Nishall’s Blog:

OVER the last six years, I have campaigned three times to get elected on Harlow Youth Council, worked on other various campaigns to raise awareness or to take action for a cause and now recently trying to raise money so I can get to the One Young World Summit in Dublin this October. (For more info about One Young World Summit and if you you would like to sponsor me please visit http://www.gofundme.com/Nishall)

So for this weeks blog I thought I would give basic insight on what make a good campaign weather is it a political, raising awareness or taking action; by the way, taking down your opponent’s campaign signs and replacing them with your own is not on this list.

Point number one for getting the best out of a campaign is to make it personal to you. If you don’t fell certain on a topic, ask yourself would you convince others to support the cause your campaigning for?

Point two, identity your target audience, for me during my election it was young people aged 13-19, so think about them and plan the way to campaign from speeches, posters and leaflets to meet your target audience otherwise there is no point doing a campaign. Also included things in the campaign that will interest the audience such as talking about a topic that will involve the audience.

The third would be use the tools available online such as creating a website for your campaign and having social media accounts, this is an enormous way of captivating audience and support on a large platform. Also guess what? the platform could be made bigger every time someone hits the retweet or share button!

Forth point, but a crucial point, not everyone uses the internet, the message of your campaign also needs to go verbal as well as viral. Talk to people about your campaign and tell them why it benefits them and why they should be involved. Make posters and display them in busy areas to inform people even if you are not about to tell them, but remember make them simple but informative and ensure they are eye catching.

My second form final point for the basic about campaigning is to get local celebrities and dignitaries involved, because if your target audience sees that some important people are getting involved they will want to find out why? And this would ensure more people will know about your campaign and may even get involve themselves.

My final point on campaigning is tell the the local press, they are always looking for good stories and they will attract more attention for you if they put an article out for you.

So that is my basic 101 of campaigning, why don’t start a campaign of that your passionate about, maybe to raise awareness or to take action on.