Facebook Redistricting Lessons

We have been using social media as a way of engaging members, partners and the public in redistricting since the start of 2011. One of our volunteers, Hannah, wrote this report to summarize, analise, and invite your feedback on our strategy.

Video Introduction

This is a short video to accompany Hannah's report about the LWVC's use of Facebook for redistricting education.

How You Can Help

Before you begin reading this report, we want to ask your help in making it even better. We are tracking the rate at which this report is downloaded, and how often the accompanying video is watched, using Facebook and the free analytic tools provided by Google.

We’re measuring how far this report is shared, liked or re-posted on Facebook, and want to see if this correlates to how often it is read online or downloaded.

The results will be posted on the LWVC Facebook page in one month. The information will help us set goals and targets for our future work with Facebook, and the results might help you, too!

Please help us to measure just how far something can go: promote our video and report to your peers, friends and family by sharing, liking, and re-posting them!

 

Key Lessons in Using Facebook

  1. Using Facebook is a worthwhile use of our time
  2. It is possible to set quantitative goals and track them
  3. Partnership and collaboration on Facebook are invaluable
  4. Taking the time to find the most appropriate people, pages, posts, and comments to engage in has a greater impact in the long term (quality over quantity)
  5. Giving responsibility to one issue-specific social media coordinator is beneficial for both the organization and the individual in that role

 

Our Goals In Using Facebook

Because social media is rapidly changing and evolving, practitioners are struggling to find the answers for when, why, and how to best engage in social media and how to measure it. Measuring the impact of social media is not an easy process, and the techniques in doing so are improving as we better understand how to set goals and interpret the analytics that are available. It is one thing to track all the variations of mentions, fans, followers, likes, shares, etc. across social media sources and quite another to attempt to measure the combined impact of all of this activity on the overall goal of educating our members, partners, and the community about redistricting.
With this in mind, we drew up a number of overarching goals that would have an impact on the redistricting education campaign:

  • Helping Californians be active and informed in civic life
  • Increasing awareness of the LWVC by the public
  • Increasing membership in the League
  • Providing members with resources, networking opportunities, and peer support
  • Raising our ranking in search engine results
  • Increasing traffic to our sites CAvotes.org and LWVC.org

There were a number of different methods used to communicate about redistricting, but the main ones in using Facebook were to:

  • Link to LWVC redistricting web pages on Facebook
  • Build an online network of people interested in redistricting
  • Share LWVC generated content about redistricting
  • Share content from other sources about redistricting

 

Methods

Linking to LWVC redistricting web pages on Facebook – audiences were usually asked to comment online, to attend a public meeting or to pass on information. When an ask was planned, a Web page was identified which contained the ask and related content. The link was often a page on CAvotes.org or LWVC.org – we hoped that this would help to drive up hits to that page and improve search engine results for these Web sites.

Using free analytic tools provided by Google, we were able to see that Facebook became one of the top referring Web sites for the pages we posted. In comparing pages we promoted (redistricting) against similar pages we did not promote in Facebook (public education, health care), the number of views were hundreds of times higher for those which were promoted (for example: if health care received 100 views in a certain period, redistricting would receive thousands of views in that same period).

Building a network of people interested in redistricting – this included posting links to official LWVC materials on the walls of other organizations, commenting on their posts and cross promoting their events. This then led to our articles and events being cross promoted by other organizations active on the issue of redistricting on Facebook and in the ‘real world’, building an online network of interested organizations and partners.

This example illustrates how this worked: the LWVC President is featured in this film by CA Forward http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1432rJXcq4. This film was posted on both their pages and ours, and was commented on by a number of people. We can speculate from this that more people are now aware of the work of the LWVC on redistricting, and there were also those who joined the LWVC Facebook page following the posting of this video.

