Communicators for Change: Aliya Karim, Social Media Editor, World Food Program USA
This is the first installment in a new series on people working in the communications and social change world. From participatory journalism to social marketing, I believe there is so much potential for media to be used for good but very few places to learn and connect with people at the forefront of this intersection, so that’s why I’ve started this series called Communicators for Change. If you would like to be featured or know someone I should talk to, please let me know in the comments!
Aliya Karim is the Social Media Editor at the World Food Program USA based in Washington D.C. She got her BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and MA in Media and Public Affairs from George Washington University.
What’s something people don’t know about the World Food Programme?
What they do is more than just provide food after a natural disaster. We provide food assistance during protracted crises like what’s going on in Syria, tons of development work like training farmers to get better access to markets and feed their families, working with communities in places that are prone to climate-related disasters to build resilience and help mothers and young children receive the right nutrition. WFP is the head of the UN’s logistics cluster, so during any emergency, they are the ones who lead the logistics coordination for the humanitarian organizations on the ground.
From your experience, do you think it’s easier to have more of a social impact through journalism, communications or both?
I feel like you can have more of an impact in strategic communications. When thinking of communications and social media, it might not be direct but it’s slightly more impact than journalism. Being able to work for a particular cause and particular organization, you can have an impact on those individuals versus in journalism, you would be writing and reporting on different topics. For me personally, I wondered how is this ultimately impacting this issue?
How exactly do you measure the impact of your work?
Everyone kind of struggles with measurement. When we’re thinking about a story that we wrote, did that actually bring in dollars to fundraise for a particular program? It’s hard to tell. It’s hard to tell if a story or post we put up online is what ultimately encourages people to give and impact a program. Measuring ROI and analytics is kind of tough in that sense.
On the upside, we’re doing a lot of testing of the communications we’re pushing out to our audiences to see, oh we sent this email to X number of people, so how many of them took an action on our website or gave money? We’re trying to draw the connections there.
What are some of the essential tech and tools you use regularly for your work?
I use basic analytics tools from our email program that provides backend reporting. For social media, we use Sprout Social to schedule posts and see analytics. We write blog posts on Medium.com, although their analytics aren’t that great and hard to figure out. We have a podcast on Libsyn and gather stats on that. We also work with some outside agencies and vendors to give us feedback on our emails and website.
What are some of your favorite projects or ones you’re the most proud of?
In 2015, I went to Bangladesh (see photo). Having been to Bangladesh many times throughout my life, this trip was an eye-opener. I walked into slums and villages of low-income families. I spoke with people I normally wouldn’t have and interacted with kids who make you smile no matter their situation, kids who are just being kids. It was really amazing to see WFP’s work in person and to see the (hopefully sustainable) impact we’re having on entire communities. It was especially amazing to see that work being done in a part of the world that my family comes from; there’s something about that connection that makes it so much more real.
Our current website redesign is really exciting but also extremely nerve wracking because I’m redoing the entire website. I keep getting nervous every few days about staying on track. We’re trying to showcase the information online that will be most relevant to the user.
Another smaller much quirkier project I’ve worked on is a video series that started last summer called “The Nutrition Nerd,” which we film in-house and edit in-house. It’s a fun project to work on every few weeks about various topics on health and nutrition. We’ve talked about what is nutrition, what are micro nutrition deficiencies, how are water and sanitation related to good health and nutrition, and some of WFP programs. We don’t want it to just be on WFP but be more educational and useful. Students actually get in touch with us so it’s helpful for them as they’re going through college and trying to learn more about this type of work.
How do you try to make WFP’s content stand out from the crowd?
One thing our communications team tries to do is stay on top of the news cycle and use that news cycle to push out our own content. This past year there’s been all this news around climate change and El Niño. WFP is doing work around that, so when the New York Times came out with an op-ed, we saw that piece and decided people are reading it so why don’t we push out that related content to grab people’s attention at the same time.
Competing with other organizations is hard in the news cycle and Facebook has crazy ridiculous algorithms that keep making our content less and less relevant. We need a bit of social media budget on our team to push out more content. Making the case to senior leaders for that is always tough.
Are there any really impressive communication campaigns that you‘ve come across recently?
There’s a website called Impossible Choices by the World Humanitarian Summit that puts you in the shoes of a refugee and their journey and you have to choose between 2 choices: like you are leaving your home and choose whether to take your mom or your husband. It’s such a ridiculous thing to think about but that’s what they’re actually going through.
What kind of professional resources or support is there for people doing similar social change communications work like you?
A lot of people kind of feel like they’re on their own. I’m always in contact with social media folks from other organizations. I’m part of a social media group and we’re all on this email chain so whenever something comes up or someone wants advice, we’ll email each other. We’ve had a few webinars. Ultimately we all want to help each other do a better job. It would be great to have more collaboration and feedback. I was thinking to offer putting together an informal Q&A session with the folks who are redesigning our website, because they’re really helpful. The type of content to include and their advice could be helpful for other organizations.
What do you believe is the most important skill for a social change communicator to have?
The most important thing is to be able to write well, especially to write well in small spaces. How do you write short succinct things for Twitter, how do you create short, digestible pieces of content for your audience and learn more about the issue at hand. People have short attention spans in this day and age, so you want them to be engaged and involved.
What advice do you have for others interested in this field?
Pay attention to the news.
Always continue to work on your writing skills.
Don’t limit yourself as to what you’re looking for in internships and part-time jobs. Sometimes you get caught up trying to do specific thing. My first internship, I thought it would be lots of writing, but it was more web work like HTML and editing a website which is not at all what I wanted, but it was a really helpful set of skills that I was able to build and ultimately made me become more interested in communications. So you never know what you might miss out on!
Do you have any particular goals of what you’d like do with communications? What’s next?
Right now, I’m really enjoying the work that I’m doing at WFP USA. I’m happy that I can do a variety of things in my role. It’s not just managing social media. I get to put on different hats and responsibilities, which is nice for me.
I’ve never had a niche idea of what exact communications thing I want to do. I’m still trying to figure out where I want to go and what I want to do.
I want to stay in the nonprofit and advocacy world. Whether it’s doing hunger related work or something completely different, I ultimately want to make an impact on people.
