5 Public Affairs Tools Your Campaign Should Be Using Today

Digital media is evolving at a frenetic pace. Public affairs professionals have more options than ever to amplify their campaigns. And as technology advances, the tools you used to create maximum impact in 2019 may be falling flat today.

Unearth is pioneering much of this new technology. We’ve created tools specifically for public affairs executives and managers to help you and your team stay ahead. These are the five tools you should be using today:

1. Professional grade, public affairs-specific social listening

“Social listening” is more than a Google Alert or Twitter search. Great social listening tools give you digital intelligence. The intel to blunt your opposition’s message before it gains traction. The insight to tailor your messages to what legislators are talking about today. The data to know which trending media stories deserve a response, and which should be ignored.

The right social listening tool delivers information quickly, but also provides enough context to guide your actions. Tools designed for enterprise marketing and communications have improved their sentiment analysis and influencer identification in the past few years, but they still often lack the nuance required for public affairs.

So, to get the most from social listening you must choose the right solution for the public affairs context. Your tool must:

2. A content engine powered by data

Software is eating the world and expelling data as its exhaust. For communicators, this presents a unique opportunity. Leading public affairs professionals are using “data as content” for legislative fact sheets, email blasts, and social media posts. Timely, interactive data is transforming previously flat association websites and corporate annual reports into indispensable resources for policymakers and journalists.

3. A smart, flexible advocacy platform

Persuading a legislator on the fence, providing cover for a tough vote, or thanking a legislator for leading on your issue is all made easier with digital advocacy. Letters, tweets, and calls to legislators prove that voters in their districts are motivated and ready to take action.

Effective advocacy connects impassioned voters to their legislators at precisely the right moment. Many common advocacy tools simply deliver a voter’s message to a legislator, but smart platforms go much further and directly amplify lobbyists’ real-life activity. Your advocacy platform must:

4. Influencer targeting you can see working

If every time you met with policymakers they already understood why your issue is important, and had heard your message from political allies, major donors, key staff and trusted colleagues, how much more effective would your work be?

Influencer targeting from Unearth delivers on this promise. Digital communications are delivered only to the key influencers who can truly affect policymakers’ decisions. Unearth’s influencer targeting sparks real-world conversations between legislators and the people in their personal, professional and political networks.

Many public affairs teams have generated“influencer” audiences based on untested statistical models into their digital strategies, but few have zeroed indirectly on the real-life social graphs that matter. Your influencer targeting must:

5. A data-driven approach for voter contact campaigns

The four tools above are focused on legislators, policymakers and their influencers. But if your advocacy efforts move into the realm of public elections, you will need to effectively mobilize and persuade large numbers of voters.

An effective voter contact campaign separates your base audience from your persuadable, and reaches them with targeted messages and a tailored media mix and frequency. Many digital teams create and optimize these media plans based on the online actions they observe from their audiences, especially impression counts and click-through percentages. But when your goal is to persuade, it is more important to effectively reach the people who won’t click. Instead of chasing the click or video view, connect your digital media plan to opinion research to refine your targeting and measure results.

To step up your voter contact strategy, your planning tool must:

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