Customer Stories
Celebrating and serving diverse communities on social media
Hackney Carnival has been an opportunity for Hackney Council to bring the community together, celebrate diversity, and share positive stories about the borough.
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Hackney Carnival made a triumphant return in 2024 after a period of absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the comms team at the London Borough of Hackney Council tasked with generating excitement, fostering a sense of community, all while carefully managing public expectations.
In line with the Council’s Community Strategy, the Carnival was one of several events contributing to its 5-step plan:
- A borough where everyone can enjoy a good quality of life, and the whole community can benefit from growth.
- A borough where residents and local businesses fulfil their potential, and everyone enjoys the benefits of increased local prosperity and contributes to community life.
- An open, cohesive, safer and supportive community.
To help showcase the power of community and build a sense of pride in local residents, the comms team at Hackney Council aimed to harness their already engaged audience across social media during the run-up to the event and secure positive media coverage of the Carnival itself.
The challenge
Absent from the area since the COVID-19 pandemic, the return of Hackney Carnival was seen as a milestone for both the Council and local residents, and a driving factor in cementing the idea of ‘community’ in the area. Announced in March 2024, they were tasked with generating a buzz around the event while addressing safety and crime concerns typically associated with large-scale events such as these.
The team at Hackney Council demonstrated how a major event can be successfully delivered and communicated, engaging residents and partners alike. As part of this, they also needed to ensure logistical information was shared with those attending and affected by the event in the local area, to ensure resident safety. Finding the balance between the ‘fun’ side of the Carnival and key safety messaging, and choosing the right channels to deliver this messaging was essential.
The team at Hackney also faced additional challenges around managing a large communications team, who were on the ground capturing and posting content during the carnival. Throw into the mix several external partners from other areas of the public sector that were supporting the carnival’s organisation, promotion within the community and on the day logistics – the need to have clear, manageable and collaborative comms had to be a priority.
The solution
As a team, they developed a comprehensive plan to promote the carnival in the run-up to the event, as well as on the day, using a mixture of paid social advertising and organic social campaigns. Collaborating across departments with the Council’s Culture Team, as well as other key stakeholders within the community, such as the Metropolitan Police, added credibility and expanded the reach of their comms.
Across the Council’s established Facebook and Instagram social media channels, the carnival was strategically marketed as a family-friendly event, incorporating appropriate branding and activities into the posts and videos that were shared. Video content on their Instagram account proved particularly popular and engaging for residents, with a combined average watch time on Reels sitting at 11.3 seconds. These reels touch upon key bits of information, such as the carnival route, helping to keep residents safe during the event.
Utilising features within the Orlo platform, such as the content calendar and scheduling tool, enabled the team to effectively plan and bring their social strategy to life, while maintaining control and visibility across all outbound activities. On the day, socials were managed by a social media working group that was out and about amongst the attendees, capturing the event’s atmosphere and the voices of the local community.
Having a central platform from which to manage their social media activities also meant the team was well-placed to activate its crisis communications plan if warranted. Thankfully, the crisis comms plan was not needed for the Carnival, partly because of the extensive comms that the team had shared across social in the run-up to the event, which had helped create a truly engaged audience that had all the key information easily accessible to them.
“Using Orlo massively helped with planning, scheduling and posting Hackney Carnival content, both in the lead-up and on the day. It enabled multiple members across our team to contribute to scheduling, while still giving the core Digital Comms team oversight to manage social output. Avoiding oversaturation and maintaining a balance with our business-as-usual content.”
Thaddaeus Brown | Digital Communications and Commercial Officer
The results
After a five-year hiatus, the carnival’s return generated extremely high levels of engagement across social media with the hashtag #HackneyCarnival, with a ‘very positive’ sentiment measured across all social platforms used by the Council to promote the carnival. The team showcased the community feel of the event across the organisation’s social channels with a series of engaging reels and videos, which achieved high viewing figures; this success was also echoed across traditional media.
The post-event analysis that the Comms team pulled after the carnival had taken place speaks for itself. With a strong engagement rate of 4.14% across both Facebook and Instagram, and audience sentiment remaining ‘very positive’ across the campaign, it’s clear that the team achieved what they’d set out to do.
The return of the carnival successfully fostered community benefits and resident pride, bringing people together. Bringing together key partners, including the Metropolitan Police, London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and Transport for London – all of which were integral to the Carnival’s smooth and successful delivery.
The team at Hackney Council were able to effectively demonstrate how big events like this can be used as the benchmark for success for new events that shape the community, helping them manage and engage people more effectively.
Engagement
4.14%
engagement rate across Facebook and Instagram
Engagement
11-second
average watch time on video content
Trust
‘Very Positive’
sentiment across the campaign
Inbox monitoring supported social listening and helped shape content, including an Instagram reel, featuring our Artistic Director, Pax Nnindi, reassuring the public that the rain wouldn’t last and that ‘his ancestors bring sunshine to London whenever he does Carnival’. Posted the day before Carnival took place, it engaged really well, and, fortunately, turned out to be true!
The ability to add a dedicated campaign tag to our posts when scheduling and retroactively tag native posