5 Myths About Building Digital Engagement Campaigns for International Organizations

In 2007, I flew into New York for the first time. As we descended into La Guardia, a fellow passenger pointed out the iconic UN building to her companion, gleaming in reflected sunlight. I silently smiled with a swell of involuntary pride. Years of low wage design grunt work had paid off. My new employer was the United Nations Department of Public Information, where I would attempt to build the digital version of a long-standing UN magazine. The results would be… not as good as I had hoped. Managing digital projects is complicated business. But if my first UN project didn’t exactly take off, every one since has gotten a bit further off the ground.

Fast forward 12 years. A campaign I co-conceived and co-led with an exceptional Campaigns Officer for the low-profile UN specialized agency IFAD attracted a global audience of millions. It featured a custom song and music video from a rising Afrobeats superstar, an innovative engagement challenge, a groundbreaking partnership with the world’s fastest growing mobile app, and most notably, it was all delivered without the involvement of any external creative agency or any digital ad buys.

It would become the most successful advocacy campaign in IFAD’s history, massively boosting social media followers and earning significant coverage in the global news media, including the Guardian. Thanks to the hard-working Campaigns Officer, the clout earned has since been parlayed into this tiny UN agency acquiring its very first Hollywood A-lister spokesperson. All without the involvement of any global PR firm — a chain of events to my knowledge unprecedented in the UN system.

I’d like to focus on some of the ideas about how to build and manage effective digital engagement campaign that made this possible. Let’s bust a few myths.

Myth #1: Bureaucracy kills innovation

Truth: Get the good-egg institutional knowledge keepers on your side.

Bureaucracy is much maligned, but at its essence it represents both an organization’s history and a set of rules to prevent fraud. If you want to succeed at any UN agency, you will need to appreciate the Bureaucracy, and also its close cousin the Hierarchy — if only so you can subvert them better and actually get stuff done.

The first step is to assemble a cross-organizational hybrid team to work on the campaign. Identify and recruit at least one or two long-term staff as valued members. These are the ‘good eggs.’ Now work with them to produce some short-term quick wins, and watch as administrative forms suddenly jet through the system and doors open to new connections. Voilà! The bureaucracy now works for you! It is hard to overstate how vital it is to network and get these institutional knowledge keepers on your side. It really makes everything else possible.

Another related consideration when encountering Bureaucracy is time-management. By all means keep an eye on internal politics — but don’t let it distract. Create a time slot for creative campaign work and stick to it. Delegate as much as you can. Set limits on the number of daily hours spent in meetings and keep meetings on point, varied, fresh and — this is key — as short as possible.

Myth #2: Everything depends on a big budget

Truth: Colleagues are the most valuable resource.

This one sounds hokey. Yes, a big budget and a big PR firm did deliver Beyoncé to the UN General Assembly Hall for a night (more on influencers later), but a well-implemented, content-first campaign with a tiny budget can reach a targeted audience more effectively if done right, albeit on a smaller, far, far less glamorous scale than the Queen B. Hmm. Let’s rephrase.

The truth is digital engagement for humanitarian organisations is a day-in day-out focus, and should be about quality over quantity most of the time. Whether search or social, digital ad buys have never been a match for organic, authentic engagement with targeted users vis-à-vis meaningful, well-crafted, well-delivered content.

You may not have a dedicated SEO or Google Ad buy Communications Officer on staff like some of the most well-heeled agencies actually do, but if you look around your organization, you should be able to assemble a cross-sectional team of experts — of thinkers and doers. The imaginary ideal of the UN is and could be still attracts some of the world’s brightest minds — people who are usually multi-skilled, but don’t always have the most flexible managers. With a dash of diplomacy, gathering a non-hierarchical assortment of untapped talent even once a fortnight to craft and give feedback on a campaign can result in impressive insights. Treat them like the organization’s own creative studio. Their ideas might just be superior to the derivative concepts of the so-called thought leaders from global PR firms. Set up some quick wins to start. Treat a weekly social media gamification experiment as a mini-campaign in its own right to build experience.

I’ll end with a caveat: Recruiting a budgeting and funding expert to your ad-hoc campaigns team — likely an institutional knowledge keeper — should absolutely be a top order of business. Budget matters, just not as much as you think it does.

Myth #3: The ITC team are your digital experts

Truth: Digital belongs equally to Coms and ITC

Your in-house nerds may or may not be down with the latest digital innovations and jargon, or they may have their hands full maintaining corporate web platforms and securing internal systems. By all means consult with them, but avoid handing them the reigns to your digital campaign.

