The British Red Cross sought a social media monitoring solution to unify their social data and make smarter, faster decisions. They tested multiple tools but selected Brandwatch for its intuitive interface and ability to analyze large amounts of social data in real-time. Using Brandwatch, the Red Cross was able to raise over £500,000 for their Hurricane Sandy appeal by identifying the optimal campaign terms and themes from social media mentions.

1. Case Study/
British Red Cross
British Red Cross
Rapidly Adapts
Campaigns based
on Smarter Social
Insights

2. Founded: 1870
Headquarters: London, UK
Audience: People in Crisis
Industry: Non-profit, Charity
Website: http://www.redcross.org.uk/
Services: First aid, emergency response,
disaster preparedness, family
tracing, health and social care,
protection of people in conflict,
refugee support
Brandwatch services: Social Media Monitoring and
Analytics
The Goal/
Unify Social Data to Increase Knowledge.
The British Red Cross is a volunteer-led humanitarian organization that helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they
are. Domestically, the organization’s mainstay services include independent living, first aid training and emergency support
service. Internationally, they respond to emergencies and work with communities to help build resilience, so that the next
time disaster strikes, they will be prepared.
The British Red Cross uses social media for many purposes – digital fundraising, editorial commentary, crisis response, interaction
with the public and more. Feeling overwhelmed by the wide range of social data and the need to analyze it faster than ever, the
organization sought a solution that would help them achieve three goals:
1. Capture and manage all social data from a single information hub
2. Analyze social data in real time to identify appeal themes that resonate
3. Optimize development campaigns via informed results tracking
Successfully implementing the right solution would have a tremendous impact.
The Challenge/
To Make Smarter Decisions, Faster.
When public disasters strike, social media goes abuzz fast and furiously.
“For the disasters we address, it’s not uncommon to see related social mentions escalate into the thousands or millions very quickly,”
said Ed Lyon, Social Media Officer at The British Red Cross. For this reason, The British Red Cross required a social media
monitoring and analytics solution that makes it easy to analyze data, pick out the most relevant pieces and surface the ‘so what’
results that inform strategic responses across the organization.
This left the organization searching for a solution that could deliver in three key areas:
1. Capture data from millions of social sites in multiple languages
2. Enable fast and easy queries of the data
3. Present results in easily digestible formats
The Solution/
Powerful, User-Friendly Social Analytics.
The British Red Cross tested multiple social media monitoring tools, but wanted to use just one in order to easily
centralize and manage all social activities.
Another division of the organization were already using Brandwatch Analytics. Given that division’s success with the solution, after
a brief trial, the British arm of the Red Cross quickly selected the Brandwatch platform as well. “Straight away on the trial, we just
found the platform so easy to use. The simplicity of basic functions such as defining your search terms gave us a really good first
impression compared to other monitoring tools,” said Lyon.
What most impressed the British Red Cross team was the ability to quickly get to the data that matters most. Rather than sifting
through reams of unwanted data, they leverage Brandwatch’s intuitive data querying functionality to refine their dataset in a variety
of ways, each accompanied with charts and tables that make results clear and easy to understand.
Organization: The British Red Cross
A Historic Charity With a Modern Approach
Key
Benefits/
Case Study/ The British Red Cross
At a Glance/
• Improved online and offline
development campaigns
• Identified ideal names and themes for
public appeals
• Organized and streamlined social
media workflows across multiple
departments
£513KRaised for the
Hurricane Sandy
Appeal

3. The charts above (Fig 1 and 2)
demonstrate how the social world
was most frequently characterizing
Sandy over the course of its nine-
day occurrence, in aggregate and
by geography.
The organization localized data in
Brandwatch to see if the UK was following
US trends. “This was invaluable to
getting our appeal right during such a
limited time frame,” said Lyon. Given the
public characterization as ‘hurricane’ and
the sheer mention volume, The British
Red Cross labeled its appeal efforts
with ‘Hurricane Sandy’ over other
trending options.
Hurricane
Stage 2
23 Oct
24 Oct
25 Oct
26 Oct
Tropical
Storm
WINDSPEED
Hurricane
Stage 1
30 Oct
Cuba
Jamaica
Haiti
Dominican
Republic
30mph
110mph
NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
KEY
U.S.A.
22 Oct 23 Oct 24 Oct 25 Oct 26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 29 Oct 30 Oct
hurricane trend superstorm trend
Asia Europe Africa North America Australasia South America
hurricane trend superstorm trend tropical storm trend
Case Study/ The British Red Cross
Campaign success;
reacting fast and
adapting intelligently.
Results/ The British
Red Cross raises over
£500,000 for the
Hurricane Sandy
Appeal.
Development efforts at the British Red
Cross have improved greatly since
implementing Brandwatch Analytics.
For example, in response to the
Hurricane Sandy disasters of 2012, the
Digital Team used Brandwatch to trawl
thousands of social sites and decide on
the most compelling name for their public
appeal, including terms for a hashtag and
general search. ‘Hurricane’, ‘tropical
storm’ and ‘superstorm’ were all being
widely used. However, Brandwatch
Analytics quickly yielded the targeted
social insight to help decide on the
optimal appeal name.
Another benefit of Brandwatch monitoring
and analytics has been social activity
coordination across the many departments
of The British Red Cross.
In an organization as big as the British
Red Cross, there are various departments
engaging with the public over social
media each day: PR, Marketing, Media,
Digital Fundraising, Editorial and the core
social media team. “We use Brandwatch’s
alerts and workflows to assign different
types of information to the relevant
members of each team,” said Lyon. “This
is essential to streamlining our social
media activity when it’s split across so
many people” continued Lyon.
“Having social
data automatically
categorized in realtime,
seconds after it was
posted online, was
essential.“
“We use Brandwatch’s
alerts and workflows to
assign different types
of information to the
relevant members of
each team,”
Hurricane
Stage 2
23 Oct
24 Oct
25 Oct
26 Oct
Tropical
Storm
WINDSPEED
Hurricane
Stage 1
30 Oct
Cuba
Jamaica
Haiti
Dominican
Republic
30mph
110mph
NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
KEY
U.S.A.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Hurricane
Stage 2
23 Oct
24 Oct
25 Oct
26 Oct
Tropical
Storm
WINDSPEED
Hurricane
Stage 1
30 Oct
Cuba
Jamaica
Haiti
Dominican
Republic
30mph
110mph
NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
KEY
U.S.A.

4. About/
The British Red Cross
The British Red Cross helps people in
crisis, whoever and wherever they are.
They are part of a global voluntary
network, responding to conflicts,
natural disasters and individual
emergencies.
They enable vulnerable people in the
UK and abroad to prepare for and
withstand emergencies in their own
communities. And when the crisis is
over, the Charity help them to recover
and move on with their lives.
For more information, please visit
http://www.redcross.org.uk/
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a leading provider
of social media monitoring and
analytics solutions.
Brandwatch is one of the world’s
leading social media monitoring
and analytics platforms.
Its technology gathers millions of online
conversations every day and provides
clients with the tools to analyse them,
enabling brands and agencies to make
smarter, data-driven business
decisions.
The company has won awards for its
technology and renowned corporate
culture, and regularly wins accolades
for its impressive growth.
The Brandwatch platform is used
by over 900 brands and agencies,
including organizations such as Dell,
PepsiCo, Whirlpool, Kellogg’s and
British Airways.
For more information, please visit
www.brandwatch.com
@brandwatch | Brandwatch Blog | Brandwatch Facebook Page
“...we just found the platform
so easy to use. The simplicity
of basic functions such as
defining your search terms
gave us a really good first
impression compared to
other monitoring tools”
Edward Lyon
Social Media Officer,
The British Red Cross