Bloggers | Facebook Friends | Twitter Enthusiasts

Use Social Media to Advocate for Adult Education and Literacy

Today’s economic climate demands bold, innovative strategies to advance effective policies for adult education and literacy. Using social media to advocate for this cause enables us to reach advocates and potential supporters where they are and in ways they prefer to participate.

Below are strategies you can use to raise awareness of adult education and literacy and help action alerts to go viral. We will continue to update this page with strategies; please bookmark it.

Bloggers

Policymakers are highly sensitized to blogs; especially those focused locally and among key constituencies (constituencies who blog about policymakers’ key issues). Blog about adult education and how it impacts one or more of your legislators’ key issues. Check back here for sample blog materials you can use or adapt and post to your blog.

Facebook Friends

We now have Capwiz on our Facebook page. This helps our friends quickly respond to action alerts through Facebook. It can also make adult education issues go viral on Facebook. Here’s how it works:

When our friends take action on an alert through Facebook, they have the opportunity to publish a note on their wall, which then displays on their friends’ “news feed”. So when friends of the Coalition take action on a Coalition alert, they can notify everyone in their Facebook network about it, who can notify everyone in their Facebook network about it, and so on. It allows the alert to go viral on Facebook. 

Get started:

Like NCL on Facebook

Invite others to like NCL on Facebook

Respond to Coalition action alerts and publish a note on your Facebook wall that you took action.

Like and Engage With Legislators on Facebook

Increasing numbers of legislators have Facebook pages; however, using Facebook to engage with them could prove difficult. For example, better known legislators have more activity on their pages, so posting on their walls may go unnoticed amidst other posts. You can combat this. Start by liking the pages of your legislators. Then:

Focus messages to your legislators around specific funding or legislation so that it is clearly relevant to them. For example, “Protect adult education funding during FY12 appropriations. Adult education is provided for under the Workforce Investment Act Title II.” Or, “Reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act Now. It is a critical step for getting our nation well on the road to economic recovery.”

Ask your Facebook friends to post directly to their legislators’ wall to voice their support or concern about adult education. The more people talk about it, the more likely legislators will pay attention to it.

Publicly thank your legislator, ask questions, or voice your concern by using the @ symbol in your wall post. This will cause it to be cross posted on your legislator’s wall.

Twitter Enthusiasts

Raise Awareness

Tweet facts about adult education and literacy. Raise awareness of adult education and family literacy among your followers (and among their followers if they retweet the facts!). Click here for a selection of facts to tweet. Tell others what you are doing to raise awareness.

Help Action Alerts to Go Viral on Twitter

Follow the Coalition @NCLAdvocacy. Retweet action alerts the Coalition tweets from @NCLAdvocacy. Let your followers know you acted on the alert.

Use Key Hashtags

Hashtags that are important to adult education include (but are not limited to):

Adult Literacy, Adult Education, and Family Literacy: #adult #education #adulted #literacy #familyliteracy #famlit

Health Literacy: #healthlit #healthliteracy #chs10

English Language Acquisition: #esl #ell #efl #tefl

Parenting, Moms: #mom #moms #kids

Practice using different hashtags with tweets about adult education to capture the attention of those who are most likely to support adult education or respond to alerts.

Follow and Engage With Legislators on Twitter

During an action alert, you could direct your message to these officials by:

Tweeting your thanks, support, or concern and mention them in your tweet with an @ mention. For example, Thank you Senator @PattyMurray for supporting #adulted funding!

Encourage your followers to retweet your message

Encourage your followers to @ their support, concern, or thanks directly to the legislator.

Doing these things could place increasing pressure on legislators. It can be easier to encourage your followers and their followers to engage in this manner. Using Twitter like this is best used during a big advocacy push for adult education.

Most important, act on the alert! See what alerts are live now: