“Thanks to Swat.io, we Can Manage Topics Centrally and Bring the Community Together on a Regional Level.”

The Red Cross uses social media to bring the organization’s humanitarian principles to life through digital channels. The issue of humanity is clearly positioned as the main focus.

Then there are four additional goals: to unite, motivate, involve and inform. Social media brings the Red Cross community together, motivating volunteers to (continue to) give their time, involving interested parties in the everyday work of the Red Cross, and informing external individuals about the latest news.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Red Cross has relied even more heavily on social media. Social media makes it easy to share important information, and if the community has questions, they can be asked directly via social networks.

Having a decentralized organization with numerous regional branches is one of the greatest strengths of the Red Cross. However, this poses a major challenge when it comes to communications: how do you maintain an overview and control the information being shared? State associations and district branches manage their own social media channels, meaning there is a huge number of different channels under the same banner.

The core branding “Aus Liebe zum Menschen” (“Out of Love”) is present as an overarching strategy across all social media communications. This brand strategy is presented very differently by the various regional branches, however. The Red Cross sees this as a great source of potential, as the employees in the state associations and the volunteers in the district branches are more familiar with the local community and are therefore able to address regional topics and make relevant information available easily.

The organization wanted to find a way of managing social media activities centrally while keeping the presentation regional. The Red Cross found the right tool for the job with Swat.io.

Using Swat.io, the Red Cross is better able to strategically coordinate its complex communications structures. Things like infographics are important for all channels. They are made available by the Secretary General’s office via a planning channel in Swat.io. Those responsible in the state associations and district branches can copy the graphic for use on their own channels with just one click. They can change the text of the post, add regional references and share the content with their community. In this way, the challenge of the organization’s regional presence becomes a key strength. This is reflected in the analytics data: by sharing across multiple channels, a much higher total reach is achieved.

Regional and central offices also work closely on community management. Branches are often asked questions about areas they are not responsible for, or for which they don’t have the required information. Queries are clearly listed in Swat.io as tickets and can be forwarded to the right internal person. This means the people responsible can be brought on board easily and resources can be pooled straightforwardly.

The value of these structures is especially evident in the event of a disaster. During the coronavirus pandemic, the whole team not only increased communications themselves, they also received a huge number of queries from the community. In situations like this, it’s easy to incorporate the support of other staff members in Swat.io.