Worth harnessed the burgeoning power of social media to improve the UK public’s support and awareness for Armed Forces Day and encourage a celebration of the forces, veterans and wider forces family, to honour the work they do. Worth's use of digital to create highly engaging content and development of spaces where communities could grow and flourish has allowed them to mature into meaningful places of support and an overall increase in positive participation.
Post campaign research has shown www.armedforcesday.org.uk had over 180,200 website visits between 1st April and 7th of July 2009. There was an unprecedented growth in the Facebook fans from 4,000 in late May to just over 100,000 by 26th June, with a joining rate of more than 3 people per second up to the 100,000th membership. The membership rate continues to grow, soon to reach its 200,000th member. Nearly 13,000 people signed up to the AFD mailing list – with over 9,000 receiving free window stickers to spread the campaign message further and over 6,000 leaving a message of support. Further, 6,295 photos were uploaded into the Flickr photo gallery by fans from 2009 events.
Worth Armed Forces Day on Twitter Armed Forces Day on Facebook
The British publics support for Armed Forces Day has swept the nation courtesy of leading digital marketing agency, Worth’s social media campaign.
Working alongside the Ministry of Defence, Worth announced the results of the 2009 campaign, achieving a 649% increase in site visits to www.armedforcesday.org.uk , over 178,800 Facebook fans (and growing) and some of the most influential Twitter followers online. Including key British figures such as the PM’s wife, Sarah Brown, twittering her support as well as London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson who was following AFD updates.
Impressing both Worth and the client, the social communities continue to grow at an impressive rate, with over 78,000 people joining the Facebook group after Armed Forces Day on the 27th of June. Members of the communities include; the UK public, friends and family of those currently serving in the Armed Forces, and most importantly to many actually out in service.
Post campaign research has shown:
- www.armedforcesday.org.uk had over 180,200 website visits between 1st April and 7th of July 2009
- An unprecedented growth in the Facebook fans from 4,000 in late May to just over 100,000 by 26th June, with a joining rate of more than 3 people per second up to the 100,000th membership. The membership rate continues to grow, soon to reach its 200,000th member.
- Nearly 13,000 people signed up to the AFD mailing list – with over 9,000 receiving free window stickers to spread the campaign message further and over 6,000 leaving a message of support.
- 6,295 photos were uploaded into the Flickr photo gallery by fans from 2009 events
- 87% of Armed Forces Day supporters, surveyed post the activity, spread the word to friends and family, highlighting the impact and influence which the campaign had on the British people.
- And of those who praised the forces via the social media activity, 99.8% said they will be supporting Armed Forces Day again next year.
The campaign also came full circle when serving members posted messages of thanks in response to those messages of support:
“I never knew we commanded such respect. Always thought we were the forgotten ones. Thank for showing all military personnel that they are not forgotten."
“This is awesome I have served both Afghan and Iraq and if I had known I had this backing from everyone back “in 06/07 my morale would have been much higher but this is great for supporting our lads and lasses out there doing their thing."
Worth director, Mark Ralphs comments, “The Facebook community responded to the challenge of spreading the word to show their support. We provided them with a space to participate and facilitated them to author their own encouragement to their family and friends to grow the community and get others involved. The success relied on a seamlessly integrated campaign between each of the social engagements, ensuring that the creative content and moderation were pitched in exactly the right medium and tone. We were delighted and amazed by the results which are unknown for a non-branded social media campaign.”
The job was to improve the UK public’s support and awareness for Armed Forces Day and encourage a celebration of the forces, veterans and wider forces family, to honor the work they do. Our use of digital to create a highly engaging content and development of spaces where communities could grow and flourish, has allowed them to maturing into meaningful places of support and overall increase positive participation.
