Development action with informed and engaged societies

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Social Media Strategy Framework

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"Created by Advanced Human Technologies, the Social Media Strategy Framework is used to help media outlets and journalists in the process of engaging with social media to understand what is required to create a social media strategy."

 

This framework begins with learning about social media through practitioners and exploration of trends. It continues in two directions for strategy development, leading to a single end point: develop capabilities. The centre contains logos of various social media available on the internet. It is designed to support both the private sector and the public in the development of a social media presence that will move information towards a wider public.

 

One direction includes the following:

  • Listen in order to: identify social media monitoring tools and learn to use them; identify key influencers, relevant communities, and conversations; and hear what is said about you and your programme, product, or media product.
  • Engage in conversation: enter with positive responses that provide relevant content that adds value to the communities and engages influencers.
  • Measure and refine: set measures for evaluating success and monitor them; capture and communicate success stories; report to those in charge - editors, managers, donors; refine strategies and evaluation measures.
  • Develop capabilities; identify internal champions of social media; train and support them; stay up to date; establish pilot programmes; develop a culture of reaponsible transparency.

 

In the other direction:

  • Prioritise objectives, which focus on the engagement of customers and customer-driven innovation, branding and reputation management and sales.
  • Establish governance, which focuses on identifying opportunities and risks, including the risks of non-engagement, setting clear social media policies and communicating them to staff.
  • Define activities, including developing planned phases of social media engagement, beginning with initial platforms, identifying resources, responsibilities, and time commitments, and linking back to offline activities.
  • Develop capabilities, as above.

Click here to access the Social Media Strategy Framework in English. 

Click here to access the Social Media Strategy Framework in Arabic. 

Source

Internews website, February 5 2015.