Case Study - The Star and Crescent, Portsmouth

Transcription

1 Case Study - The Star and Crescent, Portsmouth The Star and Crescent, a little known news website from Portsmouth used the template to run a social media campaign that helped reverse a decision taken by the City Council to make financial cuts to its domestic violence service. At the start of the campaign this hyperlocal had no visibility on search engines and limited capacity to use social networks.

2 As part of their preparation they found articles from other sources to share on their Facebook and Twitter feeds. They scheduled these updates for the entire week. They created original content and social media friendly infographics. They also researched and contacted influencers to spread the word. This includes other campaigners, journalists and celebrities. This was conducive to the online impact they wanted to achieve. To gain wider recognition for themselves as well as the cause they were supporting. The outcome was to build enough support for the City Council to reverse its decision to make the cuts. The campaign boosted their social media engagement and increased awareness of their brand online as well as offline. As a result of their online engagement people were aware of them at protest marches. The major outcome was that the City Council has reduced the size of the budget cuts to the service. In addition to wider recognition, the plan of action also increased the delivery time as they level of engagement on social media was much higher than expected. As a result, the demands of the campaign spanned about 10 days and presented an additional workload to the normal operational and editorial duties. One of the benefits of the extra engagement and visibility was an increase in the number of submissions and news sources available to the Star and Crescent. This helped them publish a scoop that was picked up by the national press, including the Guardian and Mirror. The team now has much greater confidence in using different social media campaigns. Building on the success of #TheyCutWeBleed they plan to run many more participatory campaigns. In addition to running cause based campaigns, they will also use the framework to run celebratory and feel-good initiatives to build a readership and online community that represents a range of interests. W: T: 1

3 TEMPLATE FILLED BY STAR AND CRESCENT FOR THEIR CAMPAIGN #THEYCUTWEBLEED Digital Campaigning Template Developed for Destination Local Message Conversations Outcome This document has 2 parts: Part A: Planning and Research Define the campaign goal and create a process to engage multiple audiences. Key point: Separate impact from outcome. Part B: Implementation Identify social media tools and create content to run your social media campaign. Key point: Learn how to divide your campaign into scheduled and real-time activity. 2

4 Part A: Planning and Research Key point: Separate impact from outcome. Step 1: What is your campaign message? Write down your campaign message in a single sentence. Stop the cuts to domestic violence services in Portsmouth. Step 2: Separate IMPACT from OUTCOME What do you want your campaign to achieve? Tip: You can use social media tools to create virtual impact for your campaign. The outcome is the overall goal your campaign and it may be virtual or physical. This is a subtle but important difference. Once you have separated impact from outcome you can direct people to perform specific tasks with greater clarity. For example, if you are running a campaign to promote the high street. The physical outcome of this campaign is to increase footfall. In order to achieve this, the virtual impact you want on social media is increased visibility of your high street and the offering. More people are aware of the devastating impact of cutting domestic violence services in the UK. Once more people are aware of the impact of cuts, they will work to prevent them. Step 3: Do you have more than one audience profile? The audience you engage online may not be your target audience. 3

5 Tip: Whilst the outcome of your campaign is intended for a particular target audience, they may not be the audience you engage to achieve the online impact. Going back to the example of promoting the high street. Your target audience may be younger people in the local community. However, the audience you engage online may be influencers with specialist interests. Choose influencers who can help you reach your target audience. For example, could this be a YouTuber who is into crafting? Could it be a well-known personality who champions independents? Or could it be a niche community of makers? For this step, think about all the different themes that relate to your campaign message and make a list of influencers you can reach out to engage your target audience. My target audience are social and political activists, i.e. feminists and anti-austerity activists. Themes related to my campaign Feminism/VAWG Identify influencers by category Organisations Fawcett Society Women s Resource Centre Women s Aid Refuge Celebrities Carey Mulligan Be bold enough to protest Helena Bonham Carter Meryl Streep Jennifer Lawrence Angelina Jolie Emma Watson Will Young Journalists 4

6 Helen Lewis Julie Bindel Bidisha Caitlyn Moran Jenni Murray Activists Another Angry Voice Liz Kelly Jean Hatchet Campaigners End Violence Against Women Coalition Harriet Wistrich Karen Ingala Smith White Ribbon Campaign Political party Women s Equality Party Anti-austerity Campaigners Another Angry Voice Russell Brand Journalists Owen Jones Activists 5

