Digital Revolution Toolkit

If you have leadership or staff that are of a generation when many of these digital tools were not used, then the best way to get people up to speed is through training and development. There can be resistance from leadership who will not be using the tools in their day-to-day work, however providing education about the importance of digital tools can be the difference between getting buy-in versus deciding to forego digitalisation.

The ETUC has worked in collaboration with ETUI Education to provide training on digital tools for communications and organising. These trainings showcase best practices of unions that have had success with digital tools and even stories of where things did not work very well. Tools are nice to have, but they aren’t very effective if you don’t know how to use them. To sign up for these trainings, contact colleagues at ETUI Education here. 

Adapt your strategies to the national context: first you should figure out which platforms are popular in your country, and which target group you want to reach. A good way of finding out who uses which networks in your country would be from news reports or even European public databases like Eurostat. You can find some reports on social media use in the EU here. 

Here are some examples of tools:

Websites

Your organisation’s website is a vital part of your online presence. It should contain essential information about your organisation’s history, structure, your mission, your activities, and contact details. 

• Keep the design clear and intuitive to make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for
• Make your website visually appealing by incorporating high-quality images, a clean layout, respecting the graphic charter of your organisation, etc.
• Make sure that the website is mobile-friendly: this adapts the layout and functionality of the website to various screen sizes and provides a seamless experience no matter which device you use
• Ensure that your website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.  This is important for inclusivity. This includes implementing features like alt text for images, keyboard navigation, and ensuring compatibility with screen readers.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Optimising the website’s content and structure for search engines improves its visibility and ranking in search results. This involves using relevant keywords, meta tags, and descriptive URLs, as well as regularly updating content to keep it fresh and relevant.
• Incorporate analytic software like Matomo to track website traffic, user behaviour, and engagement metrics. This data can inform decision-making, identify areas for improvement, and measure the effectiveness of your content 
• Make sure to define a clear goal for your website frontpage: Is it to attract new members? To provide key information for your existing members? To share your activities? Everything that doesn’t fall into your goal should go into a different part of your website.  
• CRM: A Contact Relations Management system is a database that can also send messages through email, or sometimes through WhatsApp and phone calls. A simple database is better than no database but what makes a CRM so useful is the ability to target specific people in specific places. This way you can see which supporters are the most active and give them the possibility to share your messaging.

Make sure to have a clear purpose. Some unions have shared stories that investing into a CRM was nothing more than an expensive mistake. Why would you pay for something each month if you had no use for micro-targeting or specific personalised communication? This is not to talk CRMs down, but it is to remind us of the importance of always choosing our goals before we choose the tools. 

• Don’t forget your join-a-union button!

A comprehensive example of a communication website comes from Italian colleagues at Collettiva. The website deals with anything concerning work, rights, economics, environment, social issues, welfare, culture, and international issues. www.collettiva.it offers all the news to keep people informed and updated on the issues dear to the CGIL, its members and civil society. The website includes a multimedia platform to showcase transformations and struggles, disputes and denunciations, but also victories and good practices, ideas and proposals, values and possible utopias. The goal is to put videos, podcasts, news reports, stories, columns, live broadcasts, social networks, and in-depth analyses to put the entire labour movement back at the centre where it deserves to be.

With the help of CoopTech Hub (Polish cooperative technology centre), colleagues from OPZZ created a chatbot for their website to answer specific questions about working conditions for the public. Nadzieja, the chatbot, will try to answer the questions or link to relevant information including advising the questioner to join a union. It has helped 150.000 users in the first 6 months post launch. 

Social media 

Social media is extremely important for general visibility and to send your message out to members and decision makers. It is difficult – perhaps not impossible – but very difficult to do a modern advocacy campaign without any social media presence. 

On a quick note, it is important to mention that each social media is good for targeting certain audiences and is better in certain contexts. Some countries have many people on Facebook and other social media platforms like TikTok lean toward the younger generation. It is always important to pick your target and solidify your goals before deciding on which social media campaign to use.

Just as a general example, using Twitter (X) to speak directly to workers on the shopfloor might not be the best in your context. A professional looking video might not fit on TikTok but be very acceptable on LinkedIn and it goes on and on. Always define your goals and adapt your messaging. 

For instance, when contacting migrant workers using WhatsApp groups might prove very effective which was the case with Italian colleagues from CGIL. CGIL-FLAI monitored TikTok and Facebook (in English, Italian, and Punjabi) to understand the conditions of migrant workers on the ground so that they could invite them to WhatsApp groups dedicated to fixing their specific issues. 

Another example is when organiser colleagues at UNI-SEEOC used Facebook groups to directly reach out to members in companies that would benefit from changes to their workplace. They found data directly on the site and invited workers to speak about their issues.

Apps

Apps can be hit or miss as some trade unions saw them as expensive wastes that were difficult to produce and still not used by their members. However, there have been successes as well such as: 

The CGIL membership platform – Digita App allows members to easily find out union initiatives as well as simply fill out forms for unemployment and other social benefits from the Italian welfare system. This includes maternity allowances, educational services for children, etc. 

With the help of CoopTech Hub, Polish colleagues from OPZZ have launched an app to improve trade union management, where members can communicate, vote, pay fees, assign tasks, and create events. It assembles 150 union communities across all industries federated in OPZZ.

Newsletters and targeted emails

Newsletters can still be a very good way to convert supporters into clicking on and supporting your campaigns. 

• Make sure people get the information that they’re interested in (for example, you can include hashtags linked to issues that they can subscribe to)
• Targeted emails are still one of the best ways to reach out to members in lieu of more impersonal social media apps like Facebook or Twitter (X)
• Be careful of bulk emails going to spam if they are not sent from a real person, one of the ways to get around spam filters is to use a tag from your database to automatically fill-in someone’s first name in the message. 

Italian colleagues organised a successful targeted email campaign and managed to create a “perfect storm” by blocking policy makers’ inboxes (sometimes it can help your goals to get on peoples’ nerves) and at the same time creating a feedback loop by sharing their actions on social media and getting their supporters involved through WhatsApp groups.