This week, we discuss the mid-terms and talk with Lee about his experience in the Holy Land!
Question of the Week:
What is it like in the Holy Land?
Special Guest:
Sophia Har, Digital Manager, Color Of Change
Guest Question:
What are the benefits and challenges of using social media and ads to build awareness and support for campaigns around justice issues such as racial injustice, poverty, and voting? How do you build engagement and support when there is so much competition on digital platforms?
Resources:
Swords into Plowshares Blog
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program Facebook Page
Unbound Facebook Page
A Matter of Faith Listening Guides
Color of Change
For Listening Guides, click here!
Got a question for us? Send them to faithpodcast@pcusa.org!
A Matter of Faith website
This week, we discuss the mid-terms and talk with Lee about his experience in the Holy Land!
Question of the Week:
What is it like in the Holy Land?
Special Guest:
Sophia Har, Digital Manager, Color Of Change
Guest Question:
What are the benefits and challenges of using social media and ads to build awareness and support for campaigns around justice issues such as racial injustice, poverty, and voting? How do you build engagement and support when there is so much competition on digital platforms?
Resources:
Swords into Plowshares Blog
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program Facebook Page
Unbound Facebook Page
A Matter of Faith Listening Guides
Color of Change
For Listening Guides, click here!
Got a question for us? Send them to faithpodcast@pcusa.org!
A Matter of Faith website
Hello and welcome to a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast, the podcast where we respond to your questions and comments on issues of faith, social justice, and church life. Don't be afraid to write in and ask your question because if it matters to you, it matters to us, and it just might be a matter of faith,
Speaker 2:Whether it be faith in God, faith in others, or faith in yourself. We are brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and Unbound the interactive journal on Christian Social justice for the Presbyterian Church usa. I am your host, Lee Cato,
Speaker 1:And I'm your host Simon Dune.
Speaker 2:Without further ado, let's dive into today's questions.
Speaker 1:Well, hello everyone and welcome again to a matter of Faith, a Presby podcast. I am joined as always by the wonderful and world traveling.
Speaker 2:My
Speaker 1:Gosh, Lee Cato Lee, how are you? How is it halfway across the world? Nine hours ahead of
Speaker 2:Me? Yeah, yeah, we are nine hours. What's the future? Well, I think it's like seven, so it's not as many, I don't think. Well, it's not 40 here. What time is it with you? Oh, that's true. You're in Mountain time. Uh,
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's uh, 12:40 PM right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah, nine hours. Hello from the future. And I, it is, it has been an interesting trip. I am very exhausted. I look it, you can't tell because you're, you're not seeing me, but Simon sees me and I look tired, but it's, it's good. Uh, we've, I've been here for three days, three outta 12, so I'm here for a while, so you'll hear about me. I'll be in the holy land next week too. And yeah, the initial shock of travel is, is real. And yeah, that's about all I can say about it. And we'll talk a little bit about Bo later, but it's been, it's been a good trip so far. But it's been long and it's been hard and because it is very phy, this is a very, like walk. We walk a lot and yeah, so it's, it's very a physical trip too, So, but yeah, I'm doing, How are you, Simon? I see there is a snowy wonderland in your background.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is snowing here in this part of Idaho. Um, I haven't really been out to enjoy it a whole lot. Um, speaking of, I guess, well, yeah, physical things, uh, in addition to getting my, my Covid booster last week, it actually turns out I also have Covid 19. So I have been quarantining in isolation and, you know, just trying to, uh, get better. Thankfully, I'm, you know, I'm very lucky and grateful for vaccines and boosters to help my, you know, all of my systems sort of, uh, fight the virus. And I, I've only had mild symptoms the entire time. Uh, I don't know if you all could tell my voice might seem a little off because I'm a little congested, but, so just trying to, you know, stay healthy and hopefully I'll be negative soon and back to normal. But again, grateful for medical technology and vaccines, so yes,
Speaker 2:Indeed.
