Social marketing workshop

The use of social marketing for the purposes of civil society organizations was the main idea of the workshop held on 20 April 2017. 19 representatives of the grantees of Civica Mobilitas participated at the workshop, and it was conducted by Simon Forester, an international expert of the program.

“Through the social marketing you should persuade people to make changes in the society.  If you want you campaign to make people or institutions change something in their existing behavior, they should believe in your vision same as you believe in it, “- he said.

The participants were introduced to the social marketing concept and its application in Macedonia, shared their experiences, but also had an opportunity to hear the experiences of the others. They stressed that the greatest difficulty faced by the civil sector was finding data about the target group on which they would direct their activities in the future.

The workshop program also contained a practical part which referred to a development of a social marketing draft plan and identification of the next activities for each organization.

“I will certainly apply the things I have learnt in the next process of recruitment of new members, promotion of events, establishment of new cooperation, and it will also serve to upgrade the internal capacity”, Stefani Spirovska from Youth Educational Forum stated.

Development plans, for the youth center which will be used to unite the young people coming from different ethnic communities; for education of health workers to work with marginalized groups such as HIV-infected persons and transsexuals; for development of young professionals with critical opinion, etc., were developed.

The participants assessed the workshop contents as very useful, and agreed that the next step was the development of a social marketing plan and its use in future projects.