Social movements succeed when they’ve attracted enough support from the broader population to tip the scales of power. Creating vegan allies, who support veganism but aren’t fully vegan themselves, is one of the most impactful things we can do for the vegan movement.

This is the last episode in a series of 10. Watch the full series here!

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Produced by Beyond Carnism & Vexquisit Studio. Presented by Dr Melanie Joy & Tobias Leenaert.

Please take this short survey about this vegan series

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If it’s relatively easy for vegans to be vegan today, this is largely thanks to the meat reducers who helped increase the demand for vegan products. All of these reducers help make becoming vegan easier for everyone.

Watch the next video in the Effective Advocacy series here.

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Produced by Beyond Carnism & Vexquisit Studio. Presented by Dr Melanie Joy & Tobias Leenaert.

Please take this short survey about this vegan series

Find out more about Beyond Carnism or CEVA

What if we didn’t have to choose between being true to our ethics and being effective? What if we simply advocated that others be as vegan as possible?  

Watch the next video in the Effective Advocacy series here.

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Produced by Beyond Carnism & Vexquisit Studio. Presented by Dr Melanie Joy & Tobias Leenaert.

Please take this short survey about this vegan series

Find out more about Beyond Carnism or CEVA

You can't make a difference for animals while screaming at a wall. In today's interconnected world, with billions of social media users at your fingertips from every corner of the globe, you need to have an audience if you want your message to be heard. Beyond just having an audience, you need that audience to engage with you. If not, you're just a person talking to themselves in a very, very crowded room.

The next several parts of my continuing series on effectively harnessing the power of social media to advocate for animals will be focused on just these issues. How to get people to follow you on social and how to get these individuals to engage with what you’re posting.

First, let’s get some definitions out of the way. 'Engagement' is essentially any way that people are interacting with your posts. Likes (or on Facebook, they're called 'reactions'), comments, and shares are the metrics most commonly associated with engagement.

'Reach' refers to the amount of times a...

When we speak from the heart, and share our own story, we invite others to see the world through our eyes, and to see veganism from a different, and more empowering, perspective.

Watch the next video in the Effective Advocacy series here.

Produced by Beyond Carnism & Vexquisit Studio. Presented by Dr Melanie Joy & Tobias Leenaert.

Please take this short survey about this vegan series

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Do you want to make an impact for animals when you’re on social media? Do you want to leverage the power that’s at your fingertips?

Your ability to disseminate pro-animal, high-impact information and content across the internet comes largely down to your audience. Both the level of interest your audience has in your account - which we'll get to more later in this series - and by the size of your audience itself. For that reason, growth of your following is paramount if you want to maximize your impact. You have a direct incentive to do everything in your power to encourage people to hit that 'follow' button when they land on your profile.

Congrats, some curious people clicked through to your profile! Perhaps you had a post get some shares, or maybe you actively went out and engaged with other accounts and they're now circling back to you. Whatever the reason, you want these individuals to follow you, right? Yes. So how do you ensure they do this? By having a good bio.

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If we water the seeds of compassion, justice, and other important values, in others and also in ourselves, we increase the effectiveness of our advocacy and help grow a better world for everyone.

Watch the next video on Effective Advocacy here.

Produced by Beyond Carnism & Vexquisit Studio. Presented by Dr Melanie Joy & Tobias Leenaert.

Please take this short survey about this vegan series

Find out more about Beyond Carnism or CEVA

You are going to influence someone today. A conversation you have with someone on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook today will be a deciding factor as to whether or not that person alters their behavior in the coming days, months, or years. Even if the person you’re communicating with doesn't go vegan overnight, you’re getting the ball rolling. You're planting seeds that will eventually sprout into a new compassionate way of living.

Understanding your audience is crucial to finding success in your efforts for the animals. Identify what kind of messaging is going to work with them. If your audience is younger, they're prime for the 'go vegan' ask. If it’s older people who may be more set in their ways, then a gentler ask, like Meatless Mondays, may be more successful.

Don't get caught in the vegan bubble. Social media is wonderful in many ways, but in one particular way it can be quite counterproductive. It puts us into silos and bubbles with others who...

Many vegan advocates put morality first. But what if putting food first could be even more effective in helping others become open to learning about veganism? Show – don't tell – them the benefits of a vegan diet vs. eating meat.

Watch the next video in the Effective Advocacy series here.

Produced by Beyond Carnism & Vexquisit Studio. Presented by Dr Melanie Joy & Tobias Leenaert.

Please take this short survey about this vegan series

Find out more about Beyond Carnism or CEVA

When we discuss the realities of factory farming and the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle, the people we need to focus on aren’t those who already think like us. We need to focus on the general public. The 95 percent+ of the population who are eating animals. They're the ones who need to be won over, so we must cater our message to them.

To all those using social media to speak up for animals, think critically about the way you communicate with the outside world. You aren't just exposing people to the cruel realities of factory farming. You're essentially asking them to completely change their lifestyle. A lifestyle that has been reinforced over decades of eating animals, which is 100 percent acceptable according to social norms. We're making a big ask of people to consider this new way of living, so we shouldn’t discount the enormity of that request.

To create positive change, we must meet people where they are, not where we want them to be. It's likely that just a...