How to raise awareness about your community initiative in the digital age

Raising awareness of community initiatives in the digital age has become an easy process. Its purpose is to inform and educate people about a topic or issue with the intent of influencing their attitudes and behaviors, preparing for an event for a specific purpose, or to protect them.

We are witnessing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia many initiatives in this context, including the platform for community initiatives and volunteer work at King Abdulaziz University. The message of this initiative is to instill a culture of social responsibility and volunteer work in the community and to work to activate the energies of individuals in development and contribute to community service through social activities and programs. The initiative aims to achieve the Kingdom's Vision 2030 to support social initiatives and reach one million volunteers in the Kingdom.

The importance of social media platforms 

It’s true that accessible applications and websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and YouTube play a crucial role in raising awareness and mobilizing support for community initiatives among individuals and society. But what matters is how you deal with community initiatives in the digital age. The goal is not only to reach a wider audience, but to:

• Achieve effective and instant communication in the fast-paced modern world.
• Receive comments and suggestions that can benefit the initiatives and make them better.
• Build a flexible environment that helps enable accountability and enhance the participatory spirit for the purpose of follow-up and review.

Effective methods

Knowing how to publish on social media platforms is not enough to achieve the required level of awareness for initiatives if we’re not paying attention to all available tools. But what does that mean exactly? It means that there are methods that must be followed in order to raise the public's awareness of your initiative, and this is done by making it available to them through:

• Producing reports, research studies, and infographics.
  
  
• Organizing online events, workshops, conferences, exhibitions and seminars.
  
  
• Use of community radio, which can be a powerful way to disseminate information and raise awareness, especially in remote areas.
  
  
• Production of audio-visual materials, such as videos and documentaries.
  
  
• Involving the media in raising awareness of the initiatives by sending press releases, briefings, press articles and opinion pieces.
  
  
• Creating and maintaining a database of contacts to share information.
  
  
• Benefiting from influential figures on social media, such as artists, writers, and others, while launching hashtags for campaigns and initiatives.

Important actions

You shouldn’t forget to take a number of measures to clearly focus on the vision and mission of the initiative. To do so, you must:

• Develop a strategy to raise awareness such as defining goals or a problem to be addressed in the short and long term.
  
  
• Identify relevant groups or individuals you want to target with your messages.
  
  
• Think of the most effective methods or tools to get your message across to the initiatives' supporters.
  
  
• Monitor and evaluate the plan and the modifications that must be made to ensure success.

As for initiatives that serve people in the Kingdom, you need to be creative in searching for new ways to raise community awareness of them, and benefit from the experience of the community initiatives platform and volunteer work at King Abdulaziz University and other similar platforms.