Have you ever wondered how you could reach a wider audience with news of how your organization is a part of the GFAR mission to transform agri-food research and innovation? Have you wished you could highlight your work with partners as a concentrated online burst, not just the occasional cross post on a website or blog? In short, do you want to shine the spotlight on what you’re doing as a Partner in GFAR? If so, the Partner Spotlights are for you!
The Partners in GFAR all share the mission to advocate for and catalyse Collective Actions that contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. There are now more than 600 Partners in GFAR, and what’s more important than the number is the wide range of sectors and actions they represent. Coming from organizations working across the world in farmers’ and civil society organizations, scientific research, education, rural extension and advisory services, business and enterprise, international development agencies, and women’s and youth organizations, the Partners make up a truly unique multi-stakeholder global forum on agri-food research and innovation. And together we’re tackling big world challenges that no single organization can address alone.
But what’s the first step in working together? It’s sharing and celebrating GFAR collective actions with each other and with our wider online community!
This is where the GFAR Partner Spotlight comes in. For a full week, you will have the opportunity to share your news, events, opportunities and blog posts on the GFAR website and blog. You can take advantage of the GFAR social media channels and the GFAR Update to really expand your reach. At the same time, you will be sharing your role in GFAR.
What are the benefits?
Anybody who’s anybody in communications these days knows that “click-thrus” are what really count. This refers to the total number of clicks on a specific link (as opposed to the number of total users who just view a page, post, email, or advertisement).Put simply, this is a measure of how interested people are in the content, interested enough to keep clicking to get to the source. GFAR’s subscribers, ‘likers’ and ‘followers’ are constantly growing and click-thrus from our social media channels are consistently high.
As for the GFAR Blog, it already boasts nearly 1,500 subscribers, with many more receiving it indirectly- and it’s growing all the time. With an average of 5,000 to 6,000 visits per month, that’s a lot of eager readers! That’s important since a blog is a key vehicle for attracting and keeping interest in your content – whether it’s study findings, meeting proceedings, scientific articles, publications or reports.
Think of it this way: the blog puts a fresh face on your news that can make them engaging and attractive to those who might normally just pass them by. And when those users click through to your spotlighted material, most likely they’re going to click through to your own posts and pages to learn more about you and about your role in GFAR!
What will your Partner Spotlight include?
All the Partners who carry forward this movement of transformation in agriculture and food—and everyone who identifies with GFAR’s mission—is interested to learn how your work as a Partner in GFAR is shaping the future of agri-food research and innovation systems in the global context.
- How are your collective actions with other Partners in GFAR making these systems work in a more effective, transparent and equitable way?
- What diverse sectors are being involved and which innovative approaches are being employed to provide solutions to today’s big challenges?
- What are you working toward that will change behaviors and lead to (or has already resulted in) development impacts at scale?
Leading up to your scheduled Spotlight week, we’ll work with you to identify a theme and tailor your news and updates as part of an attractive and accessible package for GFAR’s many eager followers and subscribers.
Your spotlight will ideally include:
- 5 of your news items, one for each day of the work week, published on the GFAR website
- Up to 5 of your events and 5 opportunities
- Up to 5 recent blog posts on themes relevant to GFAR’s mission and vision. We can cross-post your own blog posts on the GFAR Blog, giving credit where credit is due. If required, our writers and editors would be happy to work with you on generating original blog posts, especially capitalizing on the success stories of your work with Partners. This may simply be a matter of tailoring existing news to highlight how you’re catalyzing or carrying out a collective action. You could also weave news of a recent or upcoming online or face-to-face meeting, conference, study, publication release, etc. with a bit of background about your organization and how you see your role within GFAR as a partner.
Check out these blog post guidelines to get a clear idea what a post on the GFAR Blog will look like: https://blog.gfar.net/2016/08/24/how-to-submit-a-post-to-the-gfar-blog/ Here are some examples of blog posts that were part of past Partner Spotlights: https://blog.gfar.net/tag/partner-spotlight/
- Sliding banner on GFAR.net linking to a key item, to spread the word to everyone who visits our homepage (Keep in mind that for this and all posts we’ll need you to source some relevant, high quality images.)
- A section featuring your Partner Spotlight in our GFAR Update – a monthly newsletter
Here’s what you have to do: Contact Charles Plummer (Charles.Plummer@fao.org) to talk about what your Spotlight could include and when to schedule it. Think about an upcoming peak of activity ahead of time so we can quickly lock in the best slot for you!
Photo credits (clockwise from top left): CIMMYT / Peter Lowe; CABI; Farmerline; iStock
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