2020 Civic Engagement Ideas 🗳

First published December 2019

In the United States, 2020 will be the biggest vote year until 2024. As in past years, the vote product team will be launching products on Facebook and Instagram to encourage voter turnout. In 2020, people will see prominent  product experiences to 1) connect them with accurate registration and election day info and 2) encourage their communities to register & vote.This is a playbook for how the product teams could collaborate with partners on a go-to-market plan that mitigates risks, encourages high-quality product adoption, and demonstrates commitment to civic engagement in a year when tech companies, brands, and influencers will be showing up civically.

Why Do We Build Vote Products?

The Problem: In the U.S., voter turnout hovers between 40-60%. Voter turnout decreases with age and from national to more local elections..

The Opportunity: Tech companies have been launching voter turnout products since at least 2014, and they see strong product results. In 2018, we estimate that Facebook and Instagram helped 2M people complete the voter registration process (for comparison, Snapchat helped 400,000 people to register). In user research, we’ve found people feel that tech companies should be providing nonpartisan election information.

Major US 2020 Civic Moments (As of December 2019)

Mitigating for Risks

Transparency: Because of the anxieties around Facebook, elections, and data privacy, our voter turnout efforts face scrutiny from policymakers, press, and everyday users. People feel that it’s important we clarify where we source elections information.

Transparency: We need to increase transparency around our products by preparing detailed product Q&As, circulating 1-pagers to state elections officials, civic partners such as DemocracyWorks, and GPA (Gov, Politics, Advocacy) audiences. Since elections are run state by state in the US, state elections officials are  interested in state-level data (e.g. how many people in their state clicked on a FB registration reminder). 

Key Messages

• We send the same voter registration and elections information to people of voting age in the U.S. and make no other distinction on who sees it.
• When people click “register” or “see election info,” they access off-platform websites, such as states’ online voter registration portals. We do not have or collect user data such as their registration or voting records.
• We partner with state elections officials and our non-partisan civic data provider, DemocracyWorks, to ensure that elections information and dates are correct.

Encouraging High-Quality Page Adoption

Public Figure as Civic Actors: In the United States, public figures across entertainment, sports, government, civic, media, and other verticals often remind followers to register and to vote.

 In 2018, CNN reported on a “Taylor Swift Effect” in which voter registration reportedly spiked after she created a post about Vote.org on Instagram. 

Page Products: For the past two years, we’ve met this public figure behavior by encouraging pages to 1) start voter registration drives on NVRD and 2) share they voted with their followers. 

Our value prop for our Page vote products: When pages create a voter registration drive on Facebook, their followers directly access either 1) online voter registration portals in states with OVR or 2) Turbovote.org. When pages create a vote post using our prompt on election day, followers directly access state election websites with polling info. In 2020, if we decide to launch products for Pages, we should consider frequently requested changes such as creating a deterministic entry point, allowing Pages to track how many people they’ve helped, etc. 

Unlike many other voter turnout orgs, we don’t collect user data such as contact info during this flow. By sending people directly to state voter reg websites versus to a third party like Vote.org, we increase significantly the likelihood that people complete the voter registration flow. 

Partnerships Outreach & Events

If the product team decides to build products for public figures for NVRD and Election Day, it is critical that we work with Partnerships teams to conduct scaled & direct outreach with 1-pagers, presentations, and meetings on the unique value prop of our products and how to use them. If the product team can build a way for pages to track registration progress, we can leverage our existing relationships with civic & edu networks and launch a college page competition.

CASE STUDY: When We All Vote recently launched a campaign announcing their national voting squad: Selena Gomez, Megan Rapinoe, Lin-Manual Miranda, Tom Hanks, Chris Paul, and more. When we engage with civically engaged public figures, we need to respect their existing partnerships and engage early so they use our products in parallel. 

Cultural Moment: National Voter Registration Day (NVRD)

On NVRD - timed around most states’ registration deadlines one month before election day - tech companies, brands, and public figures will show up to remind people to register to vote.

PRODUCT COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS: Harvard Kennedy School published a report on several companies’ (Snap, Spotify, Twitter, Patagonia) 2018 voter turnout efforts in a case study this year. 

BRAND MARKETING EXAMPLE: Ahead of NVRD 2018, Levi’s launched a TV spot encouraging voting. Set to the song “Think,” by Aretha Franklin, the ad ends with, “It’s your voice. It’s your vote.” It also hosted voter registration booths in select stores and sold a limited edition “Vote” T-shirt. 

Cultural Moment: Election Day (Tuesday, November 3, 2020)

In the past, we’ve launched Vote stickers in the Facebook Camera. These mirror long-standing behavior that people in the U.S. like to post a photo with Vote stickers after going to the polls. Social and brand marketers highlight Election Day as a cultural moment and activate public figures to use Vote stickers, and then aggregate these in a first position mega story.