Speaker 1:Yep. So I'm, I'm pretty grateful for that. And hopefully, yeah, I'll be turning the corner pretty soon. And speaking of turning the corner or not, I guess depending on how, on what you, on what you think. Yeah. For our brief new segment today, the midterm elections results, they're here, are coming. They're here, they're here. And as of the time of this recording, not everything has been decided quite yet, as of right now. Uh, well as of right now it looks like, um, uh, the Republican party will take the House of Representatives, but the Senate is still in play and Georgia, the Georgia race will be heading to a runoff. So we will, uh, stay posted and keep, uh, keep eyes on this as it develops. Again, thank you to everyone who went and voted in your midterm elections because they are really important. And once again, exercising your right to vote is very important. So we will see, we'll check in on this again next week, uh, when we, hopefully by then we have the full
Speaker 2:Results. You never know, and these times you just never know. But yeah, we'll keep you updated and all those things. But like we said last week, you know, voting is a, a way to share your voice. And being here in a space where not all voices are heard, it is very important for us to recognize there are a lot of things put into place where people's voices aren't heard. And not only does that happened here, but it definitely does happen in the us. And so I think, yeah, I looked at the election a lot differently this time, the midterms, because I mean, there was elections here in Israel and that, that is very interesting cuz Netanyahu will probably be back into to power and what all those dynamics are. But yes, people are thankfully want to be able to share our voice and have other people be empowered to share theirs. So.
Speaker 1:And, uh, speaking of you being in Israel and in the Holy Land, we do have a question written in because, you know, you've talked about preparing to be on this trip, and we have a question written in asking you, what is it like in the Holy Land? And I think that's a great question because I wanna know what's it like to be there? What's it like to, for lack of a better word, breathe the air, be in the place of so many mm-hmm<affirmative>,<affirmative>, so many things that we've read about and learned about from the Bible, and also a place of division currently. Yeah. A place where there is conflict, um, you know, because of, because of the conflict, uh, in Israel, in between Israel and Palestine and the Palestinian people. What is, what is it like to sort of be there and witnessing to all of that as a Christian? That's a lot by the way. And I realize you've only been there a couple days, you might have more, more ideas next week too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I will say that the main thing that I am noticing and taking away is that it is just very overwhelming because of the complexities and because of just, we're in Jerusalem right now and we'll be going to Bethlehem and then to Galilee. But in Jerusalem, Jerusalem being a city that is the home of, I mean three major fate, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. We have been visiting each of those types of places that we've been visiting people that represent each of those traditions and hearing their perspectives and the nuances of history and the nuances of, of relationships between those religions and how that's manifested throughout centuries. And you do come into this city and you feel that, I will say you feel the, you feel overwhelmed because it is a very busy city. There's a lot of traffic. It is a thriving city, I think for some, I would say. And in many ways it is a very modern city, but in Jerusalem there's like the old city. And so you go into that space and you really do get the, the feeling of like heaviness, but also life and people are living their lives and the joy. But that history is definitely felt there. You, I would say. And what's interesting about Jerusalem and a lot of the, kind of the historical things is that it's just kind of the top layer that you see because centuries and centuries of building has happened on top of each other. And so one place we went, we went to the Church of the Redeemer here, and you go down and you just see the depth of, I mean, there's a wall under the ground of the old city. And so like, it's just these huge, you know, walls, it's other structures, it's other places of worship. And so Jerusalem has built on top of each other. So there's all these layers physically, but also there's layers of history and politics and religion. And I think another main thing that I took away from this time is that we've heard, we've heard several people speak, and one of the things somebody said was, you know, at the beginning of all this, and there's some examples of this today here, but the beginning of everything, Jews and Muslims and Christians were living together and everything was peaceful and everything was fine. And so yeah, that really stuck out. And so it's, it's, it's a very heavy place. It's a very beautiful place. And I think it's, it's just very interesting to think about and to be a part of and to kind of process it all at the same time. It's very hard to process it because there's so much. And I think that's one of the reasons why people can't approach the holy land and have conversations very easily because it is a lot to take in. But, uh, but I want to encourage people who are listening. I want to encourage people to listen to people's stories. I think that's one way you digest and are able to kind of process the stories of Palestinians, the stories of Israelis and the stories of, you know, people who have come here and experienced it. Because I know not everybody can do that. This is a very hard place to get to. It's a very expensive place to get to. And I know there is a point of privilege of being able to be here even within looking at the groups that are here. And so I think, yeah, it's just, there's just all types of things that are kind of surrounding you. But right now we're in Jerusalem and we'll be here for a couple more days and then we'll head to Bethlehem. But I would say the one thing I've, I've learned now is like, it's a complicated, yet there there is also hope within it all. And I don't think that that is something that, that should ever be kind of downplayed. We always say, Oh, it's complicated, but there's hope within the complexity, I think. And that's been good to, to see an experience so far. So it's, it's a lot.
