Resource Type: Research & Articles

While adding injustice messaging did not consistently improve performance over their existing messaging (which employs shared identity and efficacy elements) for republicEn’s conservative audience, research revealed several promising techniques for how best to optimize injustice messaging for conservatives going forward (such as by generating anger and emphasizing unfairly distribute health impacts).
 

Emphasizing a shared identity improved engagement with social media advertising among Illinois farmers, and may have doubled action taking, compared to standard messaging. Social scientists have developed a model for social movement participation known as the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA). This model suggests that shared identity is one of the key elements motivating people to participate in collective action. Testing of Facebook ads targeted at Illinois farmers found those emphasizing shared identity had a higher click through rate, lower cost per click, and may have had a higher action taking rate compared to ads that did not emphasize shared identity as strongly.