Going live in lockdown
One of the trends we’ve seen on social as lockdown in the UK has progressed, particularly on Facebook and Instagram, has been the resurgence in popularity of live video.
As I’ve mentioned in blogs here before, live content arrived with such fanfare and additional algorithmic boosts when it first hit our social screens in 2016 (2015 for Twitter’s Periscope). However, since then it’s often been forgotten about as a format, taking a pandemic to remind people of its benefits.
In this blog on Lightful I spoke to Kirsty Marrins 📝 about the way we’ve pivoted at Breast Cancer Now to adapt our monthly live broadcasts in these distanced times. During lockdown we’ve been going live weekly instead. As well as answering questions, we have covered themes as diverse as mental health, nursing and sleep.
It’s far from one size fits all for live broadcasts though, and different charities have gone down very different routes for their audiences. Here I wanted to pick up on some interesting things I’ve noticed about the wide variety of ways UK charities have been utilising it for their own channels.
Most of the charity broadcasts I’ve spotted across social fall into one of these categories:
Educational and Q&As
Talking about your cause and increasing understanding of the need has never been more important. How you maintain a profile and justify donations when the public’s attention is, in the most part, elsewhere.
I’ve really enjoyed seeing broadcasts from Teenage Cancer Trust doing just that recently. Pairing young people with cancer either together or with an expert, they’re really bringing home messages from their previous ‘Still Me’ campaign; talking about the importance of exercise, and more.
It’s not just all on Instagram though, English Heritage have been educating the nation through their ‘History at Home Live’ videos across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Action on Hearing Loss have been testing answering questions live, and even included a live sign language interpretation to make it as accessible as possible for their audience.
Macmillan teamed up with their partners at No7 to provide live make up and skincare advice for people affected by cancer. And Anthony Nolan had a chat with their Oscar-winning ambassador Olivia Colman, her hilariousness carrying through technical difficulties.
Fundraising performances
Coppafeel! have been producing a series of ticketed live broadcasts in May under the umbrella of their ‘Sofa Series’. This featured a whole host of their celebrity patrons and ambassadors including Greg James, Perrie Edwards from Little Mix, and Russell Kane to name but a few. Supporters could either donate to watch, or upgrade to be able to interact with the celeb hosts with a ‘front row seat’. At the time of writing, these had raised more than £15,000 for the charity which is amazing to see.
Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity hosted their first virtual fundraising gala ‘At Home With GOSH’ which raised £36,000 for the charity. Highlights included performances from Craig David, Jack Savoretti, Britain’s Got Talent star (And GOSH nurse) Beth Porch, and a DJ set from Emma B, alongside speeches by families supported at the hospital, all hosted by Dara Ó Briain.
Blood Cancer UK also went for a music theme and have hosted a series of musical broadcasts as ‘Busking for Blood Cancer UK’ featuring The Kooks’ Luke Pritchard among others going live on the charity’s Facebook Page.
How about instead of spreading the performances out, you curated it all into one night, like an online festival? CALM did just that, all across Instagram Live with each performer going live on their respective accounts, passing the baton with supporters tuning in to the CALM Instagram to get the latest running orders. They even shared a brilliant virtual menu for some donation inspiration while they were watching at home.
It wasn’t all about music and comedy though, the CALM Lock In continued and saw a Mario Kart face-off between Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, a huge coup given the show’s massive popularity, raising over £3,000.
TikTok have been getting in on the action for charities too since the recent addition of the fundraising sticker. Lewis Capaldi performed on the platform for British Red Cross raising £20,000 in donations, which TikTok then matched taking the total to £40,000. This is huge for a 40-minute one-off performance and shows the potential the platform has for when more charities become eligible. Gordon Ramsay and his daughter Tilly have also been supporting the charity live on TikTok too, which raised a further £4,000 from 100,000 viewers.
Participation fundraising
Online quizzes exploded in popularity as the country entered lockdown, and many charities jumped on the opportunity to capitalise on this.
Marie Curie’s celeb-fronted evenings have included one hosted by Alison Steadman (Pam in Gavin and Stacey) which raised more than £66,000. Run on fundraising platform Tiltify and live streamed through Twitch, there are even prize draws for people who donate. The run of nine currently-announced quizzes have included a whole range of celebrity hosts, each with their own themed quiz, from Claire from Steps doing a ‘Back to the 90s quiz’, to Paul Chuckle on kids trivia.
It’s not just Marie Curie going down the quiz route though, I’ve also seen great fundraising quizzes from the MS Society, with theirs hosted weekly by Scott Mills and raising over £55,000 across 6 weeks.
If trivia isn’t your thing, then how about a dinner party? Gousto, the meal kit company, partnered with the Trussell Trust to host the UK’s largest dinner party joined by a host of celebrities including David Haye, Nick Grimshaw and Paloma Faith. Unfortunately, it’s not always plain sailing with live broadcasts and there’s always the element of risk with the technology.
I’m sure there are loads and loads of other great live broadcasts I’ve missed and that just goes to show the high standard out there right now. In the examples I’ve mentioned in this blog alone, there’s around £200,000 of charity income.
It’s been great to see partners getting involved with supporting these too: Mindful Chef sponsoring Coppafeel’s broadcasts; Fairy Non Bio and McColl’s partnering with the ‘At Home with GOSH’ event; Macmillan going live on the No7 channels; and even Cancer Research UK’s weekly live broadcasts have been through a media partnership with Hello Magazine for their ‘Thursday Thank You’.
