Social Marketing
A Conversation on Crisis Communications During COVID-19
We recognize this is a challenging time for all of us in children’s services across the country; most especially for the families and youth we serve. To support you in developing your own response to COVID-19 for your team and your community, we are convening a series of conversations and disseminating helpful resources. Together we are stronger in creating forward-looking solutions to meet the challenges of today while building a brighter tomorrow. Click here.
Introduction to Social Marketing
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.