​How the Media Engagement Strategy Deck Helps You Play Your Way to Impact

By Jessica Clark, MIP Senior Fellow

Producing a high-impact media project can be a befuddling prospect. What starts as a germ of an idea—“I’ll make a film about X to solve Y!”—quickly snowballs into a social media campaign to reach Z, an app to accomplish A and B, and so on. And then there are all those outcomes to track for each platform. How are you supposed to keep this all in your head?
 
Don’t fret—instead pick up our newly minted Media Engagement Strategy Deck:

The deck was developed by our MIP Senior Fellow Jessica Clark. She set out to understand how makers and funders can best assess media projects on emerging platforms. She quickly realized that part of the problem was a gap in shared language around impact models and outcomes, and began to develop a symbol font to begin to fill in that gap.
 
The font in turn morphed into this deck, designed for producers, funders and developers of media projects that aim to have a public interest outcome.
 
How does it work?
 
The deck is divided into multiple parts—a Core Deck focused on the question “How do you engage your audience?” and Expansion Packs designed to help users dig further into content strategy or work directly with audience members to prototype projects.
 
Different “suits” are organized by color. In the core deck you’ll find suits that answer these questions:

1. Who are you trying to reach? (Audience cards are red)
2. What platforms are you using? (Platform cards are chartreuse)
3. Why are you making this media project? (Outcome cards are black)
4. How is your project designed to connect with users? (Engagement Model cards are light aqua)

 
In addition the Core Deck contains Connectors (peach) which will help you to build and edit strategies or impact stories, and Key Concepts (aqua) to consider as you go.
 
The Connectors allow the deck to work a bit like an equation—you can begin with the factors that you already know (either your desired outcome or your starting platform) and then build an impact story from left to right.

Or, if you’re using multiple platforms with discrete outcomes, you can stack or stagger strategies. The cards are meant to be flexible to reflect the many different creative approaches that media makers are taking.
 
The cards can be used in multiple settings: by individual makers and funders for planning or assessment; by a team to articulate and debate next steps; in a conference or classroom to prototype different media projects. While we’ve done our best to think through common platforms, outcomes and social tools, we’ve also included a few blank cards for you to customize for your own needs.
 
Using the Expansion Packs
Each of the expansion packs is available separately, or you can order the full deck to get all four:

1. Rising digital content types cards (burnt orange) help users think more deeply about how to use newly popular content types—such as data visualizations or  podcasts—within digital plaforms.
2. Individual response cards (grey) help users think through different ways emotion might prompt action. They can be combined with the Outcome cards for strategizing, or used directly with audience members to prompt discussion.
3. Sense cards (purple) prompt users to think more broadly about the sensual experiences users are having with their media projects and how to enhance them in surprising ways.
4. Social media cards (green) – help users identify which tools to use and why.

 
Learn more and order your own cards today! 
 ​