You might remember, I wrote a blog post launching my brand-new media campaign; Shake My Hand on the date of its website reveal; June 17th (if you missed it, you can read it here), and now – over two months later – I thought I’d give you all an update. I actually really enjoyed myself when I was going through all the social media posts, website articles, emails, and documents that have evolved and been created in the time since that blog post on the 17th! It was pretty amazing to see just how much has been done and accomplished in that space of time, so this feels like a nice little post to hopefully highlight the power of hard work, passion, dedication, and determination…
Signing The Rape Crisis Petition
One of
the first largest moves Shake My Hand decided to make in the community of charities,
groups, and organisations who also promote our cause of helping and support
Survivors of rape and sexual abuse, was to sign the Rape Crisis England and
Wales Petition: ‘Save Rape Crisis Centres From A Funding Crisis’ (which you can
still sign; here).
We have
three different themes of Services that Shake My Hand facilitate and offer; and
in the theme of ‘Speaking Up’, we talk about signing
petitions and publicising national, law-changing efforts from fellow Campaigners.
So, it felt important that one of our first big, public actions was something
that really aligned with what we’re actually vowing – on our website – to do. And
to build some connections in those very early days, we decided to publicise our
signing of the petition on the website in a News Article (which you can read here) explaining our decision to
sign it in a bid to encourage our new readers and followers to do the same.
I won’t
lie, there was some hesitancy for me in doing this because I knew we had little
to zero following at that time, so I worried that it seemed a bit big-headed to
sort of act like we had any influence at that point. But hey-ho(!) – I figured that
with causes like this, any publicity – no matter how many signatures it
possibly instigates – is good!
Our Most Popular News Article: ‘We
Answer The Questions Rape & Sexual Abuse Can Raise’
Prior
to launching the website on June 17th, we made the decision to have
four pieces of content ready to publish immediately with the site so that it didn’t
just have a bare page waiting for News Articles, and this piece on answering
the questions that rape and abuse can raise (which you can read here), was one of these four. It has
proven to be the most popular Article though, from the entire 13 we currently
have live on the website.
Again,
in all honesty, this has been surprising to me because I personally have
thought that other content would do better, but I’m totally taking the lead of
our audience and recognising that this is a learning-game for me. Yes, I’m a
Blogger and so I create content in this nature of media all the time, but I’m
NOT Disordered is massively much more of a general forum with a lot more varied
content. I mean, I’d 100% agree that it’s a ‘mental health blog,’ but I think
that can encompass a great deal more topics, themes, and angles to write
content from than a website for a Campaign with such a specific cause as the
one I’d say that Shake My Hand has. But I kind of love that this brings
learning in to this – something which I obviously already expected, but actually
not so much in terms of writing content! I love learning! But I especially love
learning when it’s in the industry of communications and marketing because it’s
an area I’m so passionate about and interested in, that it makes me eager to
improve on any knowledge and skillset in it that I might have. And being a
Blogger for over eleven years has meant that the sensation and realisation that
I’m learning something new or seeing that I have to do something differently
when it comes to creating content, is massively endearing and exciting. I’d
like to think that the fact I’m not in the slightest bit deterred by the fact
that this Campaign is seeming to massively – and extremely unexpectedly – demand
a ton more knowledge than I have, speaks volumes for my passion and dedication
to the Campaign.
Reaching 1,000 Views in The First Week
On
Monday June 24th, I was absolutely thrilled and so incredibly honoured,
to be able to write and publish a very positive and proud News Article for the website
titled: ‘How We Reached over 1,000 Views In 7 Days!!! – A Massive Thank You’
(you can read it here)! I honestly couldn’t believe
it when I saw the stats page on Blogger (the platform of the Campaign’s website)… I mean, I do regularly check
it – the same frequency as I do for, I’m NOT Disordered – so I could see the
numbers creeping up, but it didn’t actually register that the 1,000 was in just
one week!
Now,
this might sound strange, but I’m actually really chuffed that I recognised
this achievement for what it is because this statistic is obviously a small
amount in comparison with my blog – which receives (depending upon whether
there’s been recent content and what that content was) anywhere between 500 and
2,000 views per day! I think though, that from the memories and from the recognition
that I had to work so hard, and that it took a lot of time to actually build that
following on my blog; I’ve been able to be sensible and realistic in these
extremely early days of the Campaign’s website and its own views. So, in my
head, I’d actually, honestly just envisioned perhaps not even two or three
hundred views in that first week!
This lovely
surprise led me to consider what I had done right that first week, and I came
to three conclusions (which I discussed in the News Article I linked earlier:
1.
