Case study
Email, social and video content strategy for international peacebuilding
Client: International Alert
Project: International Peace Day and beyond, 2017-2022
Role: Videographer and Digital Consultant
Focus Areas: Video content, social media management, digital strategy, email strategy and PPC
Results: A more focused and targeted digital strategy which showcases the human stories behind peacebuilding.
“I had the pleasure of working with Ellie for over three years at International Alert, where she provided us with digital and social media consultancy support on a whole host of different projects, working with our teams around the world. She has a superb level of understanding and expertise, is creative and thoughtful, and an excellent and personable communicator and collaborator. She took the time to really understand the organisation and its people, which was reflected in the way she was able to expertly and efficiently craft content for us – including webpages, newsletters, social media posts and ads, and videos. She would be an amazing asset to any organisation and I would love to work with her again.”
— David Ackers, Communications Manager, International Alert
About International Alert
International Alert are at the heart of the peacebuilding movement. They promote evidence-based approaches to reconciliation, mediation and conflict prevention. Lots of their work is about addressing the root causes of conflict, like poverty, gender inequality, access to natural resources and inclusive media.
Every September, they use the UN’s International Day of Peace to broaden awareness and understanding of the principles of peacebuilding. I was first contracted to support them during this busy period, but went on the offer support for nearly 5 years, including covering the Digital Engagement Lead’s maternity leave and offering digital strategy advice.
How we worked
Video support
Peacebuilding is a complex and, at times, quite technical sounding concept. But at the heart of this work are some of the most impressive impact stories I’ve ever encountered. Such as friendships that have blossomed between the perpetrators and victims of the Rwandan genocide (see the video below).
But the small digital team just didn’t have capacity to make the most of these stories, which were often coming through from colleagues in formats optimised for funder liaison and in-person meetings. Or optimised for very different social media cultures and consumption habits in Asia and Africa.
At several of the Peace Day celebrations and stunts I was able to go along and gather live content too. Here’s my favourite, Mark Ryance at The Globe Theatre.
My support meant we could repurpose this long-form content for social media and really show the human stories that result from peacebuilding practices to our supporters and followers in Europe and North America, where many of the decision makers and donors are based.
Here is a taste of some of the videos I edited / conceived (shot largely by colleagues working on the ground).
*social media versions mostly lost to time!
Email and social media strategy
With the arrival of a new CEO, and comms strategy, the target audience of the ‘head office’ International Alert accounts became not the general public, but professionals delivering peacebuilding adjacent projects in conflict affected communities. And of course, the decision makers who commission them.
I carried out an audit of all email and social media channels, to understand how we could work more efficiently and effectively.
Pivoting to high-value contact strategy:
We stopped posting on Facebook and Instagram, prioritising LinkedIn and Twitter (now X) where the tone was more appropriate for reports, practice guidelines, evaluations and thought leadership.
In my monthly reporting, I stopped focusing on the big numbers and instead highlighted promising influencing contacts, who our policy and delivery teams could follow up with.
A focus on email
More of our energy was put into regular, single issue emails, since analytics showed email users were much more engaged with our website than visitors from social media.
I also created a list-building strategy to grow these valued contacts. This included a share CTA on the end of each email, increasing opportunities to sign-up on our website and the addition of the link on colleagues email signatures.
Social media content strategy
I developed a brand and mission focused evergreen content bank, which could fill gaps in the calendar (these ended up being some of the most successful).
I successfully made the case for more budget for LinkedIn ads, using their detailed analytics to demonstrate to leadership we were reaching the exact industries, job titles and organisations they were aiming for.
PPC
I revived the dormant Google Grant account, watching closely global trends to surface topical content to those who were searching. For example thought leadership around the Kenya elections and background information on the roots of the Ukraine war.
We also trialled Youtube ads, making the most of those powerful long-form videos.
Results
Over the 5 years I developed a deep understanding of the organisation and its mission, while retaining the clarity that being an outsider affords (I was working on a wide variety of different projects and causes at the same time).
What resulted was a more focused approach, where we reached more of our target audience. Our comms was more human centred and demonstrated the world changing power of peacebuilding.
Contact me
If you need help with digital marketing support, video, strategy or content design, get in touch.