Speaker 1:That is a lot. And that makes a lot of sense that it, it's hard to process and understand while you're experiencing it in real time. Yeah, That's, you know, that's what, that's what's reflection is for after the fact and things like that. And also, speaking of reflections, everybody, if you're interested in following along with the Mosaic of Peace Conference and journeys and experiences of the pres of our, our Presbyterians who are in Israel Palestine in the, for the conference, just like Lee, uh, you can check out the Swords into Plow Shares blog, which is the blog for the Presbyterian Peace Making Program. We'll be sure to put a link to that in the show notes. Lee is actually helping, um, sort of organize and collect some of those reflections from some of the participants. You also can follow both the peacemaking program as well as Unbound on Facebook or Instagram Lee's getting some, uh, putting out some great little video reels and things like that so you can, for lack of a better word, get a little taste of the holy land for yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so funny because, you know, there's a lot of marketplaces and people selling things and they really do play up the holy land and it's, some of the search we've seen are really funny. And I was telling Simon there's this, it's, there's this place, it's called The Ho Ho Holy Land and it's Santa Claus and Santa Claus is on the camel and apparently this guy, he dresses up as Santa Claus and it's very popular and he's very influential in the community, but all, and so he brings that kinda lightness and the laughter and all that during Christmas. And so you do see it. And, and another thing that's really funny, so we made history cuz we, I was the first person to ever get tattooed on this mosaic of peace trip. And I'm gonna tell this story and we're gonna write about it later in the blog and y'all definitely need to check it out because I, um, I am not the only person that did, and it was very surprising that I even found this out because in my head I really wanted to get another tattoo. I have a lot of tattoos and I wanted to get a tattoo in, in Israel and in Israel Palestine just to market because I may never be here. We don't know it'll happen. And so, um, it is kind of a trip like that. And so I had the idea in my head and, and, uh, a couple here who are on the trip with us, one of them traced their lineage back to a family with the last, uh, with the last name Ook. So he traced his name, he traced his lineage back and found this last name Ook and then looked it up and found that indeed there was a rook tattoo parlor here. And if you don't know about Rook tattoos, Rook tattoo is not the oldest tattoo parlor because it's not the original parlor, but they have been tattooing for 700 years, over 700 years. And they are Coptic Christians that immigrated from Egypt to Israel 700 years ago. And they would tattoo crosses or they would put stamps on pilgrims or people from the area who were Coptic Christians, they would tattoo across or put a stamp on them so they could then have a symbol for their pilgrimage or to get into a church that was here in Israel. And they have been tattooing people for 700 years. And so I went and got a tattoo and then this couple, I, I don't think they had ever planned to get a tattoo, but they got it. And it's this couple who are um, wonderfully older than I am have gotten these tattoos of, of crosses on their, uh, on their wrists. And then today two other people got olive branches on their wrist. And it's just very interesting talking about the idea of tattooing or marking oneself, um, as something of an identity, but to do it in this way. And it's set to be the oldest tattoo space in the world. They've been doing tattooing far more in this way more than anybody else. And so it's really great. And I got a tattoo of a pomegranate with olive leaves inside of it. So Pome grant is a symbol of new life and birth and fertility for some, but it's also resurrection in a lot of Christian traditions. So isn't that wild?
Speaker 1:Yeah,
Speaker 2:Hundred years.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Wow. Of doing it. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Well that is really interesting cuz it's like you're also able to take a piece of that history with you now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just kinda it's with me
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah, it it is with you. Yeah. Or if you don't mind me asking, what does Coptic Christians mean?
