How can we get better at social marketing?

As Director of Social Marketing at 澳大利亚格里菲斯大学 , Sharyn Rundle-Thiele leads a team managing more than 50 social marketing projects totalling $10 million. In a video interview, Sharyn shared her thoughts on the secret to social marketing success and what’s holding our work back. (Transcript edited for brevity). The full interview is available on video here.

JA: Sharyn, you come from a commercial marketing background. Are marketing and social marketing principles always interchangeable?

SRT: There are probably two points of view where some would argue, yes, the fundamental practice at the strategic level of marketing can be applied in the social marketing space. In some cases, we do need different approaches. In others, we just need to skill more people up and have them feeling brave to jump in. I'm seeing a lot of time getting absorbed in people needing to understand and analyze and plan. And that always reflects to me that they don’t know what they're doing.

JA: What's holding people back?

SRT: What holds people back is fear. Does the person really understand what they need to do? Marketing is about understanding people's hearts and minds and essentially giving them what they want, where they want it, and when they need it. And in our space where we're dealing with social change, health, environment, it’s about understanding what it is that would move someone, motivate them, and then packaging it up for them so that they can use it.

Marketing is about understanding people's hearts and minds and essentially giving them what they want, where they want it, and when they need it. And in our space where we're dealing with social change, health, environment, it’s about understanding what it is that would move someone, motivate them, and then packaging it up for them so that they can use it.

JA: If you jump in too fast and do something that creates harm, how do you protect against that?

SRT: You mitigate for that in the way you construct your projects. Arm yourself with experts around you and they're going to tell you instantly what the backfire effects would be. Start with a very contained proof of concept so you don't scale and roll out something that's doing harm.

JA: Okay. So, jump in, but don't jump in by yourself.

SRT: Yeah. I mean, I'm the first to tell you I'm not a health expert or an environmental expert. I need them desperately to create solutions that are going to achieve the intended outcomes.?

JA: You mentioned earlier that social marketing involves many stakeholders – some of whom block progress. Can you speak more to that?

SRT: Well, it happens frequently and constantly, often for fear of losing a job. But we should be making ourselves redundant and empowering and upskilling communities so that there'll always be something else we need to move to. I also frequently encounter the phrase, “Oh, that doesn't work.”? They think they've tried it before. But it was delivered by an environment expert and not an advertiser or a skilled storyteller that can truly connect with the audience.

JA: What are you seeing in terms of trends?

SRT: The biggest trend is participatory design. Under the umbrella of ideas like co-design and design thinking, it’s about placing people at the heart of everything that we do. But again, I'm also seeing people applying co-design or design thinking who have no training in it. And it looks more like a fancy focus group. Co-design or design thinking is a blank sheet of paper giving people the freedom to move where they need to go. You're really just having a conversation with folks who can often come up with solutions faster and better than you might be able to. The other trend is systems thinking. For me, the care that we now need to take is that we're not spending all our time getting lost in the issues. Recognize systems are complex. Bring different actors in from different backgrounds and work together to develop a consensus. We call this Creating Collective Solutions, which draws from collective intelligence and has co-design at the back end. These approaches avoid wasting a lot of human time in the learning.

JA: I would call you both a champion and a critic of the sector. You've been particularly vocal that change isn't happening fast enough.

SRT: Regardless of who's delivering it, a government agency, a business, whoever, we need to have outcome evaluation and we need to hold people accountable. We're allowing people to put up a beautiful illusion that they're doing something, when in fact, it's very clear they're not. The people that we take on the journey of outcome evaluation tend to stick with it. And it brings more funding because suddenly we realize there are not enough resources to do the needed work.?

Regardless of who's delivering it, a government agency, a business, whoever, we need to have outcome evaluation and we need to hold people accountable. We're allowing people to put up a beautiful illusion that they're doing something, when in fact, it's very clear they're not.

JA: What do you say to people who want to either dive into this work or get better at this work??

SRT: Training is definitely one thing. Surround yourself with mentors that challenge you. I have a very firm belief that if we're really comfortable, we're not pushing ourselves far enough in the space of change. It should feel uncomfortable. It's new. It's different. It hasn't happened before.?

JA: So, discomfort for the practitioner, but not for the audience.

SRT: Absolutely, and through that discomfort you get these amazing growth moments that help the people we’re trying to serve.

You can connect with Sharyn here on LinkedIn or message her directly.