Student activists make great TikToks
More Americans are getting news on TikTok - Pew Research
Are you getting seen on TikTok? How do you even create compelling TikToks? Students For Justice has an innovative approach: Have young college interns create TikToks. Students get a small stipend. Timely relevant messages get see on TikTook (and Instagram). The next generation of activists get inspired to do more. Win-win-win!
Students for Justice (SFJ) is a paid internship program that was created in 2020 to engage college students in the struggle to fight systemic voter suppression and to turn out the vote. It is an initiative of the Center for Common Ground, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization committed to getting out the vote in communities of color in voter suppression states. SFJ’s voter outreach is centered on young African-American voters in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. Their interns are recruited primarily from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and over 90% identify as people of color.
Take a look at these three TikToks their interns created to encourage others to vote and increase the turnout in the Virginia election. Watch carefully because they are only 6 seconds long each. Click on the images to watch them on TikTok.
This intern-created post was turned into an ad on Instagram Reels. There it showed up on the Instagram feeds of Virginians 18-29 305,690 times -- and it caused 17,444 people to click on a link to learn more about where and when to vote.
This TikTok was also turned into an ad on Instagram and it reached the Instagram feeds of 327,380 young Virginians.
This TikTok earned 2,712 views organically on TikTok and then was turned into an Instagram ad, where it reached 103,264 young Virginians.
These videos got nearly 30,000 young people to click on links to get more information and provided peer support and encouragement for the act of voting for many hundreds of thousands more! Think how much would it cost to have that type of impact through traditional advertising which may not even reach this important demographic.
Students For Justice
Students For Justice provides an educational experience and professional growth opportunity for college students, including (because it is paid) low-income students. It accomplishes significant voter outreach, having a very real impact on turnout in important elections. It educates the future leaders of the fight for voting rights in America.
Learn political organizing skills by recruiting volunteers to write postcards to voters and by engaging in phone banking
Learn leadership skills when promoted to managing teams of new interns and by participating in leadership skills workshops
Learn political marketing skills through workshops and by designing social media outreach to increase voting among youth
Benefit from a speakers’ series focused on developing an understanding of and involvement in the democratic process
Mentored one-on-one by older volunteers who meet with their interns weekly to provide supervision, encouragement, time-management coaching, and career advice
DONATE TO STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE
Students For Justice Co-Founders
Students for Justice was founded on May 18, 2020, when the co-founders, Claire Ullman and Sandy Radoff, had the idea to put their skills together to address the needs of that moment. Claire was teaching political science at Barnard College and heard from her students that all their summer jobs and internships had been canceled due to the pandemic, and she had started working her network to find them opportunities. Sandy, a market researcher with her own business, was a major volunteer for the Reclaim Our Vote postcard campaign of the Center for Common Ground and had already distributed about 30,000 postcards to volunteers in Manhattan – she knew that many more thousands of volunteers were needed to turn out the vote in the most important election of our lifetime. They put those two needs together and Students for Justice was born.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
Listen to this podcast in which Sandra Radoff explains how Students For Justice is coaching the next generation of activists and political leaders.
TakeAway: Reach young voters where they are - on Tik Tok and Instagram. Help support the next generation of activists. Donate to Students For Justice.
Deepak
DemLabs
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