Speaker 2:So Coptic Christianity, well it's in the northern part, so Egyptians so northern part of, of Africa and one of the oldest sex of Christianity, I think it is, it is one of the oldest sex of Christianity and they follow a very orthodox type of way of, of being in the Christian tradition. I don't know necessarily the ins and outs of the nuances of what that means, of what they do, but I do know that it is one of the oldest sec of Christianity out there. And, but, and, and they use a lot of symbolism. It is just mainly known I think for like the orthodoxy and like the area of the, the world that it's come from based in Egypt, a lot of like Africa and some Middle Eastern. But yeah, it's a church that I want to say has a very specific liturgy and prayer, a devotion and all those types of things. And I'm just now finding kind of a little bit of facts about it, but is it is 25 million members worldwide and it's Egypt's largest Christian denomination. So yeah, so they immigrated to Israel and I don't know why they did, but I think it's because of this pilgrimage. They took a pilgrimage to Israel and, and wanted to usher in more Coptic Christians to come and visit. So
Speaker 1:Neat. Well thanks for that explanation and yeah folks, if you wanna learn more about Lee's experience, check out the links in the show notes below. And Lee, we continue to pray that everyone has a, a safe journey and thank you like, and uh, and enlightening one as well. It already seems like it's going that way and, uh, that
Speaker 2:Pray for my body. Y'all pray that my body<laugh> can take it. I think I'm pretty sure it can. But also Simon, should we, we should also mention our listening guides because it's the first episode we've said and we've, we've done with our new website. That's true, true with the listening guides. Actually it's just an updated website. It's not technically new, but it's updated and we have our listening guides on there and we wanna remind y'all that it's on there at a matter of faith podcast.com. You can go and get your listening guides and it could be a great way for you to delve into, like, now it's gonna be 101 episodes when this one comes out, but you can delve into the episodes. It's a lot more to, it's easier to digest. And so yeah, check it out, go to listening guides and if you wanna directly, it's a matter of faith podcast.com/listening guides, so check'em out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so check that out. Yep, check it out folks. And uh, we're excited to be now past the hundred episode mark and look forward to bringing you more great content even as Lee is tired and halfway across the world in the future.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Well, I can't, you know, I can't like not do this, so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can't stop. Won't stop.
Speaker 2:Can't stop. Won't stop and have to do it for y'all out there cuz y'all supported us and yeah, I really like doing it because it's like you come on the journey with, with me. So yeah. This is great.
Speaker 1:Yep. Well, we'll look forward to an update next week.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:We are so excited to be joined today by our very special guest. Joining us is Sophia Har, who is the digital manager at Color of Change. Sophia, thanks so much for being with us. Thank
Speaker 3:You for having me. It's so good to see you both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good to see you Sophia. And we do have a question for you on our wonderful little podcast. And to start off our conversation and the questionary, what are the benefits and challenges of using social media and ads to build awareness and support for campaigns around justice issues such as racial injustice, poverty and voting? How do you build engagement and support when there is so much competition on digital platforms? And we had just got done talking about this the other day, the oversaturation of all this stuff. So yeah, we're excited about this conversation. What would you say in response?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for offering these questions. I, I find that I don't often talk to people about this nitty gritty, like niche topic, so it really surprised me, but excited me that this was of interest. So as we all know, social media feels really unavoidable. It's like in our lives we, we hate it, we love it, we use it. Whatever feeling you have towards social media, it feels unavoidable in our day and age, especially for organizations. So I have worked in nonprofits for almost 10 years, um, for a lot of that time. I, um, worked in digital communications, including my current job now. Um, so I manage ads for color of change and um, see a, kind of, see a range of benefits and challenges with using social media, particularly paid ads to build support for campaigns. I think a lot of, uh, I think a lot of social media is very intuitive, right? So when you think about reach and reaching particular audiences, Facebook in particular makes that so easy for us. Like because of, um, you know, some of their shadier practices with, um, collecting data and all that. It's really, it's really easy to target certain demographics, people with certain interests, um, people with certain patterns with how they use social media to, to make sure that you're getting information to them. So I guess to, to be like more specific, right now the midterms are happening, we are running a lot of ads for our endorsed candidates. A benefit of using social media digital ads is that you can upload like voter files including like their name, phone number, address, like