Imagine starting with pen and paper to the digital world, decades of changes and a complete revolution have surpassed. From a newspaper to radio, and TV to social media is undoubtedly a great journey of the digital era.
Hashtags make a major contribution to raising voices on such social matters that news channels and papers won’t consider talking about.
People have taken everything into their own hands and within seconds it reaches to global audience and creates an impact. It is indeed factual to say hashtags work faster than the news itself.
Let’s explore how social media reshapes activism and advocacy and how it amplifies voices to mobilize the impact.
Role of Hashtag in Social Media Activism
Digital activism is used to record protests and advocacy of some issues like fundraising, support, solidarity, and protest, and create awareness to put pressure on organizations, the judicial system, or the government to change policies, laws, or practices that activists may find problematic. This can also be highlighted using hashtags to support the stance.
Hashtags are the primary revolution to highlight the major issue they can be of anything used for posting, campaign, or ads to convey your scenario. A simple act of tagging content to individuals and groups to organize a spark for sustaining the movement of social change.
Without genuine offline action, your campaign can be a complete disaster if people are not connected with you or seems like it’s a waste of time. Whereas, the phrase “action speaks louder than words” is still factual and authentic as it cannot be successful when you only plan but cannot implement. So creating awareness and convincing people to take action requires passion for change.
How Social Media is Reshaping Activism and Advocacy?
With the help of social media, the constant flow of information is spreading widely and people are highly dependent on it. Here are a few ways how social media is reshaping movements:
- Amplification:
Social Media has indeed changed the aspect of spreading information with limitless geographical boundaries and unlimited versions of the same story enabling marginalized communities to raise voices against their right to speak. With the inclusive digital space, these platforms have diverted the attention of the international community to look and find such issues that should resolve their problems and provide them with basic needs.
For example, flooding, and earthquake issues happened all over the world. Over time, people donate through campaigns by analyzing the impacts of these natural disasters.
- Awareness Campaigns:
Earlier, people could only donate through campaigns arranged in television news, but now you can globally donate your things to the international community as well. Through these awareness campaigns and motivating messages, people started donating their goods and cash to the people who were suffering from disasters.
Social media solely enables activists to disseminate educational content, information, and statistics, encouraging users to engage critically with crucial issues.
For example, the Stop Asian Hate campaign surge in anti-Asian hate crimes resulted in global media being attracted to the issue and highlighted it for many weeks.
- Global Solidarity:
Social media has enabled many communities to spread cause and solidarity with the global audience with their actual accounts using hashtags if they are not physically present in the movement. It emphasizes that people from all over the world can show empathy and feel the pain of those who suffer.
For example, issues like climate change or human rights are global concerns and help eliminate geographical borders.
- Information Dissemination:
Social media is the fastest and easiest mode of communication for users. It is also responsible for quickly unfolding such information which should not be leaked without confirmation. Such information might damage someone’s reputation and credibility for the rest of their lives. So people need to think before posting such incidents.
For example, during protests or social injustice people instead of helping most likely open their social media platforms and make videos or photos of such incidents in which they have no background.
- Mobilizing Actions:
Social media is a vast and most faced form of digital advocacy and activism as it allows users to spread information to millions of users at a time including international communities and organizations to take legal actions about what’s happening around the world. The virality and shareability of such hashtags foster collective impact to participate and build a collaborative movement.
For example, a powerful message, shareable issues, and social injustice help in concrete steps to stop inactivities that directly or indirectly affect people.
- Build Global Communities:
Social media actually target communities to take their stance on such topics which should be known to everyone. These can also be used to build communities to comprehend such marketing tactics enabling youth to participate. Now people who want to convey directly usually start campaigns with the same community by speaking with them. The use of hashtags mobilized youth action across the world to exchange ideas.
For example, Nike Women is a branded hashtag used to spark conversation and raise awareness targeting the right group of people to make it a trend.
- Fundraising:
Through social media channels and campaigns influencers, celebrities, organizations, or the government can raise awareness for fundraising. Peer-to-peer fundraising, donation buttons, and crowdfunding campaigns have all become popular methods of funding advocacy and activism. You can use the Instagram profile viewer tool to boost your followers and stalk such profiles that you are most interested in promoting to other channels.
For example, Helping Hands is an organization globally available for people who need help and support without any geographical boundaries. Through awareness campaigns, they raise funds and help such communities who are in desperate need.
- Challenges and Risks:
Social media can also face backlash despite helping many communities be successful. Some people go against things as planned and create some new hashtags against campaigns that aren’t that impactful to highlight. This requires many risks as a naive understanding of many complex issues through sensationalism.
For example, MacDonald’s #McDStories was a huge fail as it was created to share stories but people shared the unpleasant experiences they faced at MacDonald.
Analyzing Impactful Movements of Social Media Advocacy
There were several movements started with hashtags and many created a huge impact in their respective fields.
Some were created for eternal social issues that cannot be removed hence they will be extensively vast and forever. The most popular are here:
- #MeToo
Me Too was a solidarity awareness that originated in 2006 but impacted in 2017 as a movement for all women who had suffered sexual harassment, assault, or abusive behavior. This was indeed a turning point for all the women who have gone through this can speak openly with this hashtag that how commonly each woman whatever background or race they have, survived it.
