Our social media journey

Rob McTaggart, Senior Communications Officer

Pete Richardson, Digital Communications Manager

Introduction

• We have learnt some valuable social media lessons… but we are only at the beginning of our social media journey

• Today we will explore:o Where we are nowo Case studieso Our next social media stepso Measuring success

Where we are now• Social media is now integral part of our

communications

• Nearly 150,000 followers

• Website visits via social media account for 10% of all traffic

• We mainly use Facebook and Twitter but we have profiles on YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram

It’s embedded in our strategic planning

LSP5 strategic objective 1.1

We will utilise social media to encourage behavioural change; provide increased ways to access our services; helping protect them from fire and helping them to avoid the travel and business continuity interruptions of fire.

What we use social media for

@LondonFire “If you heard a bang in Kings Cross it was due to 2 gas cylinders exploding before we arrived at the BBQ fire at the back of Kiwi House

• Accuracy • Reassurance • Awareness • Influence • Insight

We have good content to share

How we do it

• Not what we use - it’s how we use it

• Tone and language

• For the right reasons

• Only to help meet objectives

No smoke without a fire - The Shard

No smoke with a fire - The Shard

The Shard: our results

• Tweets earned 200,000

impressions in three hours

• Reassured the public and dispelled myths about The Shard being ‘on fire’

The Shard

• News agencies used our images and quoted twitter feed

• #Shard trended during incident

Finding content - quirky incidents

• Over 1.4 million people saw our • ‘doorknob’ Facebook posts• Over 4 million saw the ‘hair

straighteners’ Facebook post.

Different channels - ‘Ifake’

• 8000 unique page views

• 750 website visits from reddit

• 4th most popular route to website

React – soap fire quiz

In bed with Fifty Shades of Red

• Number of incidents involving people being stuck in objects had increased year on year since the Fifty Shades of Grey books were release.

• Great opportunity to launch #FiftyShadesofRed to highlight issue at the time of film release.

• Eye catching and eye watering tweets with a clear safety message.

• No National or International coverage without social media work

#FiftyShadesofRed

Impact• Our tweets alone seen by 1 million people.

• Increased average engagement by 158%

• 32,000 views to web page in 5 days. Normally whole site gets 40,000 in a week.

Serious (ish) message• Newsjacking for a reason • Clear aims and objectives to

reduce the number of unnecessary calls.

• Move the message on to other less risqué posts.

• Common sense, if it doesn’t fit, don’t force it.

Digital Newsroom

With newsrooms downsizing journalists are becoming increasingly more reliant on media rich content.

Next steps

• Preparing to roll out additional twitter accounts

• Working closer with Blue Light colleagues on twitter

• Looking for life beyond twitter and Facebook

Our Fire and Rescue Service Survey

Focused on visual engagement

Likes, comments, shares

Favourites, replies, retweets

Used the ‘Avinash model’

How we measured success

71% 92%

Facebook Twitter

Average non-visible engagement

High engagement = high reach

Total engagement – visual & non-visual

Reach

How do we now measure our success?

Our aims

@pete0307@rob_mctaggart

lfbdigital.wordpress.com

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