to the platform and Facebook matches those like profiles with people who use, um, their, their platforms so that you're, so that it ensures that like the information we wanna get to voters is actually getting to those specific people in those specific states. So I think like the benefit in that is that you can really like tailor your content to certain people. Um, I think another is like for, you know, budding like new, um, I guess for like new organizations or businesses like, because there's so many users, your reach um, can go really far for a small amount of money. Even if you have a small budget, like you only have like a hundred dollars for like a week, that can still get you maybe like thousands of views on your ad. You're reaching like tens of thousands of people. That's something that like is hard to, uh, guarantee if you're just like handing out flyers or like doing, um, like TV ads, like, it's hard to know. Whereas like on social media because of the tracking, you can see your rate, your return on investment pretty clearly. I think, I think I'll just say one more benefit there being different platforms being used by different, like age groups for instance. Um, like we, we know that like Facebook is mostly used by people who are 50 plus. Instagram is like for the millennials and like Snapchat, TikTok is like the, the platform of choice for Gen Z and younger, right? So knowing that can also allow you to tailor, um, to reach like different age groups depending on what your content is. So yeah, I think that's what I'll, I I'll pause there and see if you have any comments before we go into the challenges.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's really interesting because while, while we're doing what we're doing and like the podcast world and so we act, I mean we have to like engage with social media a lot and just kind of getting our stuff out there and, but also seeing kind of the ways in which social media has been used to kind of bring awareness to injustice and, and like you said, the midterms are coming up and like about voting and, and things about people who are running for office and all those sorts of things. I think, yeah, one of the, one of the benefits in some way is also being able to create a brand or create ways in which you want to represent yourself. And that is something that is, that's something that we've had a lot of conversations about is how do we kind of be authentic in like who we are and what that means and how we, and how we even present ourselves on social media. And so it's kind of easy these days to kind of create your own kind of per like brand in a way that will, that kind of speaks to the certain platform that you're using. And so I've really appreciated that about it. Now, especially if you can do design and stuff and, and this kind of stuff, kind of the work that we are doing, it's always a good thing, but it's also in this kind of work, people don't like to talk about branding and they don't like to talk about ads and they don't like to kind of talk about that marketing kind of aspect. So I wonder like how, what is the balance of this, of this that is so beneficial to kind of getting the word out there and kind of why are maybe nonprofits or even like churches and, and faith communities kind of scared of this in a way or don't want to kind of kinda live into it some, if that makes sense because it is very beneficial in, in the long run, I think.
Speaker 3:Can you say more about the, the fear around marketing?
Speaker 2:Well I think it's the language, you know, they don't wanna use this marketing or branding language that many people in like social media, the world do that this is kind of like how the brand looks or feels or it seems that ch like faith communities are, are nonprofits maybe kind of like specifically faith communities I would say, or kind of just scared of that language.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's really helpful. I think that is super valid. I can understand like, it could feel like a fine line to be like selling a product when your product is like a faith community, something that's not very tangible and um, isn't quantifiable and shouldn't be commodified. So I, I feel like that makes a lot of sense. I'm thinking about how like the best ideal use of social media is to connect people with like interest, right? And so by putting like money behind an ad to get it to reach more people in a way we can think of it as like we're just trying to find our people, people who are interested in our mission and our values in the work that we do and the things that we offer. I actually think like that's a really cool aspect of paid marketing or just even organic social media that often gets overshadowed. I know that I, I think also with using social and ads, it's important to know like what your goal is and your objective. So if you know for a faith community, if if the objective is to like grow like the, the congregation or to get more turnout for an event, like that's important to know, right? Whereas like if the, if the, if the goal is to like bring more revenue in like that, that will be like a step, a different type of marketing campaign. So yeah, I really think that I don't, I think it's important to, to know what the end goal is and then that can inform like your digital strategy. I don't think that digital marketing or paid ads is the solution for everybody. Like maybe that maybe your people aren't on those platforms and it's better to like talk in person or do direct mail, but I, I don't think that it should be off the table simply because like there's a stigma around advertising.
