On June 18th 2025, Forus hosted A webinar titled “Social media promotion: what works- and what for?” bringing together communications leads and civil society professionals from across its network and beyond. The session drew participation from 13 Forus members and beyond the network. The goal was to explore real-world strategies and challenges in navigating today’s digital landscape for sharper civil society advocacy.  

Setting the stage: why this matters 

Opening the discussion, Clarisse from Forus highlighted the growing importance- and complexity - of digital communications for civil society. As having an enabling environment for civil society becomes more challenging in many contexts and misinformation grows online, civil society organisations (CSOs) are compelled to rethink how they engage digitally daily: what narratives work? What tools help us build trust? What is realistic for small teams and stretched budgets? 

With those questions in mind, participants reflected on their own frustrations which included but were not limited to low engagements, limitations in each social media platform's algorithm and difficulties in reaching new audiences. These concerns set the tone for a rich experience-based exchange. 

A deep dive into conversations 

The first speaker, Nfor Hanson Nchanji, a journalist and founder of the Cameroon News Agency, shared how his team leverages social media daily to report on under presented issues particularly mentioning the ongoing socio-political crisis which has been challenging Cameroon for almost a decade now.  

“We tailor our content to the audience we want to reach,” he explained. “We have found out that putting links in comments rather than in the post itself, helps boost visibility and reach on platforms like Facebook.” He emphasised the importance of storytelling using high quality images and engaging with audiences through polls and live sessions.  

Here are some of Hanson’s key takeaways:  

• Know your audience - determine whether you are reaching the youth, the diaspora, donors or policymakers. 

• Track their behaviour - use insights on when the audience is most active in order to time your posts in an effective and efficient manner. 

• Engage smartly- put external links in the comment sections, not in the post itself in order to beat Facebook algorithm. 

• Prioritise visual storytelling- using a single high quality image with a compelling caption will bring you more engagement than posting a whole album. 

• Be consistent - aim to post daily, mix content formats and engage with followers with questions, polls and at times answer via comments 

• Invest in the right support- having dedicated social media managers is not such a bad idea. Also, partnering with other organisations or persons interested in the same line of work could boost your engagement.  

“It is not about shouting into the void. It is about knowing your audience and telling stories that matter to them,” Hanson concluded. 

Oksana Tarapatova, Programme coordinator at Democracy Reporting International (DRI), followed with insights into how social media monitoring methodology (SMM) can help identify, monitor, report and conduct advocacy on issues such as inauthentic activity, false narratives and targeting of political entities . She presented DRI’s work on social media monitoring for democracy- a powerful methodology that helps to analyse political discourse, misinformation and online threats.  

“Social media monitoring helps us to use data collected from platforms like Facebook and Instagram to track misinformation, hate speech and political manipulation,” she explained. “Through our work in monitoring, last year DRI examined the proliferation of “murky” political accounts that violate TikTok’s rules on impersonation and/or show signs of coordinated inauthentic behaviour or the use of fake engagements.  

Our notifications resulted in the removal of 70 “murky” accounts with a combined following of more than 1,500,000 followers. By the end of December 2024, our collected advocacy efforts to hold the platform accountable contributed to a significant response from the European Commission which opened formal proceedings against TikTok on election risks under the Digital Services Act (DSA),” she added. Oksana also introduced a free social media monitoring toolkit to support CSOs in monitoring digital spaces. 

Here are some highlights from her presentation:  

• DRI’s Social media monitoring methodology is being used in over 26 countries to hold platforms accountable and support evidence-based advocacy. 

• Through data collected via Application Progamming Interfaces and (APIs) and other means of data collection, DRI analyses narratives, hate speech and manipulation tactics.  

• CSOs can access DRI’s free toolkit to begin their own monitoring work - even with limited resources. 

“Social media is a battlefield for democracy. Civil society can – and should - monitor and act within that space,” Oksana concluded. 

Democracy Reporting International is part of the EU SEE consortium which aims at shedding light on critical trends in the enabling environement for civil society across 86 countries in the world. 

The final speaker, Samuel Flores from CONGCOOP, a Forus member in Guatemala, discussed how the organisation adapted during the Covid-19 pandemic to increase digital engagement, with an emphasis on reaching indigenous and rural communities.“We went from in person meetings to actively producing videos in Spanish and other local languages,” Samuel explained. “We even started using AI tools to create and translate content. The key was finding what works for our audience – 7PM posting times on vertical video formats performed best.”  

Here are Samuel’s key lessons: 

• Produce short vertical videos in your local languages when needed using smartphones to increase engagement 

• Experiment with AI tools for translation and editing 

• Endeavour to find out what your optimal posting time is in order to reach your audience when they are most ready for you 

• Invest in capacity building for local communicators. 

Participants shared how misinformation, limited budgets and platform constraints make digital strategies harder than it looks. They agreed on the need to collaborate, alert each other about campaigns and cross-promote initiatives to increase visibility and impact. 

Resources 

• Global powerpoint shared by speakers 
• Resource shared by DRI: https://digitalmonitor.democracy-reporting.org/toolkit/  
• You can discover more about the Cameroon news Agency here