CRY social media strategy: Fundamentals of NGO communication

From putting up effective content to specific CTAs, the CRY social media strategy focusses on the ‘You’ in Child Rights and You.

At CRY, social media is used as a tool to enable people to engage with the organisation’s cause. It is a window for people to peep in and see the talents of the children that are a part of the various initiatives taken up by CRY. The colour yellow and content that is packaged to be emotive makes up for a major chunk of the CRY social media strategy.

"A majority of the communication put forth constitutes of films that tell stories of such projects and short burst campaigns that seek to “break the apathy around child right issues,” says Alankrita Khera, General Manager, Communications, CRY.

Instagram works best for CRY for both amplified engagement as well as an increase in the quality of engagement.

She adds, “We curate content that is interesting and relevant to our audiences with a clear view on building awareness around and focus on generating conversations on every child’s right to a happy childhood. User-generated content is a key tool for audience engagement, our focus is on having a two-way conversation with the ‘You’ as much as possible.”

Also Read: 5 Cs to leverage Instagram for marketing your NGO

Social Media Footprint

In sync with each platform’s unique demographic and psychographic user persona, CRY adjusts the content, keywords and hashtags. The choices are made basis trending conversations in the intended target group.

Facebook: 456K likes
Twitter: 292.9K followers
Instagram: 32K followers
YouTube: 4.67K subscribers

Khera tells us, "Regularly testing post copy narratives and lengths while staying true to CRY’s brand tonality also helps us learn in real-time what our audiences are responding to."

Then there are the usual hygiene checks like using customised sized images for each platform done by the NGO, using clear and specific CTAs wherever possible, not posting more than thrice a day and planning post schedule basis platform audience insights

While most of the content on Instagram and Facebook constitutes that directly relevant to CRY, on Twitter, there are instances where connections are found in news. It helps the non-profit participate in conversations where they have a stake in. For example, the

Welcome sir Parambir Singh as the 74th commissioner of @MumbaiPolice. We look forward to working with you to keep our children safe. #ForOurChildren

On both Facebook and Twitter, they share links to media coverage about CRY and ones that mention quotes from spokespersons.

The #YellowFellow Campaign

Around Children’s Day last year, CRY ran a marketing campaign, #YellowFellow. The aim was to raise awareness for every child’s right to a happy childhood. It is a part of the non-profit’s long term marketing strategy with a hope that visibility will help create dialogue around the issue. It may eventually help people to take tangible steps when they can.

In 2019, #YellowFellow reached more than 1.4 crore people with over 1800 unique audience entries. These included posts by 38 influencers roped in for the campaign by CRY.

Influencers play a key role for CRY. They are mobilised to enable conversation for their voice and participation helps the cause garner visibility and credibility to the efforts.

“It’s definitely not a tactical campaign for us. In 2018, the idea of becoming a #YellowFellow was to use yellow socks in a quirky way and in 2019, we extended that to using yellow socks as a visual element in art, as a phrase in micro tales and as augmented reality filters on Facebook and Instagram,” she tells us.

The team is already preparing for the 2020 plans, which are expected to be bigger and better.

Battling COVID-19

Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 scare, CRY has been running a donation campaign to safeguard the kids who are likely to be the most vulnerable. For creatives, they have taken file pictures and drawn mask on the faces of the kids. Alongside, they have been putting up staple positive stories.

Yellow is a major part of CRY's social media persona. It forms the basic structural theme that makes up the non-profit's brand communication. Most of the content put forth, may it be stories, pictures or poems, the underlying theme is to tug at people's emotions. The humans behind and being benefitted by the organisation are often featured.