Traffickers are known to entrap unsuspecting youths online via social media. Images and messages developed by the Mayor’s Office in collaboration with Love146 focus on encouraging safe online behavior by youths, highlighting strategies for identifying suspicious individuals, and empowering parents and caregivers with information on how they can protect the youth(s) in their lives. The City of Houston and Love146 purchased Facebook and Instagram ads for our target population: youths from 13-21 and adult caregivers from 35-55 for a 3-month period with 2 ads a week reaching over 2.7 million people in Houston and the greater Houston area. You can launch your own anti-luring social media campaign and reach both youth and parents/caregivers with tailored messaging on how to be safe while online by purchasing ads like we did or by using your own accounts and social media networks. Additional Toolkit materials will support individuals in developing a collaborative marketing plan and capturing campaign analytics.

Watch for Traffick Online Safety image

About

This Toolkit includes 24 ready-to-post images with customized messages for both youth and parents/caregivers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To support marketing efforts and collaborative partnerships, the Toolkit also includes platform-specific messaging information, a campaign informational sheet and accompanying calendar, and a blank partner tracker. Lastly, a datasheet to capture campaign analytics allows users of the Toolkit to enter and summarize data on impressions, reach, and engagement.

Download the Toolkit

What’s Included

  • Images to Post on Facebook – 12 for Youth and 12 for Parents/Caregivers (JPEG)
  • Images to Post on Twitter/Instagram—12 for Youth and 12 for Parents/Caregivers (JPEG)
  • Facebook and Twitter Campaign Messaging Documents (Word)
  • Social Media Campaign Informational Sheet and Calendar for Partners (PDF and PPT)
  • Campaign Partner Sheet to Keep Track of Stakeholders (Word)
  • Datasheet to Capture Campaign Analytics (Excel)

Guidelines for Responsible Use

Use the Social Media Toolkit in a responsible fashion by following the below guidelines:

  1. We respectfully ask that you do not represent yourself as a City of Houston or Houston Mayor’s Office employee, or as a representative of Love146, when using the Toolkit’s information and resources.
  2. The JPEG images you receive are not editable. This is to preserve the artistic concept behind the original anti-luring social media campaign.
  3. Develop protocols and procedures before you launch a social media campaign in the event a victim self-discloses her or his status in response to the postings.
  4. Consider adding language-specific filters to your accounts so that derogatory and hateful replies from internet trolls regarding trafficking victims and those in the commercial sex industry are blocked.
  5. To achieve maximum impact, develop a campaign calendar in advance, and consider pre-calendaring your posts to appear at specified, high-impact times using any number of online social media management programs.
  6. Identify potential partners, and provide them with a calendar of posts in advance so that they can actively engage with posts using their own accounts throughout the life of the campaign.
  7. Develop an impact strategy for the campaign, such as providing established partners with highly-visible accounts copies of the original campaign materials so they can post independently and leverage their own followers.
  8. Familiarize yourself with the analytics features of Facebook and Twitter so that you can assess impact in terms of impressions, reach, and user engagement. If you plan to also leverage Instagram, strongly consider using a third-party application to support analytics assessment as Instagram has no such built-in feature.
  9. Track ad or post performance to identify any needed marketing and/or timing changes of posts to enhance posts’ visibility and generate increased user engagement.