Using the pages that have been created by local Leagues, we also ensured that if articles relevant to local Leagues geographically or individually were being posted, they were tagged in the posting and made aware of the article. This then enabled local Leagues to repost the articles to their members, comment on them and encouraged their followers on Facebook to keep an eye out for future postings on the issue. Some local Leagues made us aware of other articles related to the local area and the issue, or a follow up article to the issue.

For example this article was posted by the League of Women Voters of Pasadena and reposted by us: Dueling Maps: How Will Your District Change? | 89.3 KPCC. Despite the feature focusing on Pasadena, it was related to the wider state work on the subject and to the priority campaign, and so it was felt that it contributed to the wider understanding of redistricting on Facebook, particularly the impact on local communities.

Share content by other sources about redistricting – a large number of authoritative texts were published with guides and explanations of various aspects of the redistricting process by both government organizations and other groups. These included the LWVC itself, the Redistricting Commission, CA Forward, amongst others. We posted links to these guides to help our members better understand the issues. If the guide was published by a partner on Facebook, we ensured they were tagged in the posting so that their followers realized that we were featuring them (creating goodwill and exposing them to the League).

An example of this includes this helpful resource posted in the run up to the draft maps being published: ReDrawCA - Your Local Neighborhood Redistricting Resource. ReDrawCA.org is a free, online redistricting tool for anyone who wants to access data, draw a new boundary for their district or community on a map, or learn more about redistricting in California. We felt that it was both beneficial to our members and to the wider public to have this resource shared further.

These links were posted by the LWVC ‘Kathryn Philips Edson’ profile and also, if the content was appropriate for voter service, on the CAvotes.org Facebook page (it is a bit complicated, but the short explanation is that we brand the LWVC Education Fund and therefore our CAvotes.org Facebook page as completely removed from advocacy. We only post content which is appropriate for voter service, presenting a fair and balanced view of the subject). These were mainly news articles or online comment pieces from a variety of sources and Web sites. These were identified by a combination of Google Alerts and other media monitoring.

Once we had posted the link to Facebook, we then commented on the articles on the host site (if the blog or Web page technology had a comments feature). It was frustrating and a lost opportunity when the host site did not allow comments, because we could not easily discuss their content or refer them to additional League resources. We wrote a short comment and posted links to the redistricting information pages on CAvotes.org or recent releases on LWVC.org These comments was always non-partisan, supportive of the process and encouraged readers to learn more by visiting the Web sites.

Share content by LWVC about redistricting – This was the opportunity to publicize the educational content of the LWVC and to keep members, partners and the public engaged and informed about the work being undertaken. This also showed the timeliness and relevancy of the LWVC’s work: people can see ongoing work, reactions to key events, and learn which content or issues we prioritized with our members, partners, and the public. This was viewed as an opportunity to show the work of the League to potential and current members, as well as our partners in a new and exciting way which engaged and informed them. We used Facebook to communicate about and make online contacts aware of upcoming LWVC releases and events.

 

How Did It Work? What Was Measurable?

Over the course of the campaign in the run up to the publishing of the draft maps by the Redistricting Commission, the frequency of the postings was irregular. Measuring the impact of the Facebook and online contributions to the success of the redistricting education campaign is not an easy task. This work was conducted at a time when the League was beginning to engage with Facebook as an additional method of communication, and some of the key Facebook pages had only recently been set up, such as the LWVC page.  For this reason to attribute any measurable result in growth of fans and likes, primarily to the work done on redistricting would be wrong.

The new LWVC Facebook fan page grew to 227 members since created in April, 2011. Efforts to increase the number of members of this group will continue. The majority of postings on redistricting prompted at least one comment or ‘like’, showing that the information was reaching members, partners and the public but could have more impact. Further analysis could be undertaken as to whether these were primarily LWVC Board members and staff, members or people external to the League.

Board Member Helen Hutchinson is a regular user of Facebook and gave us her opinion on how it can be used by the League:


Facebook has brought both its challenges and its benefits to the League. The immediacy and quickness of response mean that we can share ideas and information much more quickly than we have ever before. We are seeing League members across the California – and even across the country – interacting and discussing issues that they previously might not have had the opportunity to do so.