Speaker 1:I think it's also because when we think about the end user experience, that's the one, that's the area that most of us are more familiar with in terms of like receiving an ad or seeing things posted on other people's social media is that it can come off to us as end users as just like noise. It's one of many things that I'm bombarded with or that I, I see a lot, but you do also have to kind of change your mindset when you're the ones trying to actually put out those ads and put out that content about, okay, yes, there's a lot that people are already going to be seeing. How do we make ours stand out? And as you were saying, that comes down to our goals, it comes down to the branding it al and it comes down to the message as well. And if we're not able to sort of creatively, uh, decide on what all those things are, then yeah, maybe it isn't for, maybe it wouldn't be for someone or someone trying to put a campaign together around a specific issue. I also wanted to ask, and you, you talked a lot about the, the positives, which I'm really grateful for because again, I think a lot of people just wanna shy away from it because it sounds scary, but is the, would you say the challenge is just in trying to articulate and decide on what those end goals are? Is that the biggest challenge in trying to decide to use ads in social to promote these campaigns around different justice issues?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is a great question. I think that is definitely a big challenge and I can think of other ones. So, but to address that one, it's because social media is always changing and it's hard to sometimes like wrap our minds around it in the first place that can, it can be difficult to actually zoom out and think about what am I trying to achieve? And I see that a lot in my day to day where, you know, our camp, maybe our campaigners have a, a certain budget for any given campaign. Maybe it's like for repro reproductive justice and sometimes it's like, okay, we wanna write a target letter to like the congress, we wanna like reach out to our partners and then it's like, oh, we have this pool of money to like do digital marketing. And sometimes it's hard to think about like, oh, how many, like what, how many petitions do we actually want? And how many, like how many um, people do we actually wanna engage? Like those are important things to think about before we put, you know, we like launch an ad, otherwise we're just like throwing money at a huge corporation that already has a lot of money<laugh>. So it's like the challenge is like how do we leverage this tool to like amplify the, the campaign. I think another challenge, I mean like, I think the flip side of what I said earlier about you can be really niche and targeting. I think a challenge is like you sometimes you like really dunno who you're talking to. Like if you don't have a specific list and you're trying to just like get the biggest reached, sometimes you just get a lot of rans who like troll and like put like harmful posts under your ad when you're really like not trying to reach those people. So that is a challenge where you get a mixed bag of end users looking at your ad. I think like a solution to that is just not really to get caught up in it. Like you can block them if you have time, but like at the end, end of the day if like most people are like liking the ad or like engaging with it or just now you've been being negative towards the ad, like I think that's like all you can really help for
Speaker 2:It is a challenge, especially if you are doing work about injustice specifically when it comes to, I mean specifically reproductive justice or anything with issues or anything that is dealing with, you know, something that is going to, to kind of like create some kind of tension in a way that's like seen quote controversial. You're gonna get people. And, and that is something that I think we have learned and we have seen even by doing this podcast and also the other work that I do. I mean, you get a troll every day and at some point you just have to, that's what comes with the territory and, and it's often just, it's often just, just taking it and completely not even kind of reading it or trying to not completely digest it. And sometimes that's hard for people and I think, I think people who have to kinda keep up with comments and kind of go through them and calm through them, it is very, in some ways it's really traumatizing for people. And I think that's something we don't often talk about either is maybe one day we'll talk about the trauma induced by digital ads and digital media and, and we all know that exists and, and I do think that is a big challenge, but I also wonder, you know, kind of going to like the second part of the question, we are in such a time now where we are so oversaturated with things and including digital trauma,<laugh> and digital like trolls, but we're also just consumed with ads and, you know, events that are happening constantly and just so many posts and so many things and so many people just trying to like, get in front of people about great stuff that's going on, but it's just so much stuff that is happening. So I wonder what you will would say about how do we kind of build, build this engagement and support and kind of break through all of this of like, some of