SPUR Marketing Brief for Automated Traffic Safety Systems Article
Campaign Overview
This is a marketing brief for promoting a SPUR article about the impact automated speed safety systems can have on racial and economic equity.
Campaign Goals
The goals of my digital marketing strategy are:
Using various channels of communication to articulate the thesis of the article for audience members of different knowledge levels
Forming engaging bonds between our audience and SPUR
Understanding how the interface of a platform affects the perception of our content and organization
Creating appropriate associations between visuals, language, and our message
Breaking the “ceiling” of our current audience count/demographics
I will accomplish these goals by employing written and visual methods of social media messaging, direct audience engagement, and alternative/external methods of digital marketing. Each of these aspects will be accompanied by some guidelines/ideas that I would like to utilize. Following these aspects, I have made edits to the article itself.
Suggested Article Headline: Reformation with Automation: Piloting California’s Future of Equitable Traffic Violence Prevention
Written methods of social media messaging
I would curate and edit specific excerpts that best represent the article’s thesis in easily understood language. I would then use these excerpts as captions when posting this article on social media.
Captions need to have a “hook” within the first one or two lines. Even with longer format captions, the interface of these platforms truncates captions to streamline the user’s feed. For example, if we were to use a 1-2 paragraph caption on a Facebook post, only the first few sentences would appear to the audience immediately. They would need to click “see more” in order to read the rest of the caption.
We can lead the excerpt with an appeal to personal interest. For example, statements such as “As a community, we often deal with…” or “Did you know that…” appeal to the person reading the article.
Similarly, we should follow the excerpt with a “call to action” statement. An example would be: “Learn more about this by reading our article by (insert author name).” Adding the author’s name adds a personal angle to the article. “Influencer” marketing has a place, even within larger organizations or corporations.
We should post starting from long format to short format platforms. The posting of this article on the SPUR website would be the longest format. I suggest we would then post a link to this article on LinkedIn and Facebook with a brief 1-paragraph caption containing the excerpt. Then, we would post a link on Instagram to this article with a slightly shorter caption. Though the captions for postings on this platform are longer than that of Twitter, they still trend shorter than those of LinkedIn and Facebook. Finally, we would post a link on Twitter with the shortest caption since Twitter is the social media platform with the shortest character limit.
The text in the excerpt should be easy to understand, even if we want policymakers to see it. This does not mean we need to “dumb down” the article. Rather, if the excerpt is too technical for the general public to understand, they may ignore the article even if the topic is interesting to them. It may also be helpful to write the entire article in this kind of language to improve the accessibility and diversification of our audience base.
Sample Social Media Copy
Long-form social media copy (ex: LinkedIn/Facebook)
As Californians, we are no strangers to the difficulties brought on by urban commuting. However, it has become clear that traffic violence, the deadliest aspect of this issue, affects people of color at a higher rate. Susannah Parsons, SPUR’s Senior Policy Associate, offers an examination of this pressing issue in her article, “Reformation with Automation: Piloting California’s Future of Equitable Traffic Violence Prevention.”
“Automated speed safety systems (a.k.a. speed safety cameras) have been placed in more than 150 communities around the United States. These systems offer the potential to reduce traffic violence and can establish a more equitable framework of traffic enforcement. But those outcomes are not guaranteed. Achieving them requires thoughtful planning and design, an opportunity that California might now have. Legislators are now considering Assembly Bill 550, which would authorize a 5-year speed safety camera pilot program in six California cities. The state has a chance to integrate lessons from around the country and proactively advance equity for people of color and other communities most impacted by traffic violence and status quo enforcement.”
To learn five potential ways to rethink traffic enforcement, check out our article on this subject.
Medium-form social media copy (ex: Instagram)
As Californians, we are no stranger to the difficulties brought on by traffic. However, it has become clear that traffic violence, the deadliest aspect of this issue, affects people of color at a higher rate. Susannah Parsons, SPUR’s Senior Policy Associate, offers an examination of this pressing issue in her article, “Reformation with Automation: Piloting California’s Future of Equitable Traffic Violence Prevention.”
To learn five potential ways to rethink traffic enforcement, check out our article on this subject.
Short-form social media copy (ex: Twitter)
As Californians, it has become clear that traffic violence, the deadliest aspect of this urban issue, affects people of color at a higher rate.
To learn five potential ways to rethink traffic enforcement’s impact on POC, check out our article on this subject.
Visual methods of social media messaging
I would ensure that the visuals that accompany the social media postings can stand on their own as a representation of the article’s thesis. Visuals should never be ambiguous; rather, they need to be specific to the article.
We need to understand which platforms prioritize images first. Platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook do feature visuals in their newsfeeds, but not nearly to the extent of Instagram. A posting on the latter requires images, which means that there will be more visual information on someone’s Instagram feed compared to other platforms. We can determine if our visual material is engaging by looking at how people interact with our Instagram.
Take photographs using interesting photographic techniques. I would suggest that we use interesting angles, shutter speeds, exposure settings, and distances when taking photos. For example, we could take a photograph of Bay Area freeways during rush hour with a low angle to emphasize the magnitude of traffic violence. This is a great example: https://unsplash.com/photos/HI3YtO5tfQM
Use editorial illustrations and animated GIFs in addition to photographs. By employing these mediums, we can stand out from a large amount of photographic material on newsfeeds. These illustrations and GIFs may be more likely to stand out since they are less common. This is an illustration example that suits our topic: https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2019_11/2784401/190313-police-traffic-stops-study-kh.jpg. We can even do a mixed-media illustration that incorporates both graphics and photos.
