Rallying the troops: how to maximise the impact of a public rally.

A rally can be a great way to fire up the troops, and to put on a public display of strength. But how can you make sure that your rally gets noticed, and how can you maximise its impact?

Traditionally, the most common way to amplify the impact of a rally is through media coverage. By itself, however, holding a rally is usually not enough to attract the mainstream media’s attention. An event must come with a decent news hook.

For news value, timing can be everything. For example, the recent public sector rally in Sydney was timed to coincide with the passage of the NSW Government’s IR Legislation through the Upper House. This provided the narrative of the media story, with the rally being presented as the public sector’s response to the events going on inside Parliament.

Also think about colour, movement and sound – essential ingredients for the electronic media. Rallies provide perfect opportunities for some good old-fashioned flag waving and chanting. It’s important to have speakers with personal stories to tell – people who can talk about the issue will affect them personally. And if certainly helps if your speakers are articulate, and can talk with passion. A crowd needs to be revved up – you want to inspire raucous cheering, not polite golf claps.

Relying on the media to promote your rally is a risky business. The tone and extent of the coverage is out of your hands, and you never know what other news events might happen on the day to distract the media’s attention. If the media choose not to cover the event, then your key messages won’t go any further than the people who were able to get there on the day. That’s why internal communications and social media are so important.

Newsletters, journals and web-sites are essential to promoting your event to your own members and supporters. Social media tools then enable you to spread the message throughout the broader community. You can do this by creating a twitter hashtag for the event, and encourage members/supporters to tweet comments and responses. Another idea is to set up a gallery on Facebook with pictures of the event, and encourage members/supporters to ‘tag’ themselves.

By providing interesting content through your internal communication channels, and using the social networks of your members and supporters, you can therefore maximise the benefits of a one-event such as a rally without relying solely on free media.

A good example of this sort of content is a video that EMC produced for the Public Service Association of NSW of the above-mentioned public sector rally.  The video was loaded onto YouTube, and PSA members were encouraged to post a link to it on their Facebook pages.