The
Launch Post on I’m NOT Disordered:
Something which I actually hadn’t considered as a real beneficial aspect to the
Campaign, was the following I’m NOT Disordered has and the fact that this can
be harnessed and used to provide publicity opportunities for the Campaign. I
think the reason it hadn’t really popped into my head earlier was because it’s an
attribute to the blog which I’ve only ever used or promoted with other
organisations. When pitching collaborations (which isn’t very frequent now that
my blog has the following it has; pitches tend to come to me) I tend to stress
that featuring on I’m NOT Disordered is a publicity opportunity and gives the collaboration
partner access to an audience they might not usually target or reach. So, I’m
totally used to expressing to others, I just have never sort of branched out in
the way I have with Shake My Hand and done a project where I need the publicity
opportunity too!
2.
Using
Pipdig and Canva:
A number of years ago (two or three), after around two years of consideration,
I finally took the plunge and bought a design template from Pipdig for I’m NOT
Disordered. It’s a service which I’d only heard of through my favourite blogger;
Victoria Magrath and her blog; www.inthefrow.com
because she used the website design company for inthefrow (you can actually see
the credit to them at the very bottom of her site). When I first discovered
this though, I wasn’t sure if my blog was at a level where it was ‘deserving’
of such an investment (the layouts/designs can be anywhere between £39 and £59).
After some research though, I found out that once you’ve bought that design
there’s no further costs and with, I’m NOT Disordered reaching over one million
readers (1.4 million now!), I recognised that it was time for an upgrade and to
up the standards in a way that would make me feel that my blog was worthy of
the attention it earns. Having seen the benefits of using Pipdig on my own
blog, it wasn’t hard to decide to purchase a design for Shake My Hand and in
the end, I went with the ‘Venture’ theme.
Using Canva has also been fundamentally helpful in being able to design attractive
and effective graphics and documents that embody continuity and good branding
qualities.
3.
Making
Moves In Recruitment:
At that time, I had created a Volunteer Vacancies page (which you can view: Volunteer
Vacancies | Shake My Hand (shakemyhanduk.blogspot.com)) and had also posted
the Vacancies on the Campaign’s social media channels. Due to this, I had
earned a couple of applications and at the time of writing the blog post marking
1,000 views, I’d just hired a Fundraising Coordinator. So, I felt there’d been
a lot of progress in that area and recognised that in advertising the
Vacancies, this would have added to the publicity of the Campaign and because
the only way to apply for the roles at that time was via the website or doit.org
– but that then directed you to the website – I felt that it had contributed to
increasing the views. (Fortunately, there’s actually now a new way to apply,
but I want to discuss that separately later in this post.)
All The Actions Regarding Recruitment
So, leading
on nicely from that last little bit about recruiting my first Volunteer; Vikash
(who has the role of Fundraising Coordinator), I thought I’d chat you through
the four largest actions I’ve taken for the recruitment side of the Campaign:
1. Creating The Volunteer Handbook:
Something which
I’ve found really enjoyable about the Campaign and hadn’t thought of the fact I’d
need to do it at all never mind how much of it I’d need to do; research! Obviously,
it was the first thing I did in deciding to actually create the Campaign,
because whilst I had the idea and inspiration in mind, I had no experience in
doing this, so I had no clue where to even start! I mean, my instincts told me
to create social media accounts for it first, but I hadn’t thought of or
considered that there’d be a need for lots of different documents. I knew I’d
need to write some sort of Plan for the Campaign – something which would be necessary
in approaching organisations to work with and endorse Shake My Hand. A reason
for my lack of further thought on documents was mainly because I hadn’t
envisioned needing to have a team Volunteer with me, otherwise I likely would
have recognised that I’d need to create policies and procedures for those
people. So, when I was in the process of hiring my first Volunteer and knew the
plan was for more, I researched writing a Volunteer Handbook to see what should
be included and since I can’t exactly include it in this post, I thought I’d
tell you the page titles: Contents, Welcome Message, Campaign Introduction (which
includes ‘Where We Came From,’ ‘What We Want To Achieve,’ and ‘How We’ll Do
It), Volunteer Vision and Intent, the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy,
Volunteer Recruitment (which includes ‘Recruitment Process,’ ‘Support and
Supervision,’ and ‘Evaluation’) and then All Other Policies (which are the Safeguarding
Vulnerable Adults Policy, Data Protection and Confidentiality Policy, and
Volunteer Code of Conduct).
