Think of Twitter tone of voice, or accounts with funny, engaging personalities, and you probably think of Innocent, Greggs and Paddy Power, right?
Whatever you feel about the brands or products, they certainly have a specific tone of voice that resonates with their audiences and underlines their personalities. [See here for more on another favourite of mine, Oatly]
In this post, I wanted to highlight the great work done by social media teams that may not get as much visibility as those above, but are as much – if not more – creative, effective and engaging.
These examples are brands in their own right but aren’t as widely-known, and definitely have smaller teams and marketing budgets as the big boys. These accounts are from the public service, local gov, emergency services, and creative & arts worlds – worlds under constant financial pressure.
The social media manager, content team, creative director, graphic designer and customer service hats are usually worn by one or two people. Their line managers have given them creative reign and empowered them to grow the social following as they see fit. And the results speak for themselves (see here and here).
Give them a follow and see what you think. All links are in the headlines, as well as pasted below. And if you have other accounts I should be following, or that should be highlighted, please let me know. Happy to do a mk2 of this, if there are other emergency services, hospital trusts or such accounts doing a sterling job.
The Museum of English Rural Life (@theMERL)
Comin’ straight outta Reading, this account has captured imagination with funny and creative posts and threads exploring “the English countryside, its history and its people.”
Based at the University of Reading, the Museum of English Rural Life social team are hilarious, filling boring monotonous timelines with fresh thinking and irreverent takes on old pictures from our rural past.
Take, for instance, this image. Some cows in a field. Add some creative licence and witty copy, and you have increased your engagement and boosted your reach.
The account is now hitting 153k followers; not bad for a museum!
Doncaster Council (@mydoncaster)
In terms of local gov or council accounts, Doncaster lead the way, in my opinion. Slaying it, in fact. (thanks to Darren Caveney of Comms2Point0 introduced me to this breath of fresh council air a few years back, and boy what a treat)
Turning ‘at-first-glance’ stuffy one-way traffic into engaging, thought-provoking content on a regular basis takes some doing. From this 2018 PRWeek review, the local authority smashed records for engagement in 2017-18, with 71,000 likes in total, and one tweet using the #DoncasterGrittingWorldCup hashtag received 10k+ likes and 5k+ retweets! Even got into The Guardian.
As with all social, the great ideas and associated innovative content created has to come from somewhere, so props to the wider team behind Doncaster Council for their continued positive efforts into conversing directly and enjoyably with their audience. Changing perceptions of what a council can be. Give both @RobJefferson and @liam_social a follow, too 👏 !
The second campaign I wanted to showcase was about flytipping (see below). In itself, a dry topic at best. Not with the creative minds from @MyDoncaster behind it. Again from the 2017 heydays, the speedboat thread includes cleverly-layered GIFs in a storytelling vein to keep people scrolling. A masterpiece of how social can be truly engaging on a topic which, at first look, could be considered dull.
I was only made aware of this recently, but they’ve done some sterling work over the lockdown period – keeping me entertained, at least.
Again using threads – something to note for new social managers, perhaps – they’ve ignited conversation across the platform, especially with the currently-pinned genius thread on Dame Judi Dench as objects in the museum’s collection.
Other recent posts include two-way interaction between followers with a poll on upcoming content, as well as sharing other facts and information from their family of museums – did you know a family of puffins is called a circus?
Great, creative work from a team under real financial pressure in recent times – thinking outside the box and repurposing what they already have.
South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue (@SYFR)
Not forgetting the incredible work comms teams behind a variety of emergency services do across social media, check out South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue. (Thanks to Mandy Pearse for the heads up on this one)
The award-winning Twitter account covers the South Yorkshire hubs of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield, as well as surrounding areas.
For many years, the SYFR account has focused on communicating confidently and directly with its audience, winning a Comms2Point0 award for its engagement team in 2016 among others.
Campaigns highlighted included an electrical safety promotion, a firefighter fitness push and, more recently, two focusing on batteries in fire alarms and cooking after the pub:
The account is a great conduit for sharing fire and Yorkshire partner posts, and corporate communication manager Alex Mills has recently blogged about the impact SYFR’s 2019 work has had on the community it serves. Read it here.
That’s a mere snapshot of the great work done by social teams across the UK. If you have other local gov/public services accounts that are deserving of an honourable mention, get in touch!