Social media communication strategy for supporting religious tolerance and peace-building advocacy and research
PUSAD Paramadina
2017
The client's brief
The Center for the Study on Religion and Democracy (PUSAD) Paramadina has made various efforts to advance religious tolerance and strengthen democracy in Indonesia. Despite acknowledging the importance of social media in supporting research and advocacy, PUSAD has not had a concrete picture of how to use it. This is why it tasked C4C to help with the strategy and recommendations on social media management.
Our insight
PUSAD wanted more effective communication to promote its causes. To do so, it was important to first identify the actual causes and targets. PUSAD already had positive issues to discuss, such as bina damai (peace building) and their work for Forum Kerukunan Beragama (Forum for Religious Peace) at the district level. However, to translate these issues into a campaign strategy required an understanding of the contemporary landscapes within which it operates. With the quality of democracy in Indonesia considered regressive by some observers and community-driven discrimination increasing, what PUSAD needed to do was to persuade pluralists that democracy is important in ensuring pluralism, and persuade democrats that pluralism (freedom of religion and belief) is an essential element of democracy in Indonesia.
Our approach
We believe in establishing "where we are now" before designing strategy and setting organisational goals and protocols. The following are our first steps into the process:
Scope and analyze PUSAD's communications output: research publication, social media channels and website.
Facilitate a focused group discussion with the people in charge of the tasks, which at the time consisted of members of different departments who took turns in managing the social media.
Conduct interviews to map organisation workflow, then analyze it to develop the SOP.
With data at hand, we designed a social media strategy document. To get the buy-in from the whole organization, we facilitated a workshop for the whole PUSAD team.
The result
The PUSAD Paramadina team agreed and supported the implementation of both the SOP and strategy for their social media.