Create an infographic that illustrates the problem and the solutions listed in the article. Including the introduction and conclusion, there are seven sections. I would also advise that an infographic be organized in a similar way. Infographics have become very popular on Instagram, and I suggest that we post our infographic there.
Similar to the idea of infographics, we could create an animated explainer video that breaks down the solutions to our problem. Animated explainer videos are very popular in educational settings. They basically combine the benefits of a podcast and an infographic together. People view these videos as entertainment rather than pure informational or educational content. As such, they may be more willing to watch them in comparison to reading a study on traffic violence. This is a great, somewhat topically relevant example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HnLhmXSpUs. I would look to Kurzgestat-In a Nutshell and CrashCourse, two educational media platforms, for more examples. https://www.youtube.com/c/inanutshell https://www.youtube.com/c/crashcourse
A visual is not meant to represent every single detail of the text itself; rather, it is meant to be a metaphor for the article’s message. The image acts as a gateway to the article. It is not a replacement for the article. For example, we do not need to copy text word for word in an infographic. Rather, the visuals of the infographic should be balanced with some brief, “bullet-pointed” text from each major section of the article.
We should think of the tone of the article when selecting the color scheme and iconography of visuals in this article. Firstly, we should have a cohesive visual vocabulary for all images and graphics in a single article. When picking colors or symbols, it is important to create the appropriate associations between visuals and our intended message. For example, if we want to emphasize the danger of traffic violence in POC communities, we can use the color red in all imagery used to promote this article.
For accessibility purposes, all images should be accompanied by alternative-text functionality for people who use screen readers. This demonstrates that we are inclusive and accessible regarding the content we put out. Furthermore, this could diversify and increase our audience base.
Direct audience engagement and engagement measurements
I would improve audience engagement through consistent responses on social media while also measuring engagement to determine the success of our communication strategies. Essentially, this allows us to crowdsource the scope of our audience base.
The responses do not need to be immediate, but they need to be regular and prompt. We should have guidelines regarding the time span in which we need to respond in order to appear as regularly active on social media. This time frame would also need to be reflective of how often we post content. If we post content more regularly, we need to respond faster.
We need to measure our own internal bandwidth when it comes to responding to social media comments. We have to find a response rate that matches well with the amount of time our team has. In order to be consistent in our responses, we should not shoot for a response rate that is impossible to achieve with our team. It is better to have a slightly slower response rate to start with rather than a faster response rate that we cannot uphold long-term. Decreasing response rates over time may elicit a negative response while increasing response rates over time may elicit a positive response.
The length and content of the response should reflect the length and content of the comment. A “thanks for posting” comment would probably require a shorter response or even just a “like” in comparison to comments with their own “call to action” statement. For example, if someone asks where they can learn more about Assembly Bill 550, our team could respond by sending them a link to the bill accompanied by “I appreciate you taking more interest in this topic! Here is a link with more information.” In fact, if we are hosting an event about this bill, we could add information about that event in our response as well.
We should determine how audience members are finding our content and which content receives the most attention. Many online platforms offer quantitative demographic information on the content someone posts through analytics. We can also use this to measure our success at being inclusive and accessible to a wide demographic range.
We could post a poll on social media to measure if audiences want more content about this topic. We could also ask in these qualitative polls if people have other solutions to the problem posed by this article or if they have had a personal experience with this problem. If they have and are willing to speak publicly about it, we could ask them to include their testimonials in future articles or invite them to speak on a podcast about the topic (covered in the next section).
Alternative methods of marketing and external collaboration
I would find external avenues of marketing that involve audience members, outside experts, and collaborations with influencers or media collectives that already have their own online following. These tactics are meant to expand our audience beyond our current follower base.
We can start engaging and posting on smaller, more niche social platforms. I would suggest that Reddit or Discord may be a great place to start. These two platforms are organized to foster highly specific communities. Both of these platforms also encourage live discussion, albeit through different means. Since the communities are niche in these platforms, our content may be less likely to get overwhelmed due to oversaturation on a newsfeed.
We could lengthen online discourse by hosting a podcast or event with the author and external experts after the original publication date of the article. Hosting an event/podcast after the publication of the article allows us to stretch out the timeline on which audiences can engage with this content. Some people learn better through listening rather than reading. This would allow us to expand our audience to these kinds of learners. We could host a live event with a panel discussion of traffic violence experts and policymakers. People could ask questions and get an immediate response, which is also possible with podcasts if we use live chat functions.
We can create a media series to solidify our place in the oversaturated newsfeeds of our audiences. We can host a video “show” or podcast weekly, monthly, or at whatever rate best suits our bandwidth and content output rate. If we are to do this, we can also use the first article in this series as a “kick-off” for the series. So, not only would we be using social media postings about this article to advertise the article itself, but we would be using the postings to advertise our new media series. The nature of a series also encourages long-term audience engagement.
If any of the embedded links or organizations listed in this article have a significant online following, we could ask them to post our article so that we may combine and increase our audience bases. If none of these links lead to an organization with a significant media following, we could try to find a media channel related to the topic in our article. It benefits us greatly if they already have a large following, as we would essentially be borrowing their audience for our own content. Not Just Bikes and Stewart Hicks are two YouTubers that create content that is relevant to SPUR: https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/featured https://www.youtube.com/user/stewarthicks/featured. We could reach out to them for collaboration.
We can create alternative content in other languages to reach bilingual and non-English speaking audience members. Since translating an entire article in another language may be difficult, we can create companion media in Spanish, Chinese, etc. For example, we could host a podcast with Spanish-speaking traffic enforcement experts so that we do not alienate audiences because of linguistic barriers.
For the same reason why we should use alternative text with images, we should also implement subtitles for any video content. We could also create transcripts and publish them online.