Community engagement journalism is all about surveys — we use them to get feedback on listening sessions, to find out about our audience, and to learn what kinds of information any given community needs. Those first two surveys are a little easier to do, though. The last one, not so much.

At listening sessions, the people you are surveying are in the room, the Zoom, or you have their contact information. When you’re surveying your audience, they hear your broadcast, are on your website, and you likely already have email addresses for a portion of them as well. See some examples of audience or listening session surveys below.

The broader community — especially demographics who are less likely to already be in your audience — poses a different challenge. If you want to hear from the people who your content DOESN’T reach, you’ll need to get more creative.

Analogue:

• Community partnerships: An individual community leader can be a gateway to the people  you want to hear from. Build relationships one-on-one with trusted members of the community and get their buy-in (and feedback!) on your project and on the survey questions, then have THEM send the survey to their contacts. When it’s time to distribute the survey, the community will be much more likely to respond to a person they know and trust than they will from a news organization they aren’t familiar with. 
  Dive deeper into an example of how this can work from start to finish, even in a remote setting: How CapRadio connected with rural audiences during the pandemic

• Mailers, flyers and printouts: Sometimes a good old physical survey is the key to reaching people who otherwise wouldn’t respond. Bring flyers or small printouts with your survey questions on reporting trips or at tabling events and invite people to fill out a short questionnaire on the spot. You can also drop these at a trusted community organization like the public library, where staff can encourage visitors to fill out the survey, collect the ones that are completed and return them to you. Surveys sent as a postcard by mail can also be useful, but response time may be slower and can come in on unexpected channels. Learn more from our community engagement playbook.

Online:

• Social Media collaborations: Like community partnerships, social media collaborations with trusted leaders can be an entry point to people you may not reach otherwise. Crosspost mutually beneficial content, or do a takeover on their Instagram stories. When your survey and content appears on the partners’ page, it will come with the understanding that the partner trusts your motives and that you have their best interest in mind. Potential collaborators may be an individual person with a large social media following, or an organization’s official page. Learn more about how to reach new audiences on social media from how cities and municipalities are approaching this challenge.

• Targeted ads: Paying to boost posts on social media is a relatively inexpensive way to reach audiences who don’t follow you, and even people who don’t follow anyone who follows you. Target your boosted post or social media ad with the survey to the audience you’re hoping to reach — from demographic to geolocation. Check out how KCUR used paid social media ads to reach new audiences.

Your strategy may involve one or all of these approaches — consider what makes the most sense for the audience you want to reach. If they’re far from your home base, digital tools may be the most useful. No matter your approach, a baseline of trust is key.