How to Use Online Advocacy to Drive Change

Technical experts from the Global Health Advocacy Incubator’s digital training team developed a customized online course in digital media advocacy to lift the voices and expand the reach of organizations working to promote road safety in priority countries. The course included a social media accelerator to reach new audiences on Facebook and a design training to develop compelling, powerful content.

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator views digital media advocacy as a critical element to any campaign plan, as social media platforms are places to educate and inform the public, issue calls to action and interact directly with legislators, stakeholders and key decision-makers in real time.

In the round of training that ended in January 2019, a total of 15 civil society organizations from four countries participated. The results were remarkable, demonstrating how powerful content and strategically targeted investments can change the game for digital media advocacy.

In the first month of training, participating organizations collectively gained over 5 million total impressions and nearly 100,000 total engagements across all accounts. In just one example, participating organizations from India totaled around 1,400 interactions on social media in a baseline four-week period before the training. After the training, they used the skills they learned to gear up for a major push around a critical legislative window for the public health bill they were working to advance. During the four-week period that included this targeted campaign, their collective social media interactions totaled over 208,000. This remarkable jump is an example of the kind of technical support the Global Health Advocacy Incubator provides locally led organizations, which use their new capacity to move public health forward in their countries and communities.