Social Strategy in Response to an Unexpected Crisis

The Kurdish Project is an educational initiative that celebrates the Kurdish culture, builds bridges between Kurdish & Western communities, and raises awareness about a group whose culture, language, and history have been underrepresented. The Kurdish Project does this through building online communities, amplifying personal experiences through storytelling campaigns, and sharing insights and news from the Kurdistan region.

 

The Outcome

In a time of unprecedented crisis, TKP helped increase awareness, solidarity & unity to the Kurdish cause. Within 24 hours of a policy that rattled the Kurdish community, TKP pivoted their communications strategy to provide thought-leadership and breaking information on the event, to drive impact with clear action items, and to build a sense of unity for the Kurdish cause.

700%

Increase in net followers on both Facebook and Twitter

189

clicks to the IRC donation page from one email

104

clicks to callmycongress.com
The Challenge

In October 2019, The Trump administration withdrew U.S. troops from Northeast Syria, allowing for Turkey’s military invasion into a Kurdish-held territory. Complicating an already chaotic war, the withdrawal sparked bipartisan outrage, emotion, and vehemence among Americans who fought alongside the Kurds in the war against ISIS, and among Kurds themselves who felt betrayed by a longtime ally. Before that decision, most Americans knew very little—if anything—about who the Kurds were. But overnight, the world’s largest displaced population made headlines in every major news outlet in the country, and The Kurdish Project needed to quickly pivot communication strategies to address the crisis its community was dealing with.

The Strategy

In order to meet this new demand for information, we amplified our social and outreach strategy in a variety of ways. In order to respect the client’s aim to keep TKP as non-partisan as possible, we were diligent about keeping our messaging objective and focused on the outpour of solidarity that we received from people across the world—particularly among U.S. service members who fought alongside the Kurds against ISIS.

Within 24 hours, we amplified our social strategy by increasing our posting frequency on Facebook and Twitter, and by reaching out to our community via targeted newsletters.

Within 4 days of news breaking, we created action items for our followers to support the Kurdish population affected by the event. Our newsletter with CTAs had 2.7k opens, 410 total clicks and drove 145 website sessions with 50% being new sessions. TKP’s audience grew by almost 10% during this time.

By the end of the month, we contacted all of our followers to show our appreciation for their support. TKP received countless messages via social media, email, phone calls, and even snail mail (!) from followers in solidarity with their community, struggle, and cause.

Implementation

Engagement Amplification on Social + Email

  • Increased awareness about the Kurds, their allyship to the U.S., and their pivotal role in taking down ISIS via social media.
  • Served as a thought-leader and information source by posting breaking and fast-moving news pieces.
  • Promoted pro-Kurd rallies and protests to help our community condemn the new U.S. policy and support the Kurdish community.
Implementation

Facilitate Impact + Action

  • Provided the resources needed for our followers to call congress members to oppose the new U.S. policy.
  • Facilitated donations to organizations supporting Kurdish communities displaced by the Turkish invasion following the new policy.

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