John Read started
Clean Up Britain with one ambition: to rid this country of the rising tide of litter.
Clean Up Britain has recruited an impressive raft of celebrities to back its campaign for a litter-free Britain. Whilst running my small marketing agency, BuzzedUp, I was recruited to support its social networking activity and help to grow an online community. The objectives were:
- Maximise ‘Pledges’ collected on the Clean Up Britain website
- Grow awareness for the brand online.
I produced a steady stream of blog content plus took on social media community-building to take this campaigning organisation closer to its goal. There was a structured content marketing plan based around the various stakeholders (which included concerned/activist citizens, partners, celebrity supporters and brands). Each had a different buyer persona and set of messages. The approach was simple: produce key messages for these archetypes and then harness the social web to maximise sharing.
Artificial intelligence based on rules
The challenge was to maximise proper social engagement while working with very modest resources. Not too onerous when you believe in the cause! It was a case of maximising the use of our scarce time on this account. To find, comment on and share relevant content and ideas I applied smart filters and searches within web-monitoring tools. It meant I could identify important brand and keyword mentions and conversations; and I semi-automated some outbound activity based on those rules.
What we learn on one project benefits all our clients
There is always a balance to be struck between 100% human content curation and that which is assisted by technology. Where that balance lies tends to shift dependant on budgets. The online social media dashboard I used comprised various paid-for monitoring/management tools, and, using these, I was able to strike the right balance and grow a very supportive and vocal community.
The work included:
- Producing cornerstone content (written FAQs and blog posts)
- Twitter management and the growth of a very large library of tweets
- Conceiving, prodcuing and managing Facebook promotions, surveys and video galleries.
Numbers tell a story
Together with Clean Up Britain I nurtured a very committed community on Twitter, pointing people to the Pledge form wherever relevant.
“The number of Pledges has tripled to over 9,000 and Twitter followers have increased four-fold to 2,200. But it’s not all about volumes. We note how closely aligned this community is with Clean Up Britain’s aims and objectives. It will stand us in good steady for what promises to be a very interesting time ahead.” John Read, founder, Clean Up Britain
New alliances and a better Britain
Clean Up Britain has organised large-scale litter-picking events with partners such as Keep Scotland Beautiful. Its celebrity supporters help influence the media. Clean Up Britain's online community is particularly active and has played a role in getting Clean Up Britain a seat at the top table when it comes to policy discussions about litter.
