Among Betches Media’s core beliefs are these: First, that women are full and equal human beings. Secondly, humor and irreverence are powerful tools to confront how those with influence misuse that power, whether it’s a Kardashian or a member of Congress. The Betches Sup was founded as a news and politics platform for millennial women in 2016. Since then, it’s become an authority in communicating how state and national elections will impact women’s rights while providing actions, resources, and even some entertainment for its audience. As the Summer of 2022 brought in a dangerous and confusing legal landscape for reproductive rights, the team established these primary objectives:
To increase content output that uses humor as a gateway to educate audiences about reproductive rights and create viral posts driving audiences to information about elections.
To amplify our impact by tapping into the broader Betches audience of 48 million by creating on-brand content strategically designed to educate and entertain.
To maintain our status as a trusted source in communicating accurately on the issue
To ensure followers had up-to-date information about how the confusingly written Supreme Court decision would impact their ability to access care.
To motivate the audience towards fundraising initiatives
To grow our audience base of politically engaged individuals
Our experience and connections in the reproductive rights space allowed our team to rise to the occasion in the Summer of 2022 when the Supreme Court paved the way for dozens of states to eliminate access to medical care for pregnant people. Knowing the decision date would not be pre-announced but likely come in late June, the Betches Sup developed a plan of action in Spring 2022 and worked across functional teams to prep content and fundraising initiatives so we could hit the ground running.
For example, an informative video prepared for the decision was viewed more than 1 million times and answered the number 1 question among our audience that day: How did this happen? We also immediately provided our perspective about where to donate to make the greatest impact.
The Betches Sup’s campaign is executed primarily through content creation across Instagram, TikTok, newsletter, and podcast. We’ve used our largest and most influential platform–Instagram– to communicate the most urgent state-level opportunities for women to make themselves heard.
These impact efforts lean on our ability to use humor to message around serious topics. We’ve learned that not everyone wants to watch serious videos about social justice, but everyone likes watching funny sketches. The team brought the campaign to life using its unique brand of comedic feminism to highlight the potential impact of the Supreme Court’s decision on other fundamental rights. We also used our platform to uplift elected officials and physicians sounding the alarm about the impact of bans in their communities.
In addition to driving awareness around elections, our initiatives encouraged audience members to support smaller on-the-ground groups that benefit most from direct funding.
Some of these organizations include:
The National Network Of Abortion Funds
TEA Fund (Texas Equal Access Fund)
SisterSong: Women Of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
Content-focused campaigns face two primary challenges. First, politically sensitive content can be subject to opposition campaigns that result in suppression or removal of reproductive rights content from social platforms. Additionally, bad actors can invade our comment section and insult community members. To avoid this, we quickly identified which terms were most likely to result in content suppression and found effective replacements. We limited our comment sections to preserve opportunities for discussion among community members while maintaining a safe, respectful environment. Finally, we created visuals showing our audience how to ensure our content reached their feeds.
The Betches Sup also ramped up the reproductive rights focus across podcast and newsletter. We added a weekly newsletter segment detailing changes to abortion laws to provide a digestible way for readers to stay informed on a confusing landscape. We welcomed experts and advocates onto the Betches Sup podcast and repurposed these interviews as Instagram Reels.
Betches Sup also created a merchandise collection with a portion of profits supporting reproductive Rights, adding our popular “Bans of our Bodies” and “No Uterus No Opinion” tees. Additionally, Sami Sage, Betches co-founder took to her personal social channels to drive awareness and a fundraising campaign for Planned Parenthood.
Our reproductive rights work met our objectives by reaching millions of viewers and raising funds to provide support to the cause.
Our educational content – snuck in through humor – overperformed on all metrics. Prominent activists and lawmakers boosted our educational resources. Influencers and celebrities from Chrissy Teigen and Billie Eilish shared the content, and our meme campaign driving awareness to a ballot initiative in Kansas shared by Ariana Grande to her 327 million followers. The campaign to keep abortion legal in Kansas was ultimately successful.
Betches Sup’s campaign is an ongoing success as we continue to educate and provide resources on reproductive rights. But, numbers speak louder than words:
Betches Sup founder Sami Sage pursued an individual fundraiser for Planned Parenthood via Instagram that raised $100,000
Betches Sup donated 20% of profits from select merchandise including the Bans of our Bodies Tee, No Uterus No Opinion tee to the National Network Of Abortion funds and have raised over $2000 to date since May.
The campaign garnered 32 million+ impressions to date
Our full financial and fundraising impact is difficult to quantify because of how we decided to approach our call to action: Rather than spotlight the well-known organizations most likely to receive funding during relevant news cycles, we encourage our audience members to act locally. We helped them identify and connect with local grassroots candidates or funds to help them maximize their impact while using tentpole moments, such as driving to Black-led groups on Juneteenth, to make specific recommendations.
