TA Network

Social marketing is the marketing of a positive behavioral change that benefits the intended audience, as well as society. Social marketing planning helps organizations ensure they are being strategic when it comes to their communications efforts. Though often confused with social media, social marketing is a comprehensive and audience-focused process that encourages communications professionals to create measurable goals, research their intended audiences, develop compelling messages that will move people to act or change, develop culturally and linguistically competent materials, use the appropriate channels to distribute them, and to collaborate with key audiences and stakeholders to achieve better results.

The social marketing process paves the way for reducing negative attitudes about behavioral health challenges in local communities, developing business partnerships to support the work long after initial rounds of funding, and adding buy-in from youth and family members—one of the key principles of the Systems of Care philosophy.

As core partners in the TA Network, the University of Maryland, Baltimore; Youth MOVE National; FREDLA; and NICWA provide training and technical assistance in all aspects of social marketing and strategic communications, including social marketing planning and execution, audience segmentation, message development, creating a social marketing committee, and collaborating with youth and families. Our work also includes facilitating peer-to-peer sharing and learning between social marketers.

Social Marketing Learning Community

Join us at Ideas @ The Institute for the Social Marketing Learning Community. It's your opportunity to learn from Individuals working on communications and social marketing in youth-serving systems, to network with each other, and to make use of resources curated and created by the TA Network, including webinars by the FrameWorks Institute.