Image is illustrative. Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash
Messages and information are all around us. Do you know that every minute we send 188,000,000 emails or that in the same 60 seconds we upload 55,140 pictures to Instagram? (Data Never Sleeps 7.0, 2020) Do you know that we spend 75 minutes daily on social media? (Broadbandsearch, 2020) And do you know that Europeans spend two to three hours in front of a screen per day, outside of work? (Eurostat, 2018).
All of this shows us that we receive lots of information on a daily basis, and sometimes we miss important information coming to us. This overflow of information can be especially challenging if you want to promote your cause or share your message to your target audience. This is why in this section we are dealing with outreach.
What is outreach?
Outreach is a special discipline within public relations. The Cambridge Dictionary says it is “an effort to bring services or information to people where they live or spend time”. So, outreach deals with strategies we use in order to inform people about our projects or activities. It’s all about relationship building and sharing personalised messages with your target groups.
There are different types of outreach:
- community outreach (reaching your target groups to participate in activities)
- media outreach (reaching media representatives to share your good stories)
- policy outreach (reaching politicians and policy makers to start your advocacy efforts)
- influencer outreach (reaching influencers who can promote your activities or causes).
You can implement outreach using basic e-mail, face-to-face meetings or using social media channels.