The Question:
When Variety, the Children’s Charity wanted to take their live events to the next level, the team at Access were asked how they could help them to better harness the power of social media. With the launch of a flexible new website, complete with social plug-ins and offering a mobile friendly, integrated marketing and e-commerce approach to fundraising, developed by our team, they were keen to progress in other areas. Access were tasked with improving activity through social media, harnessing the power of its supporters and sharing the good work the charity does outside the regular 9-5 at two high profile fundraising events.
The Answer:
Working with the Variety North West team, Access came up with a strategy that would ensure that engagement levels were high during live events, and that social media activity was driven by those attending the event with participation from those at home too. Armed with a laptop, a piece of live streaming software for the event Twitter wall called Conference Stream and a pre-prepared content plan, the team set about proving that you can live stream a high profile event, monitor and edit tweets in a live environment.
The Result:
Following on from the two events, Access reported an overwhelming increase in participation and engagement on Twitter relating to each event, pre-, during and post-event. The first event Variety, Legends of Industry awards in Manchester attended by Eamonn Holmes and Cold Feet actor John Thomson saw an amazing rise in engagement. An average daily engagement rate calculated pre-event showed that we had received 12 days’ worth of activity in just 6 hours. Buoyed by this, the team went to Liverpool for the Variety, honours and remembers the Hillsborough 96 event with a spring in their step. With some really famous faces in the crowd there was an even bigger reception for the event on Twitter. Part of the task in the room was keeping the guests engaged with the feed, the team were on hand to help with tweets, take pictures and make sure the guests knew the hash tag specific to the event. There were also regular announcements from the evenings host encouraging interaction. Over 1300 interactions were received overall, with over half of them containing the event specific hash tag.
Twitter is an excellent communications tool for nonprofits. It’s short, unfiltered and extremely fast. It has helped sparked conversations and connections that weren’t possible just a few short years ago. If you think live tweets would bring a new dimension to your live event, let us know.
