Last month we launched our new look Gorkana Group’s 2011 Annual Charity Barometer which was a cracking round up of the year that was. 2011’s coverage was dominated by world events with British Red Cross receiving the most overall.
January’s charity benchmarking report is now hot off the press and gives us the first inklings of what 2012 has in store. Welfare reform and increasing hardship faced by UK households were two hot topics which particularly increased volumes of UNICEF and Citizens Advice Bureau mainstream coverage.
Lord Ashdown’s (President of the United Nation’s Children’s Agency) refusal to support a planned benefit cap by the government featured strongly in UNICEF mainstream coverage while Selena Gomez’s performance at her second annual UNICEF concert really set the social media world aflutter. I think it probably helped that the ‘Biebs’ was there as well supporting his lady. How sweet!
A continuing theme throughout charity coverage, and a strategy which I think is used very well, is the use of celebrities to generate coverage as well as to increase awareness and ‘talkability’.
PETA jumps on this bandwagon very effectively and is well known for using ‘naked’ celebrities to increase awareness of its cause. It’s the old adage that ‘sex sells’ and it certainly works for them in the social media sphere. PETA rank number two on the social media league table with close to 46,000 mentions (last month they were ranked third). Twitter users were quick to share that Olivia Munn will be the latest celebrity to post nude and that Pamela Anderson is planning to auction off her car to raise money.
I’m keen to see what else will set the social media world afire this year and already looking forward to February’s report. I’m hoping it will be full of hearts, cupids and of course chocolate! If you want to find out more about the Charity Barometer Reports drop us a line at govandngo@btsdev2.co.uk/gorkana/metrica or to subscribe and/or download a sample of the monthly report click here.
January’s top of the pops
Mainstream media – UNICEF (2,661 articles), Age UK (2,475 articles), Citizen’s Advice (2,085 articles)
Social media – UNICEF (54,291 mentions), PETA (45,754 mentions), Greenpeace (33,643 mentions).
