Recognize the opportunity, define a clear message, and evoke emotion. According to research from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the INGENIO Institute, a joint center of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the CSIC, these are the three keys to success in environmental campaigns on social networks. The research has also received an international award for the best article on entrepreneurship.
No one has the exact recipe for the success of viral campaigns on social media, but there are examples of what does work. Taking as a reference an environmental mobilization strategy on Facebook that has had a major impact, these researchers have developed a theoretical framework that helps to understand some of the keys to success. Specifically, they have focused on the work of photographer Chris Jordan and social media manager Manuel Maqueda, who have created a social movement against plastic pollution with more than two million followers and with which they have managed to change the regulation in this regard in nearly fifty countries. To do this, they use very striking photos of baby birds poisoned by ingesting pieces of plastic, through which they symbolize the effect of plastic on our society.
The keys to the success of this campaign lie in three elements, explains one of the authors of the research, Mª Itziar Castello, from the Department of Business Economics of the UC3M: “First, they recognize the opportunity: no one is explaining to people how harmful plastic is. Second, they create what we call a ‘narrative team’, a clear message that helps to frame the problem. And third, they ’emotionally align’ their followers through impactful photographs, creating icons with which people identify and positioning themselves as heroes close to the problem to gain legitimacy.”
The article, entitled “Cultural Entrepreneurship and the Role of Visuals in Interactive Frame Alignment Processes,” analyzes the communication strategies on Facebook used by these social movement entrepreneurs. For example, Manuel and Chris say that the problem has not been called by its name, since until recently it was always cited as the problem of marine debris and they decided on the name of plastic pollution. And they also commented that the solution is not to recycle, but to reject the use of plastic since plastic is not entirely recyclable and its cremation is very polluting. “Manuel and Chris use ‘cultural tools’ to achieve their objectives, specifically images with great capacity for emotional motivation,” explains Professor Castelló.
“The image we analyzed is the photograph of the corpse of an albatross poisoned by plastic pollution. Albatrosses often confuse small fragments of plastic that float in the oceans with food to feed their young. Albatross chicks cannot digest these fragments, and more than 40% of the small albatrosses literally ‘explode’ from the plastic accumulated in their stomachs. This dramatic image is used by the environmental social movement that we studied to convince potential activists who visit their Facebook page of the suitability of their proposals,” explains the other author of the study, David Barberá, from the INGENIO research institute.
The study has been awarded the prize for the best article on entrepreneurship by the Academy of Management, in its division of Organization and Management Theory (OMT). It is the first time that a research article presented by Spanish researchers has obtained an award granted by the OMT, in this case for “advancing the understanding of entrepreneurship through the theory of organization and management”. The researchers from UC3M and UPV collected their award at the annual conference of the Academy of Management held last August in Vancouver. “The main conclusion that I would highlight from this research is that we must integrate feelings into management theories. Cultural entrepreneurs use feelings, but from management theories we have always ignored them. For this reason, management researchers have been able to recognize its innovation in this article and have given us an award in what is considered the best management congress in the world.”