With the continuous rise of organisations adapting digital & social advertising into their marketing activities, there is one aspect that has interested me the most: The use of social media advertising for promoting socially beneficial behavior in local communities.

With the number of social media users continuously growing, and users becoming increasingly reliant upon the internet for research reasons and to communicate with peers (Ryan, 2014), it is no wonder the local government and not-for-profit sector are moving a high proportion of their advertising activities online.

Social media advertising allows the sector to specifically target audiences based on age, gender, location and interests, therefore decreasing advertising wastage, (Hollis, 2005), but what it also does, unlike traditional methods of advertising such as TV, is create online social communities of people creating, co-creating, commenting and engaging in content which is applicable to their own likes and interests (Tuten, 2008). It transforms the sector’s ability to reach and engage with their target audience, through diminishing the one-way communication seen in traditional methods of advertising where an individual sees a bus advert and the journey ends there, to two-way communication whereby the user is encouraged to communicate and share their thoughts and opinions.

For example, lets take spreading the awareness of the need for foster carers in local communities. Traditionally, you may see a billboard with the words ‘Make a difference, foster with ______ Council’. This method may be successful at grabbing the attention of individuals passing by and spreading awareness, but really, the journey ends there and there is no way to clearly measure whether the advertisement has led to fostering enquiries. With social media advertising, the journey is trackable and users are able to comment on, like and share the adverts that they see. This not only creates two-way communication between a local authority and their audience, but also spreads awareness through online word-of-mouth advertising as foster carers and prospective foster carers share their thoughts in an online, public space.

Something a little bit different, but also relevant to promoting socially beneficial behavior, is a social media campaign success story based in the US. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention ran a social media advertising campaign targeting parents aged 30-55, encouraging them to inspire their children to exercise more. Awareness of the campaign grew as more and more users were encouraged to become part of bettering the health of children in the US, and after just one year, results showed a 34% increase in weekly physical activities among 8.6 million children ages 9-10 in the US (Sonya & Bryant, 2005).

Although the social media campaign ran by the CDC may not have been focusing on local communities in particular, rather the US as a whole, it provides evidence that the power of social media advertising cannot be under-estimated in creating online word-of-mouth advertising and encouraging users to become part of socially beneficial behavior. As social media usage continues to increase, I expect we will begin to increasingly see the sector tapping into online social communities, and utilizing them in order to spread awareness of socially beneficial behavior to help better local communities.

I’ll be researching lots more into this, so if it’s something that interests you, please keep reading :)…

Hollis, N. (2005). Ten Years of Learning on How Online Advertising Builds Brands. Journal of advertising research. 45 (2), 255-268.

Norman, C. (2012). Social media and health promotion. Global health promotion. 19 (4), 3-6.

Ryan, D (2014). Understanding digital marketing: Marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. 3rd ed. London: Kogan Page Limited. 4-27.

Sonya, G., Bryant, C. (2005). Social marketing in public health. Annual review of public health. 26 (1), 319-323.

Thackeray, R., Neiger, B., Smith, A., Wagenen, S. (2012). Adoption and use of social media among public health departments. BMC Public Health. 12 (12), 1-12.

Tuten, T (2008) Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. United States: Praeger Publishers.