The reality is that digital is bigger than just IT. It is co-owned by your digital design team within communications, who are far more likely to have a better idea of your needs and how to effectively fulfil them through branding and an outreach strategy. Be the instigator. Don’t be afraid to share or give up control. If needed, start by consulting with your communications colleagues about hiring expert digital design consultants to implement the latest, temporary, often cheap campaign products. Outsource digital design work when you need to, and if you don’t have experience with design management and providing creative direction, it’s best to admit it and work with someone who does. The best creative always happens through collaboration, but there is no substitution for an experienced design expert to guide the process.

Myth #4: Advertising and PR Firms know best

Truth: Ad Firms are sometimes required, but proceed with caution

There will always be an urge to open up the coffers and hire the hippest design agency in New York or London for a campaign. Sometimes A-listers, or actually their handlers, will demand a certain PR firm. And more often than not they deliver outstanding, memorable creative work. However, they are pricy and these big ticket event campaigns won’t add to internal team capacity to effectively launch campaigns the rest of the year.

Be meticulously careful before signing long-term agreements, particularly with one of the public relations giants. They may just do creative concepts and outsource the actual digital design and video work, so you may want to skip the middle-man entirely and just hire a digital design studio. Don’t be afraid to question excessive billing, or to call in lawyers or even threaten to go public in a trade magazine if they violate the contract — for example, by signing a direct competitor. Manage external agencies on a very short leash. Connections with the news media in their traditional hubs of New York and London is another essential service PR provide, but work with your organization’s Media Officer to assess other access points.

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And remember that you don’t have to always outsource all the fun, creative stuff. Digital insights can come from anyone, at any age. Consult and test widely. The organization is the topic expert, especially at the field level, the human level. Build and value internal capacity by cultivating and nurturing a creative learning space. The best creatives in many fields are now emerging from developing economies — the new reality is that you can hire local and achieve something as good or better than London or New York, and more cost-effectively.

Myth #5: Campaigns live or die by A-list celebrities

Truth: Unorthodox influencers can make it work

Most of us can’t help but to inhale deeply when an A-lister passes wind in our general direction. And for good reason. The high profile presently enjoyed by UNHCR was largely built by Angelina Jolie, just as Unicef was by Audrey Hepburn decades earlier. But not all is lost if you don’t have a celebrity spokesperson of that calibre, or if the ones you do have grown stale. Aim lower. The right tweet from a B or C-lister can often add thousands of new followers.

You can also recruit your very own celebrity. How? Don’t aim at the top. Networking is vital. I come from working class background, but that is largely an anomaly for UN Staff. They often come the wealthiest, most exclusive echelons of their home countries. They know people. They know people who know people. Their parents know people. Insider tip: The moms of celebrities might just be a key backdoor access point. Network, then network some more. Get ready to relentlessly follow, like and message a wide range of networks and you might just get lucky. We did. The UN name does carry weight, as it should.

Aim even lower to start. Be open to exploring a variety of cultural milieus, set a target follower cut off point of maybe 10,000, then get to work crafting the appropriate messaging, content and ask. A well organized, well designed campaign is its own selling point. Academic scholars are mini-influencers in their own right. Target widely and unexpectedly.

Engaging with the digital

My career has taken me to a dozen UN agencies and other similar organizations. I have encountered a remarkable cast of characters from every corner of the world, and worn many hats within Digital Engagement: From building information management platforms to designing brands and outreach strategy; from leading web and social media teams to creative directing advocacy campaigns.

Digital Engagement is an ever-evolving field, encompassing a multitude of roles and disciplines. An openness to change and adaptation are well-regarded attributes in information technology circles, at least when it serves them. Silicon Valley markets the “adapt or die” adage into hyperbole bubbles, cyclicly popping and re-inflating, while hunting for outdated norms and standards to be sacrificed on the alter of the purportedly “new.” But that’s the private sector. And while marketworld’s shaping influence is unavoidable and often for the positive, the humanitarian sector is a different beast entirely. We endeavour to represent an ideal, embody unique goals and often, equally important to remember, values that transcend market trends. Adapting, changing, and innovating — AKA being creative — is at the very heart of what we do.

Get creative. Stay productive. Work hard. Spend wisely. Deliver results. And have fun.

If you want to chat about digital engagement, send me an email at peter@simulacranaut.com