Article Description: In this article, we will walk you through how to create and publish a Friend to Friend action using the Suggested Contacts feature.
This article will review:
What is the Suggested Contacts feature?
Suggested Contacts is a tool that allows you to outreach key targets through a relational approach. With the Suggested Contacts feature, your campaign can target outreach to contacts in your volunteer's networks who are on a specific target list. This is an efficient way of targeting key prospective supporters with a personal touch. All messages are sent to existing personal contacts from the user's own phone number, email or social media accounts.
For example if your campaign is focusing on environmental issues, with the Suggested Contacts feature you could upload a list of key supporters who are part of an environmental club at a college campus and who are likely to support your campaign. Your volunteers can then text friends in their contact list who are on the same list. Additionally, it encourages your volunteers to have more strategic outreach by highlighting folks the campaign is specifically looking to talk to.
These are just some examples of how your campaign can leverage the Suggested Contacts feature to strengthen your relational outreach to key campaign targets.
How To: Create an Action with Suggested Contacts
To begin, you will want to create a new Friend to Friend action. From the Admin Dashboard navigate to Actions > Friend to Friend and then click on + Create Action.
Next, in the dropdown Select a list to target (optional) you will want to select a contact list to assign to the action.
Important Note: This step is what differentiates a traditional friend-to-friend action from a friend-to-friend action that is using the Suggested Contacts feature.
Continue to create and publish your Friend to Friend action as normal. If you’re looking for a refresher on how to do so check out our article, Friend to Friend Messaging.
Volunteer Experience
The volunteer experience is nearly identical to friend-to-friend actions. The only difference being that, if your volunteers know any of the people on the targeted list, those friends will show up with a blue star under the "Suggested" filter on their app, as shown below.
In this example, the volunteer knew 3 contacts from the uploaded contact list.
To learn more about the volunteer experience with Friend-to-Friend messaging check out our article, Volunteer Walkthrough: Friend to Friend Messaging.
What if a volunteer doesn’t have any suggested contacts?
The action mirrors a typical friend-to-friend action. That being said, if a volunteer doesn’t have any suggested contacts then they can outreach anyone within their phone’s contacts as normal. Volunteers can remove the Suggested filter from their contact list by clicking Filters and then unclicking the Suggested filter - check out the gif below to see what it looks like.