Change in the Social Movement Ecosystem

For hundreds of years, people have fought for various social causes, trying to make our world a better place. It wasn’t until more recently that social causes can easily be fought on an international level. Thanks to advances in technology, NGOs and INGOs can effectively spread their messages to people around the world, so long as they have a strong communications strategy.

Before technology was advanced enough to let people instantly connect with other people around the world, social causes were more place-based. People had to rely on the media word-of-mouth, meaning it took longer to spread messages and information about social causes, especially internationally. Once email was created, activist organizations were able to use that to reach target audiences. Then came the arrival of social media and the rest is history.

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Companies cannot be successful nowadays without social media. They wouldn’t be relevant or effective in reaching target audiences. For NGOs and IGNOs, effective use of social media is even more critical in spreading messages to target audiences around the world. Margaret O’Mara from The New York Times writes, “Americans may be ambivalent about tech’s power and trustworthiness, but they rely ever more heavily on these platforms for connection and communication.” And this is true for people across the globe.

Even though technology has allowed NGOs to reach larger audiences more quickly, the information age also comes with challenges. According to Val Varmillion, NGOs need to be steadfast in sustaining a claim-driven process, decide whether to position particular struggles inside or outside of the system, ask themselves if their social movement should remain bottom-up, and have plan for engaging activists in their fight. In addition to having a comprehensive communications strategy, NGOs should think about the above challenges and have plans for how to address them to be successful in the long term.

Oceana's Instagram page

One NGO that has exceptional social media presence – and uses it effectively – is Oceana. Oceana’s active and engaging social media presence reaches

more than 4.5 million people across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. The NGO tailors its posts to each platform while still sharing a consistent message. It shares a variety of multimedia on its social channels, including images, videos and infographics, creating visually appealing accounts as well. Oceana is able to reach a global audience; however, most content is in English. The organization could better utilize social media by sometimes sharing posts in different languages to show its audiences that it wants to reach them where they are.

Oceana's TikTok page

In addition to social media, Oceana also has an effective communications strategy in general. The NGO sends visually appealing emails to people on the mailing list, hosts events in cities across the globe and utilizes celebrity endorsements, all to reach target audiences, garner donations and advance its mission.

What all of this comes down to is that any NGO, big or small, must adapt to changes in technology and social cause communications to remain relevant and ensure its messages reach the intended audiences.