Building an online community to promote understanding of the history of the black country and its legacy.

1. "Building an online community to
promote understanding of the history of
the black country and its legacy.”
Emma Neil
Volunteer Social Media Assistant
Distinctly Black Country

2. Social Media
www.facebook.com/distinctlyblackcountry
@distinctlybc
http://distinctlyblackcountry.org.uk/

3. Aims
• To gain an understanding of the Distinctly Black Country
network
• Raise an awareness of what to consider before building
an online community
• How to keep an online community interested and
engaged
• Understand some of the challenges and obstacles of
developing an online community

4. • Link people who are interested in the way the past has made the
modern Black Country landscape
• Describe the distinguishing landscape features of the Black
Country
• Get people out exploring the features that make the area special
and different
distinctly black country

5. Why was Distinctly Black Country set up?

6. The Black Country
Landscape
• Natural - rich geology
• Period before the industrial
revolution - relatively
isolated
• Industrial age
• The last century -
residential neighbourhoods

7. Why an online community?
• Distinctly Black Country started out as a collaborative
research project
• It wasn’t the intention to use social media
• A WordPress site was created in 2011
• Hesitant to use other social media platforms
• The project evolved which led to the establishment of
Facebook and Twitter in 2012

9. Building an online community
Brand
Staff /
Volunteers
Social Media
Audience Offline
Community
Time

10. Brand and Identity
• The name for the network was originally the ‘Black
Country Landscape Character Network’
• A logo which is distinctive, simple and memorable
• Many social media platform have space for a
‘banner’ image
• Creating a strap line

11. Staff and Volunteers
• One part time member of staff Paul Quigley, Landscape
Archaeologist
• Two long term volunteers – Social Media Assistant and
Photographer, Matthew Whitehouse
• Volunteer recruitment
• Volunteer training
• Volunteer management

12. Social Media

13. Audience
• A local audience
• A younger audience
• What audiences already existed online?
- Local historians
-Arts and Heritage services across the four local
authorities

14. Offline
Community

15. Time and Costs
• In-house resources of the Arts and Heritage Service have
been invaluable (volunteer recruitment and management).
• Never enough hours in the day - finding time to create
new content
• Social media tools are free, but investment in manpower
and brainpower isn’t
• Internal communication teams
• Future of the network without funding

17. My Postcode History
• My Postcode History is a participative online project
designed to demonstrate the heritage of apparently
ordinary places.
• Project launched in the summer of 2012
• Open for entries during two periods in 2012: for the month
from 15th June to 13th July; and for four days of the
Heritage Open Days weekend in September.
• A total of six histories have been published.

18. How old is my
street….and
how do we
know?
What was there
before?
What else links
the area to the
story of the
Black Country?
Can you add to
this story?
Where can I find
out more?

19. My Postcode History – DY5 4LJ

20. Results
• Today if you typed 'history of my road' into Google, My
Postcode History is the first webpage recommended
(higher than the BBC's Secret History of our Streets)
• Made local historical and archaeological evidence more
accessible
• My Postcode History has supported the identification of
new heritage assets, such as a previously unrecorded
castle and a surviving legacy of the architect Charles
Reilly's greens.

21. This project is training and
supporting residents to investigate
the history and heritage of 1960s
high-rise council flats in the centre
of the Black Country.

23. Keeping the Momentum
• There is a wealth of information relating to the Black Country
• We just need to keep trying to present this information to our
audiences in an interesting way
• Pictures and events seem to attract the most interest and
online engagement
• Connecting with audiences through their emotions and
memories stimulates conversation
• Posts which link in with particular anniversaries and events
• Twitter hours - #hours

33. Obstacles and Issues
• Demands on staff/volunteer time in maintaining the social
media
• The project under-estimated the amount of time it would
take to edit content provided by volunteer contributors
• In terms of future financial support for the project, it has
generated many more ideas for fundable projects. Which
has resulted in successful initiatives, for the time being at
least, come to an end for example My Postcode History.
• We still have a skew in the geography of our audience
towards Wolverhampton

34. Can social media help us appreciate the
history around us?
Two in every three agreed that “the distinctly black country network has
helped me appreciate the area’s history and heritage”.

35. Social Media Platforms

36. Connections with the Black Country

37. Statistics
• In terms of social media outputs, we have published 27 web
pages and 37 blog posts (with 200 images), 250 Facebook
posts, 1550 tweets and 50 circular emails.
• The website/blog has had over 50,000 page-views and has
attracted 122 blog followers.
• Our competition ‘My Postcode History’ attracted 300 entries
• 561 Facebook Likes, 1100 Twitter followers and more than 600
email contacts.
• We have also attracted several volunteers as a result of our
social media profile, and a proportion of the content is now
generated by volunteer input.

38. Facebook / Twitter
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
May-12 Jun Jul Aug Oct Jan-13 Mar Apr Jul Oct Feb-14
Twitter
Facebook

39. Summary
• Building a network takes time to establish relationships. A digital
social network is not necessarily different.
• Be open-minded about your definition of heritage – there’s a lot of
relevant activity already out there which isn’t branded as heritage.
• Social media isn’t free. The tools can be, but with limited staff
resources it will replace other forms of community engagement
• Better liaison between planning departments and museums can pay
dividends for Historic Environment Records.
• Talk to your communications team if you aren’t doing so already.
• Built heritage is photogenic! Share your photos.
• People are interested in ‘recognised’ heritage, but they are also
fascinated by the history of their own house & street.