it is great stuff, but it's also how do you, how do you take what you're gonna do and really kind of put, you know, this best practice in place to kind of build the engagement and support when there are just so much stuff that's happening. I, I look on Facebook and I get overwhelmed every day about stuff that's happening. It is a lot. So I just wonder about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like this is like the question for like nonprofit comms, people are like digital. I I have a few thoughts. They're, they're kind of like opposites. So one thought that comes to mind is like, digital marketing is not the panacea. Like don't put all your eggs in that basket. I think<laugh> I think it's important to have a presence, but like that can't be the only way that we're engaging with our audiences because there's so much saturation, but also like the attention Spanish is not there. So I think like digital ad campaigns in particular need to be part of like a bigger strategy of engagement. Like the ad cannot be the first time that someone's hearing about like, like your issue<laugh>. Like hopefully you'll have had an email campaign, I guess in a church setting like, uh, or a faith community setting, like you're maybe engaging with members like on a weekly basis. So like hopefully like the ads shouldn't be the first touch, it should be an amplification of what you're already doing. If someone goes to your website and they don't see like that campaign, it will feel very like strange to like see an ad about an issue or a campaign and like not see it reflected in your ongoing work. So I think that's really important to remember. Um, I had a chance to build, like start an Instagram account for previous job that I worked for and had to build a following from zero. And like, it was definitely very scary and hard, but I think like my approach was like, we're just gonna create content that is valuable to us, like to our like theory of change and our values and like see like who picks it up. And I think there are strategies out there where like people will buy like, um, buy lists or like get Twitter bots to like follow, follow follow and like try to like raise your profile and like then get organic followers. But I think there's something to be said about just staying, staying true to your mission and seeing like who gravitates towards it. I think like that that plus like the paid engagement can be really powerful. Like you're, you're not selling out on your, your content. Um, you're, yeah, you're kind of like creating a community, a space for people to engage and the ads are just like an extra little push to get the content out there. Um, and then I guess on a practical level, I, I think takeovers and like, um, partnerships are like really fun. Like I, I think they, I don't know, like if that's like still a thing that people engage with, I I really enjoy them because um, especially if like a smaller, uh, especially if a profile with a smaller following partners with like a higher profile organization like that can bring you a lot a much like new engagement from new people. And it also like strengthens like your partnership within like a sector. Um, so I think like doing takeovers where like somebody has like post stories to your account for the day, um, or even having like shared posts, like I see that on Instagram now where like two accounts can like post the same thing. Um, or even doing like live like IG live with like a partner. I think those, even if like it, um, it takes some coordination and might not have like the largest reach it might bring you like new engagement, which I think is also
Speaker 1:Valuable. I think that's really helpful. And something that you said I think is really interesting because you said that there are a couple ways to try to build a following. One is let's play algorithms, let's sort of artificially boost our audience using, for example, Twitter bots and then try to grow. But you said there's a lot of value to doing it the grassroots way of, let's see, let's see, uh, the, the who it is and how large the audience is that, for lack of better word, vibes with our message and vibes with our content and build it that way, which is the grassroots way to do it, which pre-social media and honestly yeah, definitely pre-social media and potentially like around, you know, just like in sort of when everything was done in paper, that was how people built campaigns was they would put the ads or the advertisement or whatever it was on a billboard or in a newspaper. So there wasn't necessarily an algorithm to play. There were no artificial bots to try to boost profiles. It was purely grassroots. And I think that it's important that we remember the, the value of that as well. Not saying that understanding algorithms is not important and things like that. Um, and I know that that's something else that probably also scares people is thinking about, oh well what if we put it out there and no one sees it? Now I need to understand how this platform works to get views on my content or on our ads, on our message. Um, but I appreciate that you, as you said, sort of stress both ends in that it's not the be all end all social media is not an ads or not the be all end all, but they can be a useful tool, uh, especially if we're, if we're thinking in the right direction.
