During my time at SEIU and Hustle, I provided expert thought leadership on innovative tech platforms and organizing in the labor movement. At Mobilize, I am expanding our work with unions and providing coaching and guidance on how to fully utilize and incorporate our platform in 2020 and beyond. If you’d like more information about our work with labor unions, please contact me at sara@mobilize.us.
Mobilize is rapidly becoming a key piece of technology that labor unions use to engage with members on union events, in-person activities, and virtual actions. We are laser focused on three key components:
- Recruiting your members to action more easily
- Increasing member engagement
- Reaching new union members and supporters
We’re seeing multiple (and very creative) ways our current partners are using MobilizeAmerica to recruit members to volunteer for actions, attend rallies/protests/strikes, and share with others in their network to join them. Mobilize can be easily integrated into your existing communication and digital channels so you can meet your members where they are. We’ve consistently seen Mobilize integrated into social media, peer-to-peer texting platforms such as Hustle and Upland, email, and websites for a full suite of channels that make up a comprehensive technology infrastructure and digital organizing strategy.
Given the prevalence of Facebook across union members, I am often asked how Mobilize can be used with Facebook events, pages, and ads. Some of the ways that we talk with partners about successfully using Mobilize with Facebook:
- Use your Mobilize event URL in your Facebook event details to move people to signup via Mobilize page so you can track your registrations, confirmations, and check-ins. Also, our platform automatically puts people into a confirmation and reminder flow that drives up attendance and reduces flake rates.
- Encourage your members to post on Facebook after they sign up for an event via Mobilize. We prompt every person who signs up for an event to share via Twitter, Facebook, email, or copy/paste the URL. We also add these instructions to the confirmation and reminder emails so they can pass the word around to coworkers, friends, and family. As a bonus, admins are able to customize the hashtag, URL, and picture that is shared via the dashboard settings.
- Facebook ads are a great way to broaden your audience. You can run Facebook ads on your events to drum up new RSVPs and then meet new members at your events!
Peer-to-Peer Texting
In addition to using social media platforms like Facebook to communicate with members, we’re seeing peer-to-peer texting platforms rise in popularity as an effective way to engage union members.
The good news: you can use Mobilize in your texting with members. If you are turning people out to events and sending information via text, it’s really easy to send along the event URL that opens with one click from the message thread. And, when they are prompted with the social sharing ask, people can easily post to Facebook via their phone’s app — a seamless user experience that drives sign-ups and encourages people to recruit their friends on social media.
Pro Tip: You can also use Mobilize for text bank events where you can recruit members to use your peer-to-peer texting platform to text fellow members about upcoming events, candidates running for office, and provide member-related information like bargaining updates.
Email is still an effective way to move members to action. Use catchy subject lines to grab people’s attention, keep the text as short as possible, and include an action button to RSVP to an event that redirects to your Mobilize event sign-up page. Once you see which members open the email but don’t sign up, you can send another email to nudge those members or you can text a follow up. Either way — using email with other tools is a great way to recruit for your Mobilize events and increase sign ups. We see that around 40% of all event sign-ups across the platform come from emails! The highest we see across all channels.
Pro Tip: Mobilize has integrations with popular email programs such as Blue State Digital and EveryAction. This allows you to keep track of which members you’ve emailed and the ones who have signed up for Mobilize events all in one place!
Website
Our partners use their websites to advertise events hosted on Mobilize. If you see a lot of website traffic, you can incorporate your Mobilize feed so your members can find an event and sign-up. Some of our favorite examples of this have been done by NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Texas Democrats — both of which created a map version for people to search for events nearby.
The team at Mobilize is here to help you use all of your digital and communication channels with Mobilize to recruit members to action! If you’d like more information about our work with labor unions, please contact me at sara@mobilize.us! If you are a current partner and need to reach our support team, you can reach them through our in-product chat or their email at support@mobilize.us.
