2. Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
BACKGROUND
• RAF’s leading welfare
charity, providing direct
support to 10,000
people each year. £20
million welfare spend

3. Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
CHALLENGES
• Low brand awareness among key
audiences
• 70% of supporters over 70

4. Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
BATTLE OF BRITAIN 70TH
ANNIVERSARY

5. Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
WHY A SOCIAL MEDIA
CAMPAIGN?
• Get away from the usual ceremonies and parades
• To show the human impact of war. To put people in
the shoes of the men and women who took part as a
way of demonstrating the need for our work in 1940
and 2010
• Engage with a new, younger generation of
supporters critical for the charity’s future work
• Position the RAFBF as a modern Service charity
using digital technology to bring the Battle of Britain
to a whole new audience

6. @1940George @1940Jane @1940Mary
@1940Alex @1940Frank

7. BLOGS

8. TWITTER

9. FACEBOOK

10. ONLINE PROMOTION

11. DAY OF ACTION

12. END WITH A BANG!

13. RESULTS - I
• 83,551 overall visits
• 57,307 unique visitors
• 26,382 repeat visitors to campaign site
• 2,481 Chronicle followers on Twitter
• 1,623 fans on Facebook
• 1,457 Twibbon downloads

14. VISITORS TO SITE

15. RESULTS - II
• 48,085 mentions across social networks
• Tweet reach of 320,000 via 200 tweets
• 30 – 40 friendly bloggers wrote posts on Day of
Action
• 100 highly engaged people produced between 31
and 145 pieces of campaign related content each
• Database of more than 2,000 engaged social
media users

16. RESULTS - III
• Increased traffic to main RAFBF website by
25%
• Online donations doubled in 4 months
campaign ran
• Built RAFBF Twitter following from 25 to 1,200
• RAFBF Facebook fans increased from 10,000
to 12,000
• Built good relationship with Stephen Fry
• Change in positioning reflected in posts, online
conversations and off-line coverage

17. ONLINE DONATIONS

18. DEMOGRAPHICS
• Facebook Insights show that we successfully
engaged a ‘younger’ generation of supporters

19. • Day of launch
received coverage in
Daily Express, Daily
Mail and
Independent.co.uk
• 53 pieces of
coverage
• Print coverage
– AVE = £30,000 +
– OTS = 8,000,000 +
PR COVERAGE

20. KEY LEARNINGS
• Highly polished campaign leaves less room for
spontaneity
• Capitalise on Facebook’s Open Graph to enable
more people to ‘Like’ specific items earlier in
campaign
• Identifying and actively seeking relevant
conversations to participate in
• Capitalise on discussion tab on Facebook
• Add email capture earlier in campaign
• Make Donate button more prominent earlier in
campaign

21. WHAT NEXT?
• Targeted e-newsletter sent to 1940Chronicle
supporters with a more than 50% open-rate
• 1940 online Xmas card planned with appeal for
donations. Followers will be invited to join the
RAFBF Facebook page and Twitter feed
• Plans to use content as a teaching resource (we
are in talks with the Historical Association)

22. Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
THANKS FOR LISTENING!
Any questions?
Ann-Mari Freebairn
Head of Communications
annmari.freebairn@rafbf.org.uk