2. Making The Volunteer Vacancies Page
The Most Popular:
If you don’t already know from reading, I’m NOT Disordered, I’m very observant
of statistics and I take a huge lead and influence from them. I mean, on I’m
NOT Disordered I’m often celebrating reader milestones and have talked about
the fact that ‘the numbers’ matter to me for two reasons: first, because I
recognise that each number is a person and that the more people who read my
blog increases the chance that I’m helping more people. And the second reason
is that the higher the reader count, the more opportunities I receive – which
might sound selfish and superficial, but who doesn’t want to have once-in-a-lifetime
opportunities and experiences? And doing these things helps to create better
content which can go on to help others in ways which I might not be able to if
I hadn’t had those opportunities. Now, on Blogger, you can not only see the
statistics on your views of the entire blog and each blog post, but also the
stats regarding the popularity (or otherwise!) of the different pages of the
blog/website. Being in discussions with our Communications and Marketing Advisor,
I decided to tell her about the fact that I’d discovered the most popular page
on Shake My Hand was the Welcome Message (which you can read here) and
one of the least viewed was the Volunteer Vacancies page (which I linked
earlier). And I obviously really wanted that to be the other way round because
my priority then was actually to gain Volunteers more so than me wanting people
to really understand the Campaign. She said that perhaps people weren’t keen on
volunteering because it’s the ‘Summer holidays’ in the UK right now so children
and young people are off School and that means a lot of adults are taking time
off work to make quality memories with them. Inspired by this very valid point,
I created some social media posts where I explained that you can apply for a voluntary
position with the Campaign and if you’re successful, you could always postpone
your start date to September. Within twenty-four hours, the Volunteer Vacancies
page became the most viewed, so I hired that person as recognition and
appreciation for her brilliant thought and insight!
3. Reach Volunteering: When I first realised, I needed
to recruit Volunteers for the Campaign, my first thought as a point of advertising
the vacancies was Reach Volunteering because it’s actually a website which I’ve
used myself to land voluntary work experience, so I know how popular it is in
the industry. Upon briefly looking into it though, I read that you needed to
match a specific criterion to be eligible to advertise on the site and I
assumed the Campaign likely wouldn’t qualify and moved onto other routes. With
these alternatives not really having the results I wanted, I decided to
research Reach again and when I saw we needed a ‘legal structure’ I almost gave
up again! But, upon Googling, I discovered that it wasn’t a huge task to
establish such a structure for the Campaign and so I created that, an
organisation structure, and completed the rest of the application to advertise (which
included detailing the beneficiaries of your work) and was absolutely made up
when it was approved! The next hurdle came when I had to create all the
vacancies because the adverts I’d been using couldn’t be uploaded, you had to
complete a form listing different aspects of each vacancy, so I was really
worried I did that wrong too(!), but they were all approved as well!
4. Having A Team of Five Volunteers(!): My thoughts on Reach Volunteering
were proven correct when we began receiving applicants within 48 hours of
posting the vacancies! So, in addition to the Fundraising Coordinator and
Communications and Marketing Advisor – who applied via email – I have been able
to hire a Social Media Assistant (who you can read about on the Campaign’s Meet The Team
page) and two Research Assistants (who are going through the Induction phase so
they’re not on the website yet!) through Reach! Also, through Reach, we have one
Volunteer we’re awaiting confirmation from for their acceptance of the offer of
their role (Graphic Designer) so the Team will grow to six! This is kind of a
surreal thought for me because like I said, I genuinely hadn’t envisioned
needing Volunteers when creating the Campaign, but I’m already finding have
them really useful in reducing my workload and having different perspectives and
ideas contribute.
The First Hashtag Movement: #tellthemsooner
On July
31st 2024, Shake My Hand launched its first hashtag movement titled:
#tellthemsooner on social media (you can see the Instagram reel for it here) and in a News Article
on the website (which you can read: #tellthemsooner
| Shake My Hand (shakemyhanduk.blogspot.com)). This movement was massively
inspired by the statistics I had learn through my research into the purpose and
meaning of the Campaign in general. It was particularly about those regarding
the fears a lot of rape and abuse survivors (5 in 6 women and 4 in 5 men don’t
report) have in the thoughts of reporting their experiences to the Police. So,
in addition to rape cases now taking up to two years to go from that initial report
with the Police to completing through court, 40% of survivors fear
embarrassment, 38% felt the Police couldn’t help, and 34% believe it would be
humiliating to report their experiences.
