy settings control your site’s visibility. Set this to Public if you want to be found by search engines.

Step 6 Design Your Blog

Designing your blog is the fun part and it starts with selecting a theme. WordPress has a wide range of paid and free themes for you to choose from. You can sort themes by filters like “popular”, “latest”, “featured” as well as several other filters. New themes are always being added so you can change your theme as often as you like. Clicking on a theme’s thumbnail will show you a preview of that theme so you can see how it will look before you activate it.

You can customize your chosen theme by adding your own header image if you wish, for example a picture of you or the logo of your organization.

Once you have selected your WordPress theme, you are now ready to create your first blog post.

Step 7 Creating Your First Blog Post

To write a blog post, click on the Posts » Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard. Enter your post title in the upper field and enter your post body content in the main post editing box below it.

Click on Add Media to include an image, document, audio or video file in your post.

Adding Categories and Tags to your posts will help you organize your blog posts. Categories are the general topic area you are writing about. Readers can browse specific categories to see all posts in the category. Tags refer to micro-categories for your blog. Posts with similar tags are linked together when a reader clicks one of the tags.  Here is a sample of some of the most commonly used tags on my blog.

The Preview button allows you to view your post before you publish it. You can save a draft of your post and come back later to edit or add more content to it. When you are happy with how your post is written, you can publish it either straight away, or you can schedule it for publication on a future time or date. You can also change the publish date to a date in the past to back-date posts.

How long should a blog post be?

There’s much debate on whether short or long blog posts work better. If you want your blog to rank on Google, then longer is better. This is because longer articles will contain more keywords, headings, links, and pictures. Aim for something between 1000 to 1500 words, but at the very least, your blog posts should be more than 300 words for Google to rank it. Just make sure that posts are easy to read by breaking up long text with headings, bullet points, short paragraphs and images.

A note on Posts vs Pages

Often WordPress beginners get confused between Posts and Pages. Posts are entries that display in reverse order on your blog. As you add more posts, older entries are moved further down and become less visible. Pages (such as About or Contact Me pages) are static and remain visible to readers.  To create a new page, go to Page -> Add New in your dashboard.

 Step 8 Attract Readers to Your Blog

Don’t get disheartened if visitors don’t flock to your blog right away. It takes time to build your readership, but there are a few things you can do to increase your blog’s visibility and attract more readers.

1. Post your content on social media

The best way to attract more readers is to post your blog content on social media. However don’t just post a link to your latest post – include images, pose a question, or add a startling statistic that will encourage readers to click on your link to find out more.

2. Make it easy to share your blog

To expand your blog’s reach on social media, encourage readers to share your posts after they have read them. Make it easy for them by adding highly visible social sharing buttons to all your posts.

3. Hook your readers with compelling headlines

Your headline is the first impression you make on a prospective reader. Just as we judge a book by its cover, we often judge a blog post by its title.  It’s fine to start writing your post with a working title, but when you have finished writing it, go back and spend some time creating a headline that will entice readers to click through and read the post. For tips on creating compelling headlines click here.

4. Use keywords in your blog posts

If you want to attract new readers to your blog, you want to make sure they’ll be able to find you when they search online.  It’s important therefore to include keywords in your content if you want to rank higher for particular search terms.

 5. Comment on other blogs

Most blogs have comment sections which allow you to comment with your blog’s url. Leaving a comment which adds to the conversation is a good way to interest others to click through to your blog.

6. Write a guest post for an established blog

 Offer to write a guest post for a blogger with an established readership. Include your blog’s url in your guest post.  Search engines like Google index blogs when they find them mentioned (in the form of links) on sites they have already ranked. The more high-quality links your blog has, the higher Google will rank you.

7. Maintain a consistent posting schedule

You need to post regularly to stay in front of your audience’s eyes and grow your readership.  Maintaining a regular publishing schedule means you should pace your posts so that there is something new to read on a consistent basis.

To wrap up, blogging is an extremely effective way to show people what you are passionate about and committed to. If you want to boost your online presence and grow your advocacy in 2018, starting a blog in the New Year is a great place to start.

Happy Blogging!

 Do you blog? Do you have any other tips to offer novice bloggers? Please share your tips and your blog’s url in the comments below.

Seven Steps to a Successful Digital Advocacy Strategy

Digital advocacy concerns the ways in which you engage your audience online and inspire them to take action around your cause. Using digital tools and applications can amplify your issue, while giving you new opportunities to listen and engage with supporters, and monitor your progress.

