Somewhat related question this post made me think of: From my (uninformed) perspective, THL’s social media content (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube) appears to receive relatively low engagement, which makes me curious about how impactful it is.
Is that an accurate impression? I don’t have much background in media outreach, so I may be overestimating how “viral” content needs to be to have meaningful impact.
More generally, I’d be interested in understanding the strategy behind this content and how its performance is evaluated.
Hi there, thanks for your question. At THL UK, our social media strategy is focused on building community in an effort to continue mobilising our followers into active campaign supporters, as well as increasing our reach and engagement to spread awareness of the suffering on factory farms.
For clarity, THL UK is currently active on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Threads. You may have seen THL (US) on TikTok.
Average engagement rates for the non-profit sector fall between 1.3 − 4.4% depending on social media platform (source), and at THL UK we often see our monthly engagement rate figures fall within this range or higher. We are currently in a period of scaling our social media followers and reach to grow awareness in the wider public, and while this will naturally lead to a lower engagement rate (as content is shown to a broader, less ‘warm’ audience), the number of engagements we are receiving overall is vastly increasing as a result.
We have had lots of success with reaching and engaging large audiences with our social media content, for example: - This Youtube videoshowing how evidence of poor chicken welfare can be seen on supermarket shelves, which has had 275k+ views, 8k likes, and 1.2k comments—the majority of which are supportive. The video has also performed well above average on Instagram and Facebook. - This Instagram videoraising awareness of the ethical and environmental issues with the use of fast-growing chickens. The video has been viewed 887k times, has had almost 39k likes, and has been shared over 10k times. The share rate is particularly worth highlighting for us, as it’s much higher than usual for similar style content with this amount of views, showing that the video resonated very strongly with people who then felt compelled to spread the word about this animal welfare issue to their own friends and followers. - This Instagram video, a collaboration we organised with TV doctor and naturalist Dr Amir Khan. It’s been watched over 300k times, has over 2k shares, and hundreds of comments.
However, content doesn’t need to go viral to resonate with people and have an impact. Meaningful measures of effectiveness can include people leaving us a thoughtful comment, sending our content to their own network, and/or clicking a link to our website and signing up to take action for animals. We receive comments and DMs on a daily basis from people – many who are new to the issues we’re campaigning on – thanking us for highlighting animal suffering and wanting to know how they can help us stop it. This connection and community building is where effective social media use can lead to big impact.
Social media algorithms are constantly changing, with organic reach and engagement declining on many platforms due to prioritisation of paid ads and changes in how people consume content (i.e. more passively). Because of this, we are constantly evaluating the impact of our social media content and channels through regular analytics reporting. Metrics we measure include reach and likes as well as more meaningful actions such as shares, people taking campaign actions (e.g. signing petitions and emailing policymakers), donations, etc. We use these insights to inform our content strategy going forward.
You may also be interested to hear that, in part due to the declining effectiveness of the channel, we have recently made the strategic decision to stop posting on X (formerly Twitter) and focus our limited resources elsewhere.
Somewhat related question this post made me think of: From my (uninformed) perspective, THL’s social media content (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube) appears to receive relatively low engagement, which makes me curious about how impactful it is.
Is that an accurate impression? I don’t have much background in media outreach, so I may be overestimating how “viral” content needs to be to have meaningful impact.
More generally, I’d be interested in understanding the strategy behind this content and how its performance is evaluated.
Hi there, thanks for your question. At THL UK, our social media strategy is focused on building community in an effort to continue mobilising our followers into active campaign supporters, as well as increasing our reach and engagement to spread awareness of the suffering on factory farms.
For clarity, THL UK is currently active on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Threads. You may have seen THL (US) on TikTok.
Average engagement rates for the non-profit sector fall between 1.3 − 4.4% depending on social media platform (source), and at THL UK we often see our monthly engagement rate figures fall within this range or higher. We are currently in a period of scaling our social media followers and reach to grow awareness in the wider public, and while this will naturally lead to a lower engagement rate (as content is shown to a broader, less ‘warm’ audience), the number of engagements we are receiving overall is vastly increasing as a result.
We have had lots of success with reaching and engaging large audiences with our social media content, for example:
- This Youtube video showing how evidence of poor chicken welfare can be seen on supermarket shelves, which has had 275k+ views, 8k likes, and 1.2k comments—the majority of which are supportive. The video has also performed well above average on Instagram and Facebook.
- This Instagram video raising awareness of the ethical and environmental issues with the use of fast-growing chickens. The video has been viewed 887k times, has had almost 39k likes, and has been shared over 10k times. The share rate is particularly worth highlighting for us, as it’s much higher than usual for similar style content with this amount of views, showing that the video resonated very strongly with people who then felt compelled to spread the word about this animal welfare issue to their own friends and followers.
- This Instagram video, a collaboration we organised with TV doctor and naturalist Dr Amir Khan. It’s been watched over 300k times, has over 2k shares, and hundreds of comments.
However, content doesn’t need to go viral to resonate with people and have an impact. Meaningful measures of effectiveness can include people leaving us a thoughtful comment, sending our content to their own network, and/or clicking a link to our website and signing up to take action for animals. We receive comments and DMs on a daily basis from people – many who are new to the issues we’re campaigning on – thanking us for highlighting animal suffering and wanting to know how they can help us stop it. This connection and community building is where effective social media use can lead to big impact.
Social media algorithms are constantly changing, with organic reach and engagement declining on many platforms due to prioritisation of paid ads and changes in how people consume content (i.e. more passively). Because of this, we are constantly evaluating the impact of our social media content and channels through regular analytics reporting. Metrics we measure include reach and likes as well as more meaningful actions such as shares, people taking campaign actions (e.g. signing petitions and emailing policymakers), donations, etc. We use these insights to inform our content strategy going forward.
You may also be interested to hear that, in part due to the declining effectiveness of the channel, we have recently made the strategic decision to stop posting on X (formerly Twitter) and focus our limited resources elsewhere.
Thanks for the insightful answer!!