7 Unite the Union UNISON Political party Labour Step 3: Create a process What are the conversations you want to have? Tip: Now that you have identified themes and influencers, think about the conversations you want to have with them. This step is about creating a streamlined process so you don t end up talking to everyone at the same time. Furthermore, if you plan for different conversations, you campaign won t get monotonous. Creating this blueprint is an important planning activity. Once you break your campaign down into a number of steps, it is much easier to research and track progress. Use the table below to define at least four steps in your campaign. You may have a few more. You may choose not to run all steps but do list them. Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 What action are you going to take in this step? Share research and articles on impact of austerity on DV services and victims Promote the Portsmouth petition against cuts to DV services Share interview with Aurora New Dawn Crowdsource images of people holding signs where they complete the sentence: Domestic violence services are: #TheyCutWeBleed Ask people to attend rally in Guildhall Square on 9 th February at 1pm to protest cuts to domestic violence services Will this activity take place online or offline? Online Online Online Online 6

8 Who will help you amplify this message? Create a list of collaborators and their social media accounts. Aurora New Dawn Portsmouth Lib Dems Portsmouth Conservatives Portsmouth UKIP Portsmouth Labour Social Media Influencers from Step 1 Aurora New Dawn Influencers Influencers Are you going to use social media in this step of your campaign? Yes Yes Yes Yes What platforms are you going to use to implement this step? Twitter S&C website Twitter Twitter Instagram Twitter Facebook Have you prepared content for the different channels you are going to use? This could be original content or content from your influencers. Interview to be complete by 16/1/16 List/shortened URLs of articles/research to share Shortened link to petition Text asking people to RT or share Text asking for influencers thoughts on DV cuts Find 20 people prepared to share photos of their poster with us online via Twitter Post all to Instagram Link to event on Facebook Post on website about rally Part 2: Implementation Now you have a campaign blueprint in place. The next step is to make your campaign live. If you re short on time and resources, it s important to keep the campaign highly focused. Activities like social sharing will greatly reduce the amount of time you need to run your campaign. Restrict the real-time activity to engagement tasks such as Q&A, giveaways and crowdsourcing. 7

9 Campaign plan for 18 th 22 nd January 2016 Monday 18 th Jan Research, Prep & Publishing Tuesday 19 th Jan Launch social media scheduled tweets Wednesday 20 th Jan Start engaging with influencers Thursday 21 st Jan Crowdsource activity Friday 22 nd Jan Share results AM 6am Publish article outlining campaign, highlighting rally and asking for crowdsourcing photos (H/T/F) 6am Publish interview with Aurora New Dawn on cuts (H) Schedule tweets via Hootsuite for the next 5 days: - Articles and research - S&C articles on campaign - Visuals - Crowdsourcing requests Real time activity Ask our social media influencers to support campaign: - Include link to campaign article - Hashtag #TheyCutWeBleed - Ask to do poster Announce the time and duration of the crowdsourcing activity and your intended outcome Who would you like to ask to complete a poster about DV services? (T/I) Share outcome! Thank your audience. (T/I) Write article on campaign highlights. Lunch 11-1PM Research content that we can share. This can be audio, video, text or images depending on the channels you use. Create original reusable images to share on different channels. Lunch Time Reading: (T/F) Re-post: link to campaign article. (T) Real time activity Ask our social media influencers to support campaign: - Include link to campaign article - Hashtag #TheyCutWeBleed - Ask to do poster LIVE Activity Crowdsource a list of social media influencers (T) Who would you like to ask to complete a poster? Publish an article letting the public know what happened and what the next step of your campaign is. (H/T/F) Prepare campaign plan for weeks leading up to 9/2 meeting PM Post reminder for the Post reminder for tmrw s Thank your audience for Repeat Thank you and 8

10 5-9PM Thursday lunchtime crowdsourcing activity. who would you like to complete a poster participation. (T/F) share our website and Facebook links. (T) Social media sites: Twitter (T), Facebook (F), Instagram (I), Hyperlocal (H) Analytics: