Congrats on starting your community project! Now how to get the word out? I’m sharing tips from my experience spearheading the communication and marketing for the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment. Here’s what worked for us!
Be Social
Meet your audience where they are at! Our project started at the beginning of the pandemic – so we went online. Our founder, Olivia Jewell, reached out to like-minded friends and colleagues via her own contacts and family history related Facebook groups.
You can join the RootsTech Connect: Let’s Do Good Together Facebook Group. It’s a fantastic place to find service opportunities, share your projects, and collaborate with others!
Once we had created our project, we went to social media to share it. We set up social media channels/groups on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest. This was a fun way to get the word out! Don’t worry – you don’t need to do it all at once. We are still curating and trying new strategies with our social media accounts to encourage connection!
Start your own hashtag and utilize popular hashtags in your niche. This helps you to get seen on social media by people who are interested in projects like yours!
Get Organized
Something I spent a lot of time on for our first experiment was crafting pitch letters and press releases. Our design team also created a beautiful media kit with graphics that we could share with the press. This gave us something professional to share with news outlets and influencers.
What is a pitch letter? It is a short, personalized letter that outlines the value of a story and why it should be published. I created a basic pitch letter that I then personalized to each of the news outlets I sent it to.
The pitch letter is how you get your foot in the door. You can include your longer press release and your media kit as attachments if they would like more information. Now to the fun part … personalizing it!
Personalize It
People want to know your “why.” Share the human-interest element of your project. What personal experiences have individuals had with your project?
Here’s how it looked for our experiment. One example – I pitched our story (emailed news outlets) to the university newspapers/radio/public relations offices where our interns attended. I highlighted our interns’ roles in the project and included quotes from them in press release. This made it easy for the outlets to see how it was relevant to their publication.
When I pitched the project to our local news station, I focused on how the founders where from our hometown. Similarly, when I pitched a storytelling podcast, I highlighted how learning my own ancestor’s stories during the pandemic helped my mental health.
People relate to people. Know the stories in your organization!
Make It Current/Relevant
Hitch your wagon to something already popular well-established/popular. For us, it was family history month! We choose to host our second experiment in October precisely because it was family history month. This made our experiment newsworthy again because it was a way to celebrate something that was already established.
This is important to remember when you are pitching your project to the media. Producers/writers are looking for a way to tap into what their audience currently cares about. If it’s National Grandparents Day and your project is about interviewing seniors – that’s a great fit!
Where possible, try to contact writers/producers as much notice as possible. Many have their content calendar planned out months in advance.
Give Them Options
Especially when working with television, podcasts, and radio stations – give them options in your pitch letter. I like to include 3 short possible segment ideas. Remember to use the ideas I mentioned above! Make the ideas relevant, current, and human interest!
I hope these ideas have helped you in thinking about ways to promote your community project. It’s meant to be a basic introduction. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like further information!
0 Comments