Creating a digital strategy will help you focus on your goals more clearly, choose the right digital tools, promote key messages, and measure outcomes more effectively. Ultimately, the right strategy gives you the best chance of using digital channels (like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) to reach the right audiences with the right messages at the right times to advance your advocacy.

Step One: Set Your Communication Goals

The first step to any advocacy strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals that you hope to achieve. What are you trying to accomplish? For example, you might want to increase public understanding of the issues you advocate for, mobilize supporters to take action, or raise funds to support your cause. You will need to set SMART goals, which are:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Realistic
  • Timebound

Specific – define your goals as clearly as possible.

Measurable – put figures on what you want to achieve e.g. increase visits to the website by 40%; gain 100 new Twitter followers or Facebook Likes.

Attainable – make your goal attainable in terms of the resources and capabilities you have.

Realistic – to be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work.

Timebound – your goal should be grounded within a time frame.

Step Two: Define Your Target Audience

Who does your message need to reach? Obviously, you want to reach as many people as possible, but by choosing which audience to prioritize in your digital communications you will improve your reach, enhance relevance and put your resources to the best possible use. Find answers to basic demographic questions about your audience, what issues they are concerned with, alongside which online communities inform, inspire, or influence them. You can then tailor your content more specifically to match your audience.

Step Three: Choose the Right Social Channels

Once you’ve identified your target audience, map this information to social media behavior to help determine which social channels to concentrate on. Publically available reports, like Pew Research Center The Demographics of Social Media Users, can help you with this step. Social media are dynamic and constantly changing. When you develop your digital advocacy strategy, be prepared to be flexible. As new networks emerge you might want to add them to your strategy, but it’s important to always relate this back to your goals and your audience to ensure it fits your plan.

Step Four: Create Compelling Content

What is the key message(s) you need to convey to your target audience? How will you communicate it? Sharing the stories of
real people affected by your cause will be the most powerful and compelling content you can create. Share this content via blogs, videos, podcasts, email, etc. Bear in mind the content that works best on the platforms you have chosen. The continuing growth of visual platforms, such as Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram mean that incorporating visual content into your digital strategy is important. Whichever type of content you create include a clear call-to-action. Make it clear and unambiguous what the next step is after reading or viewing your content; for instance, sign a petition, share on Twitter and Facebook, or donate to your cause.

Step Five: Implementation

Time is probably the biggest challenge in implementing your strategy. To achieve results and credibility you have to be prepared to commit time regularly to producing and promoting content and engaging with your audience. Decide on how much time you can realistically devote to implementation. Do you have time to write regularly for a blog? Would it be better to make short videos instead? Create an editorial calendar and list the dates and times you intend to post blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter updates, etc. Use a scheduling tool, like HootSuite or Buffer, to schedule you social media updates in advance. There are numerous tools and applications, many of them free, which can help you spend your time more efficiently and productively on social media.

Step Six: Monitor Social Media

It’s important to monitor social media on a regular basis to keep on top of what people are saying about you, your organization, campaign, or issue. It also gives you an opportunity to find relevant online discussions related to your cause, allows you to adjust your strategy in real time and guides you to key online influencers and opinion leaders who can help amplify your message. Setting up a simple Google Alert (email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your queries) with relevant keywords is a good place to start. Use a tool like Hashtracking to monitor a particular hashtag, related hashtags, and the top influencers of that hashtag.

Step Seven: Measure and Evaluate

The final step is to measure and evaluate your progress, adjusting your strategy if necessary. Some key metrics to track are the number of followers you attract and retain, which social media channels drive the most traffic to your website, the number of comments you get, and how many times your updates have been shared. Google Analytics will provide you with detailed analytics to measure your website performance. Each of the main social platforms also has their own analytics built in. Other useful tools include:

  • SumAll measures your Twitter follower growth, mentions, and engagement
  • Klout measures your online social influence via a “Klout Score”, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100.
  • Spredfast measures data gathered from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr, to show how many people you’ve reached and whether or not your target audience is engaging with you.

Final Thoughts

Digital advocacy helps amplify advocacy efforts by potentially reaching more people, in more places, faster than ever before. It works best when it is aligned with your existing offline tactics. Think about how you can integrate your everyday advocacy activities with your digital strategy to maximize impact. Don’t expect digital advocacy to work right away. It is a strategy that will succeed long-term, rather than be a quick success. If you want to see real results, you must be prepared to commit to it long-term. Finally, keep in mind that social media are constantly changing and evolving, and you will need to keep evaluating your strategy to ensure you are maximizing your opportunities to engage meaningfully with your supporters.