Awareness is the root of action. When we’re aware of something, we’re inspired to do something about it.
Consciousness-raising inspires people to act.
It mobilizes against an issue, a problem, or an injustice. Awareness raising contributes to education and understanding and has a direct link to change.
This article shows you how raising awareness leads to action and describes how it can make a difference- why is raising awareness important?
Why Raising Awareness Is Important
You may have seen campaigns like “No One Should Be Alone With Cancer” or the World Cancer Research Fund’s “Beat Cancer Early” campaign and wondered what they were all about.
In this case, raising awareness is an important part of our work. It’s about informing people about something, like a disease, so they can make better-informed decisions about their health and well-being. It’s also often about influencing opinions and generating interest in a cause. Cancer awareness campaigns aim to help people reduce their risk of cancer, detect the disease early, or feel supported during treatment. Whether it’s a call to action for a cause, brand awareness, or influencing people’s opinions, most of us do it consciously or unconsciously.
Campaigns can be both local and global. For example, if you live in an area of New York where you believe residents should come together to find solutions to a local problem (e.g., violence, lack of educational resources), your strategic plan for your awareness campaign should target a specific audience in that particular area of New York (United States), and your press releases should also target that area. However, if your engagement is focused on disease control and you are just one person who wants to raise awareness about a specific health issue, then you should support nonprofits or the World Health Organization that already has a disease control awareness campaign.
In this case, you can raise awareness on your social media platform and try to turn your friends and family into supporters of the World Health Organization or nonprofits of your choice.
How Does Raising Awareness Help?
When you raise awareness for a cause, you help build an audience for that cause. Within that audience, you can use social media is a powerful tool to encourage people to share their support online and with others in their lives.
Through the process of sharing, you can bring your cause to more people than ever before and increase the likelihood that someone passionate about your cause will take action.
As a small business owner, you have the luxury of spending all of your time and energy on your own business. But there are many people who don’t have that luxury. They may have a small business, but they also have children, elderly parents, or other family members who need their attention.
If you want to do something in your community to help these people, consider volunteering with a nonprofit organization or starting your own charity.
Charity events and fundraisers can open doors by helping you meet new people and build relationships with them. When you walk into a room full of strangers, it’s always easy to make new friends. However, as you spend more time together, those relationships are likely to deepen into friendships and friendships into relationships.
It’s possible that one of those relationships is with someone whose support for your cause is exactly what it needs to get it going – like a new customer or investor willing to donate money to help the organization grow … or even become its founder.
The more supporters there are, the more likely it’s that someone will champion your cause. Not only that, but they’re likely to talk about how great it’s to learn that others support your cause.
How Raising Awareness Works
If you want to raise awareness for a cause, the most important thing you can do is make people aware of it. The best way to do that’s through traditional media – newspapers, magazines, television, and radio.
But you don’t always need money to fund campaigns that go to print or the airwaves, and there are no boundaries between the Internet and traditional media. You can use social media to promote your cause and build an audience to help you spread the word.
This is especially effective if you’re trying to create a community around your cause. You can build an audience on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube and then reach out to them with a post about your cause. Use hashtags to encourage people you know to talk about it on their own pages as well.
Social media is one of the most commonly used tools to bring attention to your cause. Unlike traditional advertising, social media allows you to build relationships between yourself and your audience. When you post a message on Facebook or Twitter, it’s not just about you. It’s also about the people who follow you and the people they follow.
Take the time to make sure your content is authentic (e.g.: personal story) because if people don’t believe what you’re saying, they won’t share it. There’s nothing more frustrating than posting a message that no one cares about because it doesn’t align with their personal beliefs or experiences.
Others prefer to raise awareness through a variety of channels. These include social media, TV media coverage, press releases, radio and outdoor advertising, as well as trade publications, partnerships, and events.
Raising Awareness Is a Challenge if You Don’t Have the Budget to Do It
Raising awareness is a challenge when you don’t have the budget to do it. The basic idea of awareness is to make people aware of your brand, product or service.
It’s about letting people know that you exist and that you’re here to stay. This includes letting people know what you do, how good your products and services are, and what your unique selling proposition is (USP).
The challenge, however, is convincing them that your products or services are worth the money – especially when they’ve many other options to choose from.
Raising Consumer Awareness Is No Longer Just About Running Ads or Launching Marketing Campaigns
It’s become more challenging with the advent of digital technologies, platforms, and strategies that require a more “human” approach.
Organizations now need to connect personally with their target audience while cultivating relationships with their employees and customers.
Nonprofits Must Get Creative to Attract Attention
They can’t just focus on the big issues that the public cares about, like the environment or poverty. It’s hard enough to raise money without attracting the wrong people who put their money into pet projects that don’t help anyone, but they also have to find a way to make people aware of their work.
People are used to hearing stories about other people’s tragedies, but it can be hard to think about your own circumstances. Even if you don’t have the time to help others, you can make a difference by creating a media plan to get your message out.
Unfortunately, there are few organizations left in the world that can afford quality television or radio advertising. That means they often have to rely on less costly forms of media – like the Internet and posts on social media. But even these have their limitations. Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter have also put more restrictions on social-themed advertising. That’s good because there’s a lot of fake news out there, but it also makes it harder for small organizations that don’t have enough time or capacity to follow all the rules and regulations that apply to advertising.
But even if you can’t afford to advertise, you can help nonprofits and communities raise their profile by sharing their stories on your own social networks – and then asking your friends to help them spread the word.
What Awareness Requires
Raising awareness is no easy task, and there are many challenges involved.
It’s not just about coming up with attention-grabbing content. It’s about making sure your content is relevant to your target audience, building a relationship with them, and working hard to get their attention.
Raising awareness can be time-consuming and costly, so you need to make sure this is the right strategy for your organization.
If you decide to increase awareness of your organization, be clear beforehand about what you want to achieve. You can use this to guide your strategy and measure your success later.
Here’s How to Get Started
Increasing awareness of your company, products, and services is never a bad thing. However, achieving this goal requires time, effort, and commitment.
Below are some strategies you can use to increase public awareness of your business:
- Develop a brand language. You need to develop an image and message that represents your brand. This will help people identify your brand and understand what it’s to offer.
- Create a blog. A blog is a great way to communicate with your audience and expand their knowledge of the market you serve. Your content strategy should focus on sharing useful information that helps people solve problems related to the topic of your blog posts. This way, you become an authority in your industry and can build trust with your target audience.
- Get social. Social media marketing is one way to connect with potential customers in today’s market. However, if you want to be successful, you need to be active on the platforms where community members of your target audience spend time online.
- Awareness days and awareness month. Awareness days and awareness months are perfect for your public interest communications and for beginning your awareness efforts. There is a variety of advocacy and public awareness days: World Mental Health Day, World Water Day, Free Speech Week, etc.
This is a great time to raise awareness because there is a lot of media coverage and you can find a specific personal story that touches potential supporters, and donors’ engagement is likely to be higher than usual. These are the perfect days for you to share educational resources for greater awareness-raising.
Risk Factors
Remember that social media is a powerful tool.
Beware of misinformation before sharing the latest news about your concern, especially if it’s about a specific health issue, violence, politics, or something that could affect a young person’s mental health or even one of your community members.
When you raise awareness, there’s always a positive side and a risk factor. Always think twice before sharing additional resources because there is enough misinformation out there!
Additional Resources
How Can I Become a Peace Advocate
Giving a Speech on a Community-Building Project: Full Guide