What is advocacy? and why has political advocacy become such a huge political activity for ordinary people in the past decade?

Children’s education activist Malala Yousafzai is perhaps the best person to talk us through an advocacy campaign and the reasons why they are so delicate.

It’s no coincidence that the most important advocacy strategies don’t identify as such until their objectives have been met. Campaigns such as Yousafzai's in Pakistan only came to global prominence after she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 while aboard her school bus. Raising awareness of education problems in various countries is nothing new, but in some of the world's most populous countries where up to 10 million children are out of school, it is of grave concern.

So, advocacy campaigns or whatever we want to label them, are, put simply, an attempt to cause some change in this crazy world we inhabit. Colin Kaepernick used his position as an NFL player to try and promote social change in the US. Kaepernick has come under heavy criticism over his decision to kneel during the national anthem last season in protest of social injustice in America. It’s a difficult line to tread carefully. In a professional setting, we would want them to be strategic but most advocacy campaigns are not planned or perhaps the most important ones aren’t. So how can we plan as we go along? Check out these simple guidelines for off the cuff “ambush advocacy”:

Create Multi Channel Forms Of Communication:

Social media can be the best way to spread your message if you hadn’t implemented an advocacy strategy for the simple fact that it doesn’t take long to set up these pages. They are usually free of cost and yet the audience reach is tenfold. We recommend Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is fast and you can connect with many using simple hashtags and Instagram lends itself well to advocacy campaigns because we find visual stimulus is the most emotive.

Excite/Provoke Your Base

Colin Kaepernick took a controversial stand by kneeling during the National Anthem in the US, thus provoking a backlash from many but also winning support for his courage on a national stage. The movement is still growing in the US and this is only further bolstered by people taking an interest in Kaepernick's career since the protest began.

His sacrifice is obvious as he officially opted out of his contract with the 49ers in March, thus making him a free agent moving into the 2017 season. With the quarterback still unsigned, many have suggested that his free-agent status is due to his political stances more than his play on the field.

Stories such as Kaepernicks help supporters identify with a cause and usually encourage efforts amongst a core group. It is quite obvious that if Kaepernick's story was more straight forward then his activism would be pushed to the back pages of the media.

Use The Right Tools

Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, email, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences as well as coordination. This is where we come in with Ecanvasser's advocacy software being able to deliver all this information to your database either through direct canvassing or email blasts. If you want to learn more about how we can set up your campaign hassle free, click the button below.

Build Coalitions

Partnerships exist to take things to the next level and we have seen no better example of this over the last few years than organizations linking up with LGBT communities to strengthen the equality movement. Working alongside each other we now recognize the pride symbol not only from the pride flag but from Apple, Samsung, and Netflix. All organizations have used the colors alongside their own logos.

So, dependent on your issue, link up with someone who has a global arm and work together to push your message across various platforms.