The media landscape is constantly evolving and there’s a digital revolution taking hold. It’s essential for charities to keep up to date with these changes as they happen. Research shows us that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people are early adopters of new technology so it makes sense for Stonewall to be ahead of the game in this area.
And ahead of the game we are. We currently have over 2,000 Twitter followers and over 9,000 Facebook fans – that’s more than much larger charities like Barnardo’s and Shelter.
The top tip for a smaller charity looking to rapidly grow its social media, as Stonewall has, is to put a personality behind your social media pages. You must keep engaging online with respondents to your posts and updates. This makes digital media seem less anonymous and it puts a human face to your online communications.
However, to maximise the impact of your social media outlets it’s important to incorporate them into an integrated campaign, as Stonewall did for National Anti-Bullying Week. During this campaign, we used our social media following as a vehicle to gear people into action. For example, we encouraged people to write to their old school and ask what they’re doing to tackle homophobic bullying.
This went down particularly well on Twitter. ‘Jezwoo’ re-tweeted some feedback to us: ‘Just off the phone with my old school headmaster who told me of their plans to beat homophobic bullying! Thanks for the idea @stonewalluk. It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't given me the idea to write to him!’ We heard lots of positive responses via Facebook too and our supporters were able to share their ideas with one another online.
However, it’s vital to have a physical presence as well as a virtual one. To tie in with the week, we gave out over 1,000 free Stonewall travel card holders on the Friday night in Soho. Again, this put some real personality back into our work.
Another way we did this was to recruit well-known faces to back the campaign. Stonewall secured the support of the three main party leaders and a host of celebrities, including Derren Brown and Dannii Minogue. We then went back to social media to promote this. Our ‘teaser strategy’ was to release a different household name – along with their quote and picture - each day on Facebook and Twitter. This maintained our followers’ interest in the campaign and constantly refreshed the ‘news value’ of our digital media communications.
Of course, we also incorporated traditional media into our campaign. Stonewall’s activities were reported in The New Statesman, The Daily Express and The Independent, as well as the pink and regional media.
This coverage created a virtuous circle for our campaign work. During Anti-Bullying Week, web traffic to our website increased by 43% and during the last six months alone our Facebook page has tripled in membership.
Now in 2010, we’re in an even stronger position thanks to our success with social media.