Empowering a community focused conservation charity to develop an impact led social media strategy
The backstory
The John Muir Trust is a community focused conservation charity dedicated to the experience, protection and repair of wild places across the UK. They needed help with finding a way to get people online to better understand their mission and scope of work. They look after wild places such as the summit of Ben Nevis and part of the Cuillin on Skye as well as influence policy change, repair footpaths and plant trees. The purpose of the strategy was to develop a social playbook that will help them generate engagement with a wider and more diverse audience, who ultimately take action and donate, volunteer or advocate for them.
How it went down
The audit
We’re all familiar with the phrase “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is particularly true when it comes to social media. The first step was conducting a 12m audit of the social media accounts and determining how they could be improved. We analysed their audiences on each channel as well as their content to provide an objective view of their social performance. We identified some quick wins and longer term opportunities to help them use social more effectively.
The workshop
We then held the workshop. The first half of the day was spent establishing the foundations for the social media strategy. We did exercises that helped us to set objectives, build profiles of target audiences and decide which channels were most important. In the second part, we got creative and brainstormed ideas for their content from their audience's point of view, as well as from a brand perspective.
We brought together different voices from across the organisation to create a social media strategy that was truly collaborative. The session was delivered with the involvement of the Policy team, Fundraising team, Marketing team and the board. This ensured that everyone can have their input in the social media strategy. This means that if the team co-creates it with us, they will feel ownership of it after!
The strategy
Our next step was to develop a social media strategy informed by the findings of the audit and the workshop. We created a social playbook that helped John Muir Trust meet their supporters at every step of the audience journey. From building awareness and growing their audience to building an engaged audience that takes action and advocates for the Trust.
The results
A clear and strategic social media playbook
Buy-in from the whole organisation and keen interest from various teams to be involved with social media
Impactful content that reflects the Trust’s mission, values & objectives
A data-driven approach to decision making
Here's what they said
“The fantastic Social for Good team have helped us develop an engaging and practical social media strategy and action plan – it’s exactly what we needed, and the development process was fun, insightful, and collaborative. It’s a document we’re really proud of, and it’s helping to influence our overall communications strategy and approach.”
- Sophie Harrison, Communications Officer