An
element of reporting rape and abuse this News Article discussed came to light
from the fact that a huge influence on #tellthemsooner was the fact that when I
reported my own experiences of six months of abuse and one instance of rape,
the first question the Police asked me was “why didn’t you tell us sooner?” So,
in the News Article I explored whether there were even any benefits to asking
something like this, whilst also explaining that the Police had told me that
they’d asked because it would be what the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would
ask them and if they already had the answer, it would save them from coming
back to ask me.
I also
used the News Article to mention the five benefits a survivor might experience
in reporting their experiences:
1.
The
knowledge that you’ve done all that you can to prevent it happening to someone
else.
2.
A
sense of closure that you no longer have to keep it a secret.
3.
A
piece of evidence and illustration of your strength and bravery.
4.
The
opportunity to receive help and support now that people know why you might need
it.
5.
A
chance to receive knowledge and input from specialist Police Officers and
professionals.
As part
of this movement, I approached several UK Police Forces and surprisingly,
inspirationally, and amazingly received some interest and curiosity from London’s
Metropolitan Police Force
so there’s actually been a lot of exciting, so far top-secret talks with them
behind-the-scenes!
Creating The Brand Strategy
In
preparation for a hugely important meeting (which I’ll discuss later in this
post), one of two huge moves (I’ll be discussing the other move later too!) in
terms of having documents for all those attending, was that I created a Brand
Strategy! I recognised the need for this through some specific thoughts and
concerns around recruitment – particularly around hiring a Social Media
Assistant and Graphic Designer because they were the two roles (perhaps in
addition to the Fundraising Coordinator and Communications and Marketing
Officer) that I felt would really need an awareness of the aesthetics of the
Campaign which I really wanted consistency around.
So, originally,
the document was titled ‘Brand Guidelines’ because that was the name of a document,
I received in one of my voluntary jobs which included similar content that I
wanted in what I was intending to create e.g. the brand colour scheme and the typography
(fonts) used. Open doing some research however – particularly using Hubspot.com
(an amazing website that is proving really useful for other documents for the
Campaign which, again, I’ll discuss later) – I discovered there was perhaps a
greater need or relevance for a full ‘Brand Strategy’ document that would
include other important information as well as that which I had deemed to be
essential for the voluntary roles I mentioned. When I began creating this
document, I remember saying to a friend “why do I make so much work for myself?!”
because in deciding to do the Campaign… Well, let’s just say everything I’ve needed
to do for it, has been about 100% more than what I had imagined! And I just
keep thinking and realising; ‘it’s such a good job I enjoy this!’ I totally
recognise that if I didn’t find creating documents like this interesting and if
I wasn’t as passionate about this industry as I am, then I probably would find discovering
I needed to create a Brand Strategy really disheartening and might find my
decision to create Shake My Hand to actually be somewhat regretful. Fortunately,
even though I’d say I’ve had a passion for all things communications and marketing
since my blogging career really started to take off and since I’m NOT
Disordered grew in its popularity and success, I think that my dedication and
interest in the industry is something which has actually greatly developed and
grown over the years.
In addition
to the original contents along the Brand Guidelines line of thought of the
varied typography used between different documents and online content and the
brand colour scheme, the Brand Strategy also includes: a Campaign Introduction,
a definition and explanation on ‘branding’ and it’s difference to the process
of marketing, all the elements that contribute to branding, a number of pages
on ‘Our Branding’ which include ‘Understanding Our Origin,’ ‘Our Target
Audience,’ ‘Our Mission Statement,’ ‘Defining Our Values, Qualities, and
Benefits,’ ‘Our Brand Voice,’ and ‘Our Visual Assets,’ and pages on our Visual
Assets which – as well as the typography and colour scheme – includes examples of
our most-used graphics.
Changes To The Campaign Timeline
So, the
second move made in preparation for the important meeting I’ll discuss next,
was when I decided to check whether I needed to make any updates to the
Campaign Strategy around a week or so before the meeting was scheduled to take
place. On doing this, I came to the Campaign Timeline page where I’d listed five
steps I wanted to achieve within the first six months from the Campaign’s
launch in June 2024. I was absolutely amazed, excited, and proud to discover
that I have achieved all five within the Campaign’s first two months!
These
five accomplished steps were:
1.
To
create excitement and publicity for the website launch via the Campaign’s
social media – I felt I’d achieved this by the fact that the website had
received those 1,000 views in that first week of its existence.
2.
To
have News Articles created and ready to publish from Day One of the website’s launch
– I have achieved this by having four Articles live on the website launch date as
well as continuing to produce at least weekly content on the website in the
form of News Articles.
3.
