The Challenge
#WalkTogether was an initiative that came from a wide group of organisations, Muslim and non-Muslim, that was coordinated by British Future.
The aim of #WalkTogether was to engage people in London and across the UK in a public commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, on 7 July 2015, and to project a message of hope and unity across people of different faiths and backgrounds, as London and Britain reflected on the ten years since 7/7.
The #WalkTogether coalition asked people to join them in a simple, public act of remembrance: to get off the bus, train or tube one stop early on 7 July 2015 and walk together, in a quiet moment of solidarity and reflection – and to share a picture or message with the #WalkTogether hashtag.
British Future had secured a media partnership with the Evening Standard and organised a media launch event for print and broadcast media. But its key measurement of success was social media engagement, an area in which they have less experience, and so they called on empower to provide support.
The Approach
A central unifying image was designed to be used across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to promote the campaign, formatted to the appropriate size for each channel. This visual cue acted as the focal point for social media activity, as it contained the #WalkTogether hashtag.
A comprehensive social media pack was developed, containing example messages for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for use of partner organisations to use for their own promotion of their participation of #WalkTogether.
Empower managed the key social media channels on 6 and 7 July, engaging with supporters of the #WalkTogether campaign, encouraging people to take more photos, retweets, favourites and likes.
Empower setup of social media measurement tools to make sure that the #WalkTogether hashtag is being tracked and monitored, as this was the key measure for the success of the campaign on social media.
The Results
- Trended at #1 in London, #1 in UK and #2 Worldwide for the day
- 15,193 tweets using #WalkTogether in 24 hours
- 8,542 Instagram posts using #WalkTogether
- 1.43 million potential views per hour
- 521 retweets per hour 24% tweets with images
“Empower knew exactly what they were doing and grasped the brief immediately. We had a very tight turnaround and a few unexpected twists and turns, which they handled calmly and professionally. The content they produced was top-notch and they definitely played a big part in the success of #WalkTogether.”
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