It can be hard to know sometimes what to post, or even how to react. The internet will never replace in-depth face to face discussion, nor should it. But I believe that social media has a definite part to play in the future of how we as League members communicate with one another, and with the outside world – we just have to work out how.

 

In terms of the amount of work undertaken, evidence and expert opinion recommends that the best way to grow any influence on social media is to provide regular updates, to interact with as wide a group of people as possible and to vary the sources of information posted. We know that the pages posted on Facebook were viewed by more people than pages which were not. Recent recommendations on how best to use Facebook have focused on the need for articles and links to be Shared and reposted. The posting itself does not take much time at all; what did take slightly longer was commenting on external articles and directing them to our Web sites. Ensuring fairness and non-partisanship of the comments whilst making them relevant and logical to accompany the article was not always easy.

 

Discussion of Lessons Learnt

Facebook is a worthwhile media for the League to engage in – as a communications tool, we believe that Facebook will continue to develop for use by the League, members and staff. Over the year the League of Women Voters of California has had a Facebook page we have seen a growth in membership, discussion and debate on a variety of issues but it is not easy to prove there is causality. Whilst not all members will use it the same way, nor should they, we believe it is something that local Leagues should be aware of. Guidance on how best to use Facebook for League leaders and members is available through the new LWVC members section.

It is possible to set quantitative goals and track them on social media – although we did not set quantitative goals for this campaign, without undertaking this work on redistricting we would not have been able to gauge the possibilities for future developments. We know that the instances in this work where we were able use statistics to show the impact of using Facebook, they did show a positive relationship.

Partnership and collaboration online are invaluable – building a network of other organizations and individuals who were interested in redistricting was highly valuable for distribution of information and materials. The partnership work which was undertaken in the ‘real world’ was supplemented by collaboration and cross-partner sharing of information on Facebook which strengthened the relationship.

Taking the time to find the most appropriate place to post online has a greater impact in the long term – the most time intensive past of this process was the posting on external websites, linking readers back to relevant information on CAvotes.org or LWVC.org As previously discussed, ensuring all comments were non-partisan, balanced, information and relevant was initially something which was worked on, in order to develop a style and template which could provide consistency and standard of message. The most important factor however in doing this, was to ensure that the postings were not viewed as spam, and that by contributing to the discussion thread under an opinion or news article, did actually contribute to the discussion overall.

Giving responsibility to one social media coordinator is beneficial for both the organization and the individual – despite working under the guidance of Jenny and Chris, ultimately the responsibility for posting, commenting and sharing belonged with me. Not only did it ensure consistency of message, tone and style in the postings, but it was also highly motivating to see the numbers begin to increase over time as more people were accessing the pages on CAvotes.org and LWVC.org

The Future of Social Media for the League of Women Voters of California

What matters most in social media is not what happens on social media outlets, but rather what happens as a result of what happens on those outlets. If we see Facebook continuing to refer traffic to the LWVC.org and CAVotes.org sites, as well as increased participation once on those pages, this will be a definite indication that Facebook is a resource the League should continue to invest time and effort in. If it declines, we have to explore whether Facebook itself or our way of using it needs to be reconsidered. Right now, the better we use Facebook and respond to tactics we identify as effective, the bigger the return.

We’ve developed a communications matrix detailing who should post to Facebook, how, how often, and why. It will be interesting to see how this tool helps expand our redistricting work to other issue areas and teams within the League.

In future campaigns we should keep a much closer record of the types of articles that are being posted in order to assess if all the key aims outlined above are being met equally. It would also be interesting to see and record who was reposting, commenting or ‘liking’ the articles, in order to measure if the work was attracting new members.

This report is the first in a possible series of discussion papers about how the LWVC uses Facebook. If you have any feedback or questions, please contact us or post them on our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/LWVofCA.