To
purchase the pipdig template (I chose the ‘Venture’ theme) and secure launch
blog posts on both I’m NOT Disordered and www.gumonmyshoe.com
– obviously all three happened (you can view the Gum On My Show post here: Gum
on My Shoe: Q&A with Aimee Wilson, Founder of Shake My Hand, the Media
Campaign for Survivors of Rape and Sexual Abuse) with the post on my blog
publishing on the date of the launch and I made the decision to have the post
on Gum On My Shoe published a week later so as to keep the momentum going!
4.
To
send the Campaign Strategy to various people and organisations – I achieved this
by emailing it to a variety of current and new contacts and it attracted
attention from numerous sources but particularly the Survivor’s Trust and
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) who both
scheduled meetings with me.
5.
To
publish the Volunteer Vacancies online – I achieved this by having them
advertised on the doit.org website first and now Reach Volunteering which has resulted
in the Campaign having a Social Media Assistant, Fundraising Coordinator, Communications
and Marketing Advisor, and two Research Assistants!
It felt
truly incredible to acknowledge these accomplishments that had – not so long
ago – felt miles away and were now completely achieved and they were really inspirational
in creating the next steps because I recognised the need to still maintain a
Campaign Timeline in the Strategy. So, I made the decision to keep the page
listing that they had been the goals but how quickly they had been achieved because
I thought that would show those being sent the Campaign Strategy – so, mostly prospective
endorsers – that Shake My Hand was making huge moves in such a short space of
time and that hopefully this would really speak volumes as to its potential.
The NHS Meeting
The second
to last week of August, I met with Cumbria,
Northumberland, Tyne, and Wear NHS Foundation Trust’s (CNTW) Chief
Executive; James Duncan, and Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs;
Debbie Henderson to discuss connecting the Trust with Shake My Hand. I was so
grateful to know both Debbie and James really well and to be to actually consider
them allies as well as colleagues now(!) because it really helped the nerves at
the thought of just how important and influential they are in their roles.
The one
uncertainty we discussed a lot was regarding the hiring of Volunteers for the
campaign and being mindful as to background checks and CV’s etc as well as monitoring
attitudes and behaviours in general but especially of those Volunteers who
might ‘almost’ directly interact with survivors through social media or
fundraising. These were really good points that I’ve definitely taken on board,
but which were somewhat mitigated by Reach Volunteering who are a very safe and
reliable service – though obviously not completely robust. It’s something I
think I really just have to take a chance on though and in some ways, trust my
instincts with people and the responsibilities I’m allowing them.
A
really good move it looks like we’ll be making in the not-too-distant future,
however, would be in endorsing and expressing the Trust’s support of the
Campaign through social media, the Trust’s website, and their staff newsletter.
We feel that this would be a really good move in light of the fact that not
only does it highlight the Campaign, but also that the Trust have been pretty
helpful for a service user (me!) in helping me to get to a place where I’m able
to do something like this. We hope that the endorsement would therefore not
only attract Survivors and for staff to refer Survivors, but also for a bit of
a boost of staff morale too to read of a success story and to see just the
potential that a service user can have.
Our First Event
The
Campaign also attended its first event – or at least I attended but on behalf
of and representing the Campaign! It was named Offence to Sentence and was
hosted by Northumbria University in one of their Faculty of Business and Law
buildings. There’s actually a post over on the Campaign’s website about this
event, so I’ll direct you to there if you’d like to know more about it: www.shakemyhandcampaign.com
Areas of Improvement
Now, if
this were even just two weeks ago, a huge area would have been recruitment, but
then Reach Volunteering approved the Campaign advertising vacancies and it’s
been one of our greatest strengths already!
So, an
area of improvement now, would be our social media following – we currently
have a combined following of over 200 but I’d really like to see that at 500 in
the next few weeks now that we have a Social Media Assistant who will begin having
part-management of the content on our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts
from September 6th. She seems really talented in her work and I’m
very hopeful that the content she designs/creates will do wonders for our
following. Obviously, social media is probably – in my opinion, at least – the greatest
marketing tool for a lot of new businesses and Campaigns like this one! So, that’s
why I think I put a lot of stress on bettering our presence and level of popularity
on there because I think it can do wonders for helping us to help more
Survivors. In connection with this, I’ll actually be putting together a
Marketing Strategy for the Campaign and I’m hopeful that our Social Media
Assistant will prove extremely useful on one relevant part of this too!
I’m massively
looking forward to the future of the Shake My Hand Campaign and I’m extremely bolstered
by what the Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs said in the NHS
Meeting; “it has huge potential!”