We will continue to update this page as more questions are submitted. Feel free to email us at truth.tellers@sierraclub.org if your question is not answered here!
Q: Do I need a social media account to participate in this team?
A: It's helpful to have a social media account, so if you feel comfortable making one definitely do. However many of the goals of this team can be accomplished by engaging in news article comment sections! You can search a recent news article on the topic of the suggested post and share your thoughts there. Some news sites also require making an account.
Q: How do we engage people with hope and optimism rather than fear and negativity?
A: Sharing personal experiences and thoughtful questions are great ways to engage people emotionally that don’t rely on negativity. Both of those approaches are also more likely to get people to stop and think about something differently, rather than throwing statistics or statements at them.
Unfortunately, many social media algorithms are designed to reward anger and negativity over positive content. But we can't just throw our hands up and say, "social media is a lost cause." We have to figure out how to engage strategically and try to find inroads in whatever ways we can.
Q: Who are we trying to reach with this team? How do we break out of our echo chambers? Should we be using certain platforms (X, Truth) to combat misinformation and get the truth out there? Are we just preaching to the choir if we're using platforms like BlueSky?
A: Our main focus is reaching folks who are in the “unengaged middle” – people who are neutral or uninformed on climate and environmental issues or who hold some conflicting beliefs (conservative environmentalists) but could be convinced, OR people who generally agree with us but haven’t yet taken action and are waiting to be engaged.
We want to get information to these people rather than trying to change the hearts and minds of folks who are super far right, since we are unlikely to succeed in changing their minds. One of the best ways to do this is by leaving positive comments and sharing posts, because that tells the algorithm to show that content to more people.
Q: Should we engage with trolls on social media?
A: If someone is clearly "trolling" (being intentionally argumentative or defamatory) it's best to just ignore them and write your own comment separately. However, if someone seems to be accidentally sharing misinformation, it can be helpful to comment to debunk it with the correct information, as long as you do so respectfully.
Q: Can we use Sierra Club's content on our own social media accounts? How do we do that?
A: Yes, absolutely! You can share content to your own social media accounts using our toolkits (like this one, which is to recruit folks to join the Climate Truth Tellers team). Another way to share our content to your own accounts is by directly sharing posts from our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LikedIn, TikTok, or Bluesky accounts and writing your own thoughts in a caption when you share to make it your own.
Q: Is sharing the same as reposting?
A: Essentially, yes. Each platform uses slightly different words to describe what it means to share or repost another account's content to your own feed (which is the most impactful type of engagement across all social media platforms, followed by comments and then likes). We might plan a social media 201 training at some point to dive deeper into this.
Q: How do I grow my friends or followers who will comment or share my posts?
A: This depends on which platform you're using. On Facebook, consider joining different Facebook Groups (you can search for groups of people in your area or that share similar interests to you). Then you can become Facebook Friends with people in that group to help grow your following. On Instagram, find different pages that are climate-focused, follow those pages, and engage with other people in the comment section.
Q: How can we share content like this without being targeted and severely punished by Trump? What if this work becomes completely prohibited by law?
A: Digital security is really important, and will be increasingly so under a Trump administration. We recommend being cautious about how much personal information you share online, and taking extra precautions if you are organizing protests.
However, it is extremely important that everyday people continue to speak up online and in-person, put pressure on our elected officials, engage with each other and with the media, etc. The more that each of us continues to do this work, the safer it makes it for other people too. It is a good idea to be aware and cautious, but it’s important that we don’t pre-emptively sensor ourselves.
We will be publishing more best practices for social media safety guidance shortly.
Q: Are negative comments sometimes good, since they are also raising the visibility of your post by increasing engagement?
A: Negative comments can be positive for the numbers and data side of the algorithm, but it is important to note that the algorithm looks at both number of comments and tone of comments.
On a post with a lot of comments where they are mostly negative, the algorithm will assume that people don't like the post and won't show it to as many people. In contrast, if there is healthy debate (like if someone posts misinformation and you comment with some facts about why it's incorrect, and there is a balance of comments) the algorithm thinks "people are engaging with this content" and shows it to more people.