Case study – WaterAid

Hi everyone my name is Oscar Mackenzie um I’m  social media manager at WaterAid um we are an   international NGO uh with a very simple goal and  that is to bring clean water decent toilets and   good hygiene to everyone everywhere. I’ve got  a few minutes today to speak to you about the way   that we use social media and content uh to really  help us achieve that mission and I just wanted   to start by you know really laying out the way in  which we as an organization um really view social.

Ultimately um social media is a critical component  of our communication strategy at the start of any   campaign any fundraising projects any advocacy  ask any appeal we really make sure that social   media is considered front and center as a key way  in which we are going to kind of communicate um   the work that we’re doing and we really like  this idea um that no matter what objective we   might set ourselves um across the full range  of activity that we do as an organization   um that social media can really play a critical  role in helping us to achieve those objectives.   At WaterAid you know we really take  this idea of a single global community   as a guiding mantra to the work that we do we  never want to create a feeling of us versus   them we never want to create a feeling of you know  this is a problem in a different part of the world   that we are here to solve um instead we take an  approach that you know look one in ten people   around the world still live without access to  clean water one in four still live without access   to a decent toilet and these are challenges that  we as a single global community must work together   to solve and this is a really key idea that we  use to inform all of the social media content   that we create.

So the question is how do we create  content that can authentically communicate the way   that we work the communities that we work with to  our audiences. So we work um with a really amazing   network of content creators from around the world  that we call voices from the field officers now our   voices from the field officers uh are based in  seven countries um that we work with around the   world um and the these these people are Ernest  in madagascar, James in Uganda, Manny in nepal, Dennis in Malawi, Bazil in Burkina Faso,  Chileshi in Zambia and Freyja Watt in Ethiopia.  Now each of these voices from the field officers  are really talented content creators they produce   incredible photography um really amazing  films beautiful documentaries um and we   really work with them very closely um to  create the content um that you will see   across the full range of activity um that we do. Each of these voices from the field officers   crucially is from the countries um that they  that they work in um they have in many situations   grown up without clean water themselves so they  have a really truthful authentic understanding   of what that situation is genuinely like.

We  really kind of you know want them to communicate   um in a way that feels truthful and authentic to  their own experiences and that means that we can   create content um that truly represents  the communities um in a respectful   um and empowering way and that’s such an important  aspect of the social media content that we create.   Ultimately you know this means that the  content that we are kind of putting out   um is not just us as an NGO deciding what content  um we are going to share um we are really kind of   empowering and working with the communities that  we work in um to ensure that that storytelling is   authentic is truthful and really drives  emotional understanding and resonance   um with our audiences so hopefully that can give  you a bit of an understanding about our approach   to social media you know we really want to drive  this feeling of a connected global community we   really want to work in a way that you know allows  for genuine connection um from our audiences   um in the uk to the communities that we work  with around the world and what we’ve seen is   that this kind of content you know is so  effective so impactful and ultimately you   know drives real real success um across that  range of different activations that I mentioned.