Select your platform

After defining your target audience, another question needs to be answered: where are the people I want to talk to actually active? Which platforms should I therefore use to implement my campaign? 

 Choosing the right platform

Choosing the right platform is crucial when planning a counter or alternative narrative campaign. Talking past your intended audience is one thing to avoid, launching your campaign on a whole different platform than your audience is active on a whole different story. Both of them end with your campaign not reaching the right people. 

Furthermore, while the audience selection is especially relevant for choosing the tone of your messages, the selection of the platform is relevant for the development of content. Additionally, the platform selection should also consider the type of campaign you want to run as one platform might be better than the other to reach your objectives. 

Facebook Best for preventive campaigns, aiming at increasing resilience among a broader target audience
Instagram Best for innovative campaigns due to its continuous updates; best at aiming younger audiences and, due to the story functions, good to engage the community with survey and Q&A buttons
Twitter Especially useful if you want to get in touch with media, other NGOs and political actors in most European countries. The platform can support you in establishing yourself as a campaigner or your NGO as a relevant actor. In some countries, also general public is very active on Twitter. See example below. 
 
YouTube Campaigns aiming at dissuading people, or better, keeping people from further radicalisation; the platform is suitable for longer videos. however, it is important to first conduct an in-depth research of your target audience to produce relevant content for them. Otherwise, it is just a waste of money and resources.
TikTok Best for campaigns aiming at reaching a young audience; recommended to pick up hashtag challenges and work with influencers; best for young and dynamic NGOs and campaigns and innovative formats.

 The importance of platform selection can be best shown with an example

In Spain, Twitter is actually quite popular. Users are rather highly educated and tend to follow brands and companies, to stay up to date with products. Meanwhile in Germany, Twitter is mostly used by journalists and politicians as well as NGOs interacting with both groups. The users of the platform are very much focused on Berlin, being the German capital and thus home to federal politics as well as major media offices.

Consequently: If my main goal is to reach federal politicians and journalists in Germany, I should think about getting a Twitter account. If I’d rather attract younger audiences in Germany, I might have to come up with a strategy for Instagram and TikTok. Meanwhile, in Spain the reverse is true: Young professionals increasingly use Twitter, though also TikTok is increasingly popular, especially amongst women. This is also true for the United Kingdom, where 65% of TikTok users are female. 

 Platforms' audience analysis

Facebook

Open your page on Facebook; in the top of the page, access insights. On the left-hand site, there is a list of specifications you can get insights on. Don’t be fooled: You audience analysis is not hiding behind followers, but behind people

There, you can find different kinds of information, such as on gender, country, even region and city, age, interests, and more. 

Instagram

You need a creator or business account on Instagram to have access to insights, which you can also only access via the mobile app. You can tap the different metrics and can get then a more detailed overview. However, Instagram’s insights are highly criticized for not being specific enough.

Twitter

Login to your Twitter-Account, then open analytics.twitter.com. In the top of the page, you will find “Followers”, where audience insights can be found. 

Youtube

Via your YouTube-Account, access YouTube Studio: Open YouTube, either on your smartphone or computer, and click on your profile picture. Open YouTube Studio (on your smartphone, you will have to download the app) and select analytics to gain insights into the performance of your videos, but also your audience. 

TikTok

In order to gain insights into your audience and to access TikTok analytics in general, you will need a TikTok Pro account. Once you make the switch to a pro account, you can access analytics by clicking on the ellipsis in the top right and find it listed under Account. You will first see an overview of your video views during the past week or month, but can select followers at the top for deeper insights into your audience. 

 Examples of campaigns

 Exercise

Let’s say you want to run a Twitter campaign on the topics “Environment and Fast Fashion”. In your research you find out that the majority group to participate in buying fast fashion products online are the Generation Z. With regard to that main audience, is Twitter really the best platform for your campaign?