This movement not only raised questions about the protection of women but also raised many points when men came to join this as they also suffered assault from women. It highly impacted the global audience and increased awareness of the workplace harassment that men and women can face in their everyday lives. Justice prevails for all those survivors and many others faced serious punishments.
- #BlackLivesMatter
Sparked by the death of unarmed black men, this hashtag captures the attention of the wider audience and the moment gains momentum. Several people captured attention when they actively participated in the movement. They shared videos leading to public awareness and high user engagement.
This hashtag was used in rallies, protests, walkings, speeches, public gatherings, and even in national discussions with stories that affected black people. That was an attention to the public about black people, the injustice they face, and the criticism they have gone through.
- #Covid-19
The coronavirus emerged mid of 2019 started in China traveled all over the world making it isolated and a total blackout. The hashtag was widely used by the WHO (World Health Organization) during the pandemic. People who have weak immune systems suffer from the coronavirus. So, #Covid-19 was the hashtag globally used in the world to communicate with the people in order to provide them with cautions, and disease control measures.
Along with COVID-19, there were many hashtags that were discovered like #Quarantine, #Lockdown, #Pandemic, etc. People actually talk about their everyday lives with these hashtags as they reach higher engagement and increase visibility.
- #LoveWins
A hashtag was celebrated worldwide when the Supreme Court announced the verdict that same-sex people can get married. This hashtag widely circulated across many platforms and even in marches banners. This was globally trending for 24 hours as a celebration of love. Celebrities, influencers, the political community, makeup artists, etc. also celebrated the win of love through their social media platforms with this hashtag.
This means that people from around the world demand their rights and after the verdict, they all are free to love whom they want. Snapchat celebrated it as a tribute to the LGBTQ+ community with a colorful rainbow and Facebook with a rainbow profile picture.
Potential Pitfalls of Online Activism
- Slacktivism:
It is a common practice to support a major political or social cause through digital or social media that requires minimal effort as an indirect form of involvement with the real world. This can be participated in using likes, shares, comments, and forwards to others. It is criticized for being effortless and passive as it may not lead to tangible meaning.
However, not all forms of digital involvement require passiveness, some may cause a huge impact on many social media platforms when used strategically.
- FilterBubbles:
It is a personalized space curated by an algorithm that selects information and content for the people using prior experience, preferences, online activity, and interests. It usually leads to the spread of misinformation or fake news without prior fact-checking and results.
This can also build echo chambers most likely to connect with like-minded people and eliminate the decisions of different ideological perspectives.
- Misinformation & Disinformation:
Social Media can be a ground to spread misinformation and disinformation leading causes to delivering irrelevant, unnecessary, and unbothered news. It can also create confusion among people including some important topics.
False news can sometimes damage the actual movements allowing multiple ideologies to raise such questions which can offend the thoughts of people.
- Trolling:
Usually, when activists and influencers talk about some important arguments or problematic situations, they face backlash, harassment, and online trolling. On TikTok, users create memes and significantly buy TikTok likes to increase their visibility and reach to a wider audience. This can make credible people stop promoting such content which can become a humor for people without identifying the sensitivity of the issue.
Online trolling can sometimes affect free speaking and discourage other participants from taking part in online activism.
- Short Attention Span:
Some issues can be a change for people but some lead to the short span attention as they do not have enough potential to be in the limelight for a longer period. People quickly move to new topics that have more connection with them.
It can be more challenging for influencers to carry the problems or move to the next. They know that strong attention requires active and strategic thinking both online and offline.
Tips to Build a Credible Community
- Define Your Goals:
Before posting you must have a clear understanding of your goals and values. Always consider such questions as What are my goals? What do I want to convey? Creating captivating and authentic material will be easier if your vision is clear and consistent. It will also help you avoid confusing or alienating your followers.
- Create Relevant Content:
Content is the main key in social media advocacy. You must create content that inspires, motivates, educates, and informs your audience. Try using storytelling techniques and make them connect with users so they can feel how relevant your approach is. Additionally, you can use Call To Action (CTA) to invite users to participate, purchase, and actively demonstrate their ideas.
- Ethical Responsibility:
When it comes to acquiring new information and opportunities, it allows you to be more ethical and responsible. While framing your ideas to users maintain the respect and dignity of others. Always respect the guidelines of certain platforms that you use to spread information. Make sure your sources are credible and authentic, in case you get any information that is not credible make sure to recheck it before sharing.
- Remain Authentic:
Authenticity is the key when posting or sharing information on social media platforms. People trust such information they directly receive from their favorite inspirational people. This can even become news within a day. Make sure to only spread information when you have a complete background, misleading or unimportant news can lose your credibility and people divert their attention to other people.
- Choose Your Platform:
Not all social media platforms are the same. Carefully define your platform when posting something relevant for your users. First, define your target audience, if you have a diverse audience opt for Facebook or Twitter. If you want to share visuals or campaigns go for Instagram. You can also purchase Instagram likes to increase your follower count as it can help your information to be spread more efficiently. You can choose other social media platforms to promote your stance too.
Conclusion
People use social media to influence users and grab their attention. Social media is no doubt an active platform to promote activism and advocacy. With the hashtag revolution, people can demand their issues to be resolved within a matter of time as international communities can directly capture the attention of all the people and their issues.