Spreading Awareness with Paid Social Media

Creative|

The South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCCADVASA) needed to reach survivors and supporters across South Carolina with mindful messaging about domestic violence and sexual assault. They sought increased awareness and engagement through strategic paid social media campaigns that would drive people to critical support resources.

Young woman looks at a SCCADVASA ad on her phone. The ad shows an image of a woman and baby, with the text, "In just one day, 688 adults & children in South Carolina sought help. Domestic violence is closer than you think." With a link to learn more.

Two SCCADVASA ads. The first shows a couple in an embrace, with overlaid text: "Do you like it when I do that?" and subline: Even in marriage, only yes means yes. The second shows a young person looking at their phone, with overlaid text: Talking about sexual assault can be hard. Finding someone to talk to doesn't have to be. Subline: Visit sccadvasa.org to find local help and resources for sexual assault survivors.

Insights

SCCADVASA originally came to Online Optimism in 2021 because they needed to expand their reach beyond their existing audience and didn’t have the internal capacity to manage complex paid social campaigns. As a statewide coalition supporting 22 domestic violence and sexual assault programs across South Carolina, they needed messaging and imagery that could resonate with diverse audiences, from survivors seeking help to community members wanting to support prevention efforts.

The annual challenge in this partnership is creating campaigns that are both impactful and sensitive. The messaging and imagery needs to:

Educate people about the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault and where to find help in their communities,
Avoid triggering imagery or victim-blaming language,
And be inclusive of race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and more identities.

Each campaign to date, from 2021 to 2025, has brought unique goals and audiences, requiring Online Optimism to adapt the approach while maintaining SCCADVASA’s trusted voice.

Solution

Online Optimism has developed over 15 paid social media campaigns for SCCADVASA, with each iteration building on insights from previous years. The campaigns combine strategic audience targeting with carefully crafted creative.

For the 2024 and 2025 campaigns, we created assets targeting three distinct personas: survivors seeking support, concerned community members, and unaware bystanders. With assistance from SCCADVASA’s Spanish-speaking team members, we developed both English and Spanish language ads to reach South Carolina’s diverse population, with messaging that acknowledged the difficulty of discussing these topics while providing clear pathways to help.

Two SCCADVASA ads, the English and Spanish language versions of the same ad. The first shows a young woman lying on a bed, with another woman behind her placing a hand on her shoulder. Text: Domestic violence doesn't leave bruises. The second shows a young woman with a man behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder. Text: La violencia doméstica no siempre deja moretones.

Mockup of a SCCADVASA billboard, with an image of a woman looking ahead. Text: Domestic violence doesn't always leave bruises.

The creative we develop for SCCADVASA’s campaigns is largely built on customized stock imagery. We’re very intentional about finding imagery that reflects the diverse makeup of the campaigns’ audiences and language groups, so that the ads can speak to people of all backgrounds within those communities. Every year, we also find a way to tweak our customizations with new colors, patterns, and graphic approaches, keeping the creative fresh while still recognizably SCCADVASA-branded.

Beyond social media, our team adapts our campaign messaging and creative for billboards and newspaper ads, creating dozens of additional designs across multiple sizes and styles each year. We maintain visual cohesion across all touchpoints while ensuring each format is optimized for its specific medium.

Throughout the campaigns, we are in close communication with SCCADVASA’s team, adjusting as needed to ensure the campaigns align with their mission and current initiatives.

Results

The 2024 campaign (August–November) generated significant awareness and directed thousands of people to support resources:

Unique people reached

Impressions gained

Clicks to the website

Views on the Get Help resource page

External clicks to partner organization websites

The Spanish language ads performed particularly well, achieving a 1.95% click-through rate, demonstrating the importance of culturally relevant, translated content.

The campaigns successfully drove people not just to SCCADVASA’s website, but through to the critical next step of connecting with local support services. The consistent brand presence across multiple years has helped SCCADVASA establish recognition in communities across South Carolina.