Deep Dive 2: Show, Don’t Tell: Utilizing Video, Infographics, and Imagery

The old adage, a picture is worth a thousand words rings true. Telling your story through imagery, video, and data visualization can make a good message great. Show and Share Alert! Panelists will discuss how they’ve leveled up their content by bringing in a creative angle. They’ll also cover tactics, tips, and (free) tools.

Amanda Hooper, Feeding America
Helena Arose, The Antiquities Coalition
Wade Balkonis, Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Casey Kincheloe, Beekeeper Group

Notes

• Amanda Intro
  • Director of Advocacy at Feeding America, an anti-hunger organization.
  • Background in political and community organizing and has since been doing advocacy at nonprofits.
  • Resources include a combination of in-house staff and agency support
• Helena Intro
  • Project Director at the Antiquities Coalition, a nonprofit that fights illegal trade and antiquities.
  • Prior to this, she was an archeologist.
  • Resources include a small 2-person staff and agency and freelancer support.
• Wade Intro
  • Director of Grassroots Advocacy at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.
  • Prior to this, he had a short stint on capitol hill and worked in grassroots/PAC for corporations.
  • Increasingly growing capacity to do things in-house though they partner with agencies for videos and smaller content.
• Using Story Maps to Show Object Journeys: Antiquities Coalition
  • Used the Esri Story Map software which is a GIS mapping software that has an offshoot for creating visual timelines.
  • If you don’t have design resources, this is a tool that anyone can use to create visual storytelling.
  • Building something like this (if you already have the data) takes only a few hours.
• Tiki Toki: Antiquities Coalition
  • About $40/year visual timeline tool
  • This is free and easy to use if you don’t have design support.
  • This allows you to edit colors, images, and text that can align the final product with your brand.
• Data Visualization: Feeding America
  • Feeding America uses Tableau, which has a free version available and a paid version with more capabilities.
  • This is a great way to visualize data sets that would otherwise be very complex.
  • These can be shared with network food banks, lawmakers, donors, etc.
  • Another strength of this tool is that it can help make things as local as possible. Because you can click in and see things like home states, it becomes more relatable to show to a legislator or advocate.
• Social Graphics: Feeding America
  • Feeding America works on legislative issues that often feel dry or inaccessible. Social graphics can help make these issues easier to process or understand on a platform where you can reach them.
  • Visualizations for issues like The Emergency Food Assistance Program can make a complex issue clear for someone who may be scrolling on their phone.
  • These are often handled in-house through Canva. These aren’t complex but may catch a user’s eye on social.
• Infographics: AEM
  • Infographics can help explain data through visualization that may be important to partners.
  • Graphics are built both in-house and outside alongside the infographic.
  • AEM collects broad data every year that can influence key stakeholders, infographics help tell this story, particularly at a state level.
  • Because of the pace of social, designers can’t always touch every design. For this reason, Canva templates paired with a brand guide are an excellent tool.
• Facility Content: AEM
  • Most grassroots supporters are engaged through facilities which is unique in the advocacy world.
  • Visuals should wind up in the photography that will wind up in local newspapers to extend the reach of the brand.
  • In-facility setups are meant to be eye-catching and include things like tables, videos, coozies, etc.
  • AEM also gives a signup card that allows for people to have been sent letters on their behalf, though this is dependent on the compliance of each organization.
• Videos: AEM
  • Video is an effective way to reach a large audience through multiple channels.
  • Stock video with voiceover is an affordable way to create video content. This makes it a great entry point for video.
  • Video is an effective way to do emotional storytelling.
  • Editing is sent out to vendors, many use Final Cut Pro or Premiere.
• Learning Objective: Tracking What is Meaningful and Effective
  • Simple graphics can be effective by quickly asserting the most important information on an issue.
  • Feeding America works with an agency that uses a platform called Swayable that gives real-time feedback on creative and messaging. During the past year, they’ve been working with a pilot cohort that has been testing messaging.
  • Feeding America has found that creative that focuses on a locality performs best. When you bring messaging home, it’s most effective.
  • AEM saw that companies that leaned into digital offerings led to spikes in overall engagement. If you can look at key metrics for engagement, you can see direct ROI from investing in creative.
• Resharing Resources to Different Audiences
  • Antiquities Coalition uses a service called Prezly which is a CRM similar to MailChimp geared at helping organizations reach out to the press. AC uses this not only for press outreach but for their mailing list.
  • Any time AC puts out new resources or has a new interview they use Prezly to do outreach to contacts to make it go further.
  • Within Prezly you create a “story” by embedding content and videos. When you’re done, this is automatically published to a newsroom that you can link to from your website. This can be customized with your branding.
  • You can create a “pitch” or “campaign” in Prezly.
  • Prices are around $80/month.
  • AEM Faces of manufacturing videos featured actual employees from a facility, making an extremely diverse and personable final product. This came from a level of comfort with working with phones and zooms, which can make videos more impactful despite the lower quality.
  • AEM also does high-production videos featuring grasstops members. This took flying a production crew to facilities across the country, featuring some that were great in the lower-quality videos.
  • Feeding America uses infographics and fact sheets to create iterative social graphics to give the information more range.
  • Feeding America also made a fact sheet template that food banks can make customizable so they can update it with their information. This is a great way to localize information and activate your community.
  • Feeding America also uses a user-generated story collection to make it easier to showcase its advocates to lawmakers ahead of an upcoming White House conference. Food Banks are hosting listening sessions across the country where their in-house storyteller is collecting some professional data, but also empowering them to film their own content through a tool called Gather Voices.
• Tools Mentioned
  • Esri Story Maps
  • Tiki Toki Timelines
  • Prezly
  • Canva for Nonprofits
  • Voice Jungle- voice over
  • Rev- captions
  • Premium Beats- stock music
  • Getty Images- stock images and video
  • Unsplash- stock images
  • Font Awesome- icons
  • The Noun Project
  • Nappy.com
• Questions
  • How do you use graphics and visuals to communicate with your advocates without overwhelming them?
    • Canva infographics are quick, easy, and brief.