Speaker 3:Yes. And if I can just like stress once more, like based on what you were talking about, like again, I think the strategy is really important. I think that like, that is like the foundation of a digital ad campaign and even social media, right? So like, not that like you have to have a full like memo or document if it's like, even if it's just like for your small church community, but like I think it's important to know like why we're using it in the first place. Like it's like it's helpful to have um, like a face, a Facebook account maybe like for information, but like it's important to think about like, do I actually need to run an ad or like, is this like, am I doing it just because I feel like I have to or is this something like we, I think I can leverage? Cause then I think that will get like, get people more excited to do it and like manage it and that doesn't feel like a chore. So I just wanted to like underline that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really, I really think what I'm hearing as we're talking is like how are we being authentic within this space and how are we kind of not compromising that as much as we can and in a, a space that is very problematic in general social media companies. And I wonder, I want I wanted to ask you a question about that because you said something while ago that was like, you don't want, you want to be strategic in how much money or, or giving money to companies that have such an exorbitant amount of money and how do you, how do you do it? How do you give this money because this is the world we're kind of in to these companies that are, that can be very problematic. And so I wonder if you have any more to say about, you know, how do we kind of walk that line Because in many, in many conversations about injustice technology companies don't get talked about it a lot, which I think they should, but I think it is a weird ro weird line you have to walk because you know the history of the company, but you know, the power of the messages that can be put out there and it can change things. So I wonder if you have any strategies about that. How do we kind of continue to be authentic in who we are as maybe people of faith and always calling out injustice. But I mean it's just like the church, the church has done terrible things, but we're still in it and we're still trying to work it out. How are we walking, How do we walk that line better when it comes to technology? I wonder if you have any strategies for that.
Speaker 3:I think I can speak on like a personal level so don't, you know, take this at the grain of salt, but um, like I said at the start, I feel like are these tech companies, social media companies sometimes feel like unnecessary evil and sometimes it's hard to avoid using them. So I think how I approach it is if I can somehow not be harmful or at least like put out like a positive message on the platform, which I feel that the work I've done is val very values aligned. And so like that's kind of a way I think about it. Like we're, I'm, we're putting dollars into this platform to tell people about this petition to sign that will like improve the lives of black people in the us right? Um, so that's why I made to think about it. I it's definitely a conversation that is had, but because it's such a big issue, I I haven't actually heard of like good solutions aside from divesting from it<laugh>. Um, but I do, I can think of like a few orgs besides color change that has like pretty robust like tech campaigns and so I could also like find that and send it along. That could be a really cool topic for a future
Speaker 2:Episode. Yeah, definitely. And we can put, if you send it along we'll put it in the show notes that people can kind of see kind of what's up. But yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge thing. So yeah.
Speaker 1:And we'll be sure to also, uh, put a link in the show notes to Color of Change so that people can check it out. And I also wanted to give you a, a chance, Sophia, uh, if there was anything else you wanted to add about Color of Change and the work that the organization is doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Color of Change is working on a lot of different campaigns including like the Texas work I mentioned. Um, Color of Change also is like endorsing a lot of progressive candidates in this upcoming midterms across Key State. The Color of Change staff is also in the middle of organizing a union organ, um, and working towards a bargaining contract, bargaining unit contract. Um, so if folks are interested in supporting that, we are also yeah, excited about the opportunity, um, to make Color of Change an even better workplace for their employees, the majority of whom are black. Yeah, that's my plug.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I just wanted to say that. So I hope people do support it
Speaker 1:And we'll be sure to put a link to Color of Change again in the show notes for people to be able to check out. And Sophia, we are so grateful to you for coming on the podcast and talking with us about these really contemporary questions around social media and ads and and justice campaigns and we're so grateful to you for being here with us.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. This was fun and I just really appreciate all the thoughtfulness that you put into the questions and in all the episodes,
Speaker 1:This has been the matter of Faith Podcast brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program in Unbound. If you would like to submit a question for discussion, you can do so at Faith Podcast at P C O S a.org. We look forward to hearing from you. See you next time.
Speaker 2:See you next time y'all. Thanks everyone for listening to 101 episodes of a Matter of Faith, the Presby podcast. Yeah, 101 episodes, 101 Dalmatians. It's wonderful and we love you and thank you for supporting us and of course we want you to continue to subscribe and to leave us review. And if you have any questions for us in the Fate podcast@pusa.org. And if you wanna visit our website, it is a matter of fate podcast.com. There you can find episodes information about our sibling podcast, un de and you can find our listening guides, which we would love for y'all to use. So yeah, we love you and we will talk to you again next week.