By: Pearl Kraft, Ryerson University, Hasbara Fellow
I returned from my Hasbara trip at the end of the summer, I felt ready to get back to school and start advocating for Israel on campus. The trip gave me endless topics to discuss with my fellow students who know little to nothing about Israel, and strategies for ensuring that these conversations are positive and effective. The one area in which I did not feel as confident was using social media for Israel advocacy. Yes, all of the techniques we learned about communicating for Israel are applicable to social media posts, but I wanted to go deeper and learn the unique skillset that is required to run a successful pro-Israel social media page. So, when I heard that Hasbara offers a Social Media Internship that trains participants in exactly that, I knew I wanted to participate!
I believe that most people today would agree that social media is an incredibly powerful tool we have at our disposal; it gives power to virtually anyone, anywhere, to put something out into the world and potentially reach millions, even billions, of people. In my opinion, this is a largely untapped resource for pro-Israel activists, which is why I’m so glad this internship exists! Act.IL is one example of social media being used to support Israel in a creative way; the app notifies members of anti-Israel activity on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. Members can then click a button which takes them to the offending post or page, and follow instructions to report it for one of several reasons, including Racism, Violence, or Incitement of Hatred. In this way, Act.IL is building a digital community of pro-Israel Social Media Warriors.
Nearly every pro-Israel campus club has a Facebook Account, and many have Instagram and/or Twitter pages as well. This is a great start to building a strong pro-Israel social media presence on university and college campuses, but I don’t think many people have the training necessary to maximize the potential of this opportunity to reach so many more people with a single post than a single table or events. By taking the time to learn how to use social media effectively for the purpose of advocacy, student leaders can begin to grow their social media presence and increase their reach exponentially! Beyond simply publicizing upcoming events, a campus club can use their page to share important news updates, fun facts, and more releveant information about Israel to followers who may not be receiving any other information about Israel, or perhaps worse, they may be seeing only coverage of Israel with a negative bias.
Hasbara’s Social Media Internship consists of 7 webinars, which cover topics such as Branding, Content Creation, Strategy, Engagement & Reach, Analytics, and more. All of the participants meet every couple of weeks, over video call, to learn about one element of social media. During the interactive presentations, participants are given the opportunity to ask questions or share examples of successful social media campaigns they have facilitated for their campus clubs.
After each webinar, we get an assignment that will help us put into practice the skills we went over that week. The assignments are very open-ended, with lots of room for our own creativity. For example, in the most recent webinar, instead of providing us with pre-made content to post on our Instagram stories, we were told to come up with an Instagram story campaign that is uniquely suited to our own campus club’s goals/events/culture. The staff members running the social media internship are always available for feedback and support, so that we can come up with the most successful social media strategies possible. In this way, we are gaining the skills necessary to create strong, meaningful social media pages geared towards Israel advocacy on campus and beyond. I look forward to putting these skills and tips to use in my role as Social Media Co-ordinator for Hasbara Fellowships Canada’s social media pages (follow us on Facebook at ‘Hasbara Fellowships Canada’ & Instagram at @hfcanada)!
*If you are interested in participating in Hasbara’s Social Media Internship, learn more here: https://hasbarafellowships.org/social-media-internship
