Making the most of social media

@xanderjwebb

Hi, my name’s Alex Webb and I’ve been a volunteer at Pride in London for over 4 years. No this isn’t an AA meeting, but today I wanted to share my experience of social media…

…and unlock your potential

We’re all in this because we care about our community…

…and we all know that increasingly people are living their lives through their phones. Indeed events like Pride can live and breathe on social media.

We all know that social media can be a force for good…

For those of you who may not know Stephen Robert Sutton, was an English blogger and charity activist known for his blog Stephen's Story and his fundraising efforts for the Teenage Cancer Trust – a charity for the aid of teenagers with cancer. After his death, millions of pounds were raised through the help of social media and its reach to millions of people around the world. He

was then later recognised and awarded an MBE from The Queen.

and bad…Well need I say more.

…And whilst social media is no longer the new kid on the block any more…

…there’s still that uncertainty around how we behave online vs the real world.

You only have to look at Grindr to understand – and many of us may well have been on the receiving end of abuse because some keyboard basher thinks it ok to throw insults your way forgetting there’s a dedicated and hard working person or team of people

at the other end. It’s not ok and we must call out hate speech and create safe spaces online.

But equally we’ve seen the sheer delight when a campaign snowballs and our positive messages about LGBT+ inclusion and awareness are so widely supported and shared.

And yes we’ve all made mistakes. Some more public than others. But that shouldn’t stop us…

Because ultimately we’re part of one community striving for the same outcome and this social network right here is one way ofachieving that.

Why are you using social media for your Pride event?

Pride in London communications aim:

To create the most highly engaged LGBT+ community in the world

- Accessible to all parts of the community

- Representative of the full LGBT+ spectrum

- Increasing loyalty and participation

- Protecting brand reputation

- Adding value to partners

What’s your

biggest challenge with social

media?

Enhancing reach and engagement

•Extend the reach of other channels

•Frame a discussion and monitor

•Use relevant hashtags

•Use rich media and tap in to the moment

•Create sub groups such as Facebook events

•Focus on simple shareable content

Frequency

(0700-2300 coverage)

• Twitter: Approx. two-hourly tweets usually increasing to 'as it happens' on Pride day.

• Facebook: Throughout the year, we aim for min. 2 posts a week and max. 1 per day, during May/June, we aim for one post per day max with some exceptions.

• During Pride week, we increase to 3 day parts: approx 0700, 1200, 2000 BST. On Pride Day we move to 'as it happens' frequency.

Responsiveness and monitoring

• We cannot respond to all queries but aim to respond to both direct and indirect mentions of Pride in London on social media using standard responses for most queries.

• Using social media monitoring we will also proactively monitor conversations relating to public safety on the day, and feeding this to the operations team.

• We will sign post queries to a web link, short answer, or a steward.

Scheduling

• We aim to have 70% of content for Twitter and Facebook pre scheduled a week in advance with the other 30% produced reactively and in the moment

• This % split fluctuates with Pride Day being 80% reactive as capacity and buzz is greatly increased

• Use a scheduler such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck

Hashtags

• Owned hashtags• Events

• Zones

• Tapping in to the wider conversation

• Be relevant, consistent, memorable and intuitive

• Resource• Budget• Technology• Capabilities• Audience• Channels

• Assets and activities

• e.g. number of posts

• Deliverables• e.g. likes, views,

RTs

• Immediate actions• e.g. ticket sales,

campaign actions

• Long term sustainable change

• E.g. improved societal perceptions, improved confidence to be oneself

We can all measure stuff. But make sure you ask ‘So what’

• Resource• Budget• Technology• Capabilities• Audience• Channels

• Assets and activities

• e.g. number of posts

• Deliverables• e.g. likes, views,

RTs

• Immediate actions• e.g. ticket sales,

campaign actions, event attendance

• Long term sustainable change

• E.g. improved societal perceptions, improved confidence to be oneself

Have tools in place to measure and focus on outcomes and impacts. Consider social media monitoring tool, surveys, feedback and use the social media native insights.

How can this network help us do better social media?

Pick one small thing are you going to do differently and do it right away.