INTRODUCTION
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, income or education level with respect to development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. Execution often requires tailoring your standard public engagement tactics toward these target audiences.
Here are some ways to use digital marketing for environmental justice:
REACH YOUR AUDIENCES VIA SOCIAL MEDIA ADS
To some extent, you can use social media and online ads to target certain groups and/or locations. For instance, Facebook and Twitter allow you to use geotargeting so that you can reach certain neighborhoods.
In your Google ads (e.g., Display, YouTube), you can target or exclude household income levels. For example, you can set your ads to exclude the “Top 10%,” “11-20%”, etc.
Many platforms also allow you to target by language, such as Mandarin, Italian and Portuguese.
Note that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter do not allow you to target by race.
ADVERTISE ONLINE
If your goal is to reach Spanish-speaking individuals, you should consider using Spanish-speaking online radio stations on Pandora or iHeartRadio (Spotify does not have this capability). The latter has stations in many cities, including Madison, Milwaukee and Eau Claire in Wisconsin.
Your community may also have online publications that reach communities of color. If that’s the case, pitch or advertise on those publications to get the word out about your project.
SHARE DIGITAL ASSET KITS
Another digital marketing tactic to use for environmental justice is a digital asset kit, which can include things like images, videos, fact sheets, maps, presentations and renderings. These kits would then be distributed to community leaders, who in turn would share the kits with their groups.
Based on the communities you’re trying to reach, it likely would make sense to translate your digital asset kit into various languages, such as Spanish or Hmong.
In terms of accessibility, images on websites need alt text, and videos need either descriptive audio and/or closed captioning.