There was a time back in, I want to say, 2012, when my Facebook feed was entirely content from Upworthy: feel good videos of people performing acts of kindness, flash mobs, and anti-bullying advocacy. Those were the days of movement building from viral content and Change.org petitions. It was a year after the Arab Spring had demonstrated the power of using digital tools for lightning-in-a-bottle organizing. At the time, I was running a consultancy that helped non-profits, politicians, and unions build these movements online. There was a pervasive belief that visibility was all we needed to succeed. We chased views, likes, and shares like they could change the world—and sometimes they did. 

The internet today is a different place. Every minute feels like a year. The content cycle moves at a break-neck pace. Something viral this morning is forgotten by this afternoon. Never mind the 24-hour news cycle—there are almost 90,000 seconds in a day, and people who spend a lot of time organizing online can feel every one of them. 

As the content cycle quickens, we’re also learning that clicks and views were not the panacea we thought. Social media companies chased ad dollars relentlessly, and incentives to exaggerate viewership and engagement metrics led to shady business practices. The people we depend on are moving to platforms where they’re harder to reach and content is harder to share. 

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with a lot of organizations who rely almost exclusively on these platforms to hold their communities together. While I’ve encouraged them in the past to diversify their tactics, that advice has never been more important than it is now. A decade ago, social media platforms were novel. Today, they’re the lifeblood of many extraordinary organizations. What can we do if—or when!—our people leave for greener pastures? 

1. Campaign early. Campaign often.

Forget viral, forget lighting in a bottle. Viral content is about novelty. It creates a burst of enthusiasm. The thing with bursts is that they fade as quickly as they explode. Think about engagement as a muscle. If you want to maintain enthusiasm, you need to campaign often.

Consider this anecdote about Adbusters magazine. Unlike most magazines, Adbusters engaged their subscriber list in the late 90’s the same way a lot of campaigns do today: as potential activists. They ran regular campaigns, some big (like Buy Nothing Day, intended to counteract the consumerist frenzy of Black Friday) and some small (like asking subscribers to throw their TVs out the window — which some people did). These campaigns were like training exercises. It didn’t matter that they weren’t getting a huge volume of clicks; they were building muscle. In 2011, the magazine released a poster of a ballerina standing on a statue of a bull. The instruction was simple: Occupy Wall Street. September 17th. Bring tent.

2. Start with strategy, then match it to the tools. 

Have you ever been in a brainstorming meeting with your team where the goal looks something like this: 

“We need to figure out how to boost our YouTube subscribers.”

I bristle when I hear a goal that includes a tactic. Boosting your YouTube subscribers is a tactic in a larger strategy. When you start with the strategy, let’s say:

Use our new video to help raise $20,000 for our campaign

Then you can start to see the multitude of approaches you can take to do that, one of which might include boosting your YouTube subscribers. 

Here’s a tip: when you sit down to brainstorm with your team, start by defining the goal as a team. Write the goal somewhere where you can refer back to it often. Start a list called “tactics” and any time you find yourself treating a tactic like a strategy, throw it in the tactics column. 

Callout: Our customers are successful when they start with strategy and follow with the tools. Find a case study that speaks to you here.

Amy Stuart works on the design team at NationBuilder. Previously, she was the co-founder and Creative Director of cStreet Campaigns, a full service digital agency that worked with political, non-profit, and union customers to push progressive policy forward in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia.