Public relations for social causes is more difficult than to engage public consciousness for more worldly needs. By nature such changes are high impact and aren’t the immediate priority of issues to most peoples. Nevertheless communications strategies play a big role in lending voice to civil rights movements. Many organisations have used public relations effectively to further their causes.

Greenpeace is known to mobilise millions people through their movements, often backed by strong research and data. PETA has used shocking imagery to provoke mass empathy for their cause. In India however, the array of approaches have been unimaginatively limited. Conventionally social activism has relied on physical protests, measured in success by the size of participation and the chaos that they create. That visibility is what several campaigns have been aimed at, whether it results in public support or any concrete actions or not.

Over the course of the last few years, online campaigns were used extensively to mobilize consciousness and contributions. This transcended boundaries of geography, and constraints of time and effort. Resultantly reach of campaigns amplified and catalysed larger participation. Keeping in mind the integrated nature of media, here are some tips for creating public relations impact for social cause campaigns:

1. Identify targets and influencers

There should be a clear demarcation from the campaign’s perspective, of who will propagate the message and who will receive and act upon it. There will be different reasons for each to get engaged and agree to the cause. Here is a case study of how Krispy Kreme deployed this tactic.

2. Make it meaningful and relatable

For both the influencers and the target audiences, the message must be made meaningful; something to which they relate easily. Several organizations try to quantify the impact of the social cause, or display how it manifests for society in general. The clearer and familiar the idea is, the more quickly people will empathise and engage with it.

3. Make contribution easy

The degrees to which public empathises with the cause vary and therefore so do their contributions. A good campaign must allow these different degrees of contribution to their cause, which can vary from something as simple as signing an online petition, spreading the word, monetary donations to voluntary or professional contribution.

4. Integrate across platforms

Creating awareness of a campaign can be done through several media, and the campaign itself can exist on more platforms than one; from offline to online. Even within online platforms there could be numerous forums where the campaign messaging is broadcasted. The important thing to remember is to seamlessly integrate them with each other, to maximise the collective impact that they create.

5. Create reasons to refer

Social campaigns, often constrained of resources, will rely heavily on word of mouth to spread their message and engage as many as possible. A key factor in making the message meaningful and relatable is to additionally convince your audiences to involve their likeminded peers and masses who are likely to be stakeholders. A further manifestation of this comes in the form of creating champions of your message, people who are able to garner interests within and beyond theses stakeholders.

6. Collaborate

Quite often there are more than a few organisations working for similar or allied causes. Besides minimising duplication of efforts, collaborations can create complementary synergies which strengthen the campaign and give a greater mass appeal. The PR impact of that a collaborative effort can create is likely to be larger than that a standalone activity can.

There are several organisations outside of India who have exemplified public relations for social causes and continue to do so. There is plenty to learn from them as well. As the civil society becomes more aware and aspired to make a greater contribution to their ecosystem, effective PR can help them reach their goals quicker.

This blog is a part of insights on Public Relations shared by SCoRe. Know more about what we do to spread PR Knowledge, www.scoreindia.org and our Post Graduate Programme in Public Relations