Presentation on Tower Hamlets' use of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as well as examples of outcomes from using social media. Presented by Sam Gough, Communications Advisor at London Borough of Tower Hamlets, at Really Useful Day: Social media for councils in London on 15 May 2015.

1. Sam Gough
May 15, 2015
Create once, publish
everywhere

2. • We only used Twitter – and not that well (e.g.
#TowerHamlets)
• Twitter as an add-on – responsibility of those
on press desk (two Tweets per day)
• Very little engagement
• Not a primary form of communication –
always a secondary
Twitter yesterday

3. • Customer service engagement (e.g. allocating through
Sendible)
• Jumping on bandwagon of existing campaigns (e.g. World Book
Day)
• Better use of images
• Asking questions in Tweets and follow-up
• Thinking of Twitter built into campaigns (e.g. #tastebricklane
used on marketing collateral)
• Using Twitter to make residents aware during crisis
communications (e.g. Mayor’s High Court ruling; #GE2015)
• Address the problem (e.g. ‘Statement to follow soon…’)
• Changing the tone – from ‘The council’ to ‘We’
Twitter today

4. Example of our Twitter

5. • 52 likes so far
• People use Facebook to vent their
frustrations
• Use of images – photo albums to instil civic
pride
• Great for case studies
• Create events for big campaigns (e.g. Taste
Brick Lane, #50TH launch)
Facebook

6. Example of our Facebook

7. • We launched our Instagram (@towerhamletsnow) in late February ahead of
#tastebricklane campaign
• At time of writing we have 68 followers
• Whenever we have news that has accompanying images we put up the image
with a short blurb
• Use hashtags in a similar way to key words when doing SEO (e.g. #bricklane
#tastebricklane #food #foodenvy)
• Jump on existing hashtags (e.g. #tbt – throwback Thursday – posting older
images of the borough to try and drum up a sense of civic pride in our history)
• Re-gramming and liking good images of the borough to try and draw up more
followers
• Currently doing a competition #loveitTHursday – people send in pictures and we
pick the best one every Thursday and post it out, crediting the photographer
• Great for case studies (for a good example, see @microsoft)
• Brand engagement 15 times higher on Instagram than any other social media
Instagram

8. Our Instagram

9. • Increase visits to Brick Lane
• Drum up social media interest
• Encourage engagement
• Instil a sense of civic pride
• Get businesses and restaurant owners
on board
• Create a social media legacy
#tastebricklane objectives

10. • Wrote to businesses asking them to get
involved
• Uploaded offers, promoted prizes
• People had to use #tastebricklane to
access offers (using Twitter, Facebook
or Instagram)
• Twitter competitions
#tastebricklane actions

11. • 47 posts on Instagram with 852
interactions
• 156 different posts on Twitter with 852
interactions
• Throughout month a 3% increase in
followers on Twitter
#tastebricklane outcomes

12. #tastebricklane example

13. Public bodies doing good

14. • DfID do great case studies of how their
funding benefits people across the
world
• They also made best use of Buzzfeed,
back in the days when you could do
Community Posts e.g. ‘5 Ways You’re
Helping to Beat Ebola’
Public bodies doing good

15. Public bodies doing good

16. • There’s a good example of Goldsmiths,
University of London, using Storify to
collate all the positive Tweets, videos,
Facebook links and content pushed out
throughout the year to celebrate their
achievements
• FAO: Storify is a really great tool!
Public bodies doing good

17. Public bodies doing good

18. • @onlyinSF – the San Francisco tourism
board launched a few Instagram campaigns
including #onlyinSF (people ‘gramming
unusual images from SF), #dineabouttown
during Restaurant Week, and #sfoutdoors
• This is a great example of how you can instil
civic pride through social media
Public bodies doing good

19. • Twitter: @TowerHamletsNow
• Facebook: towerhamletscouncil
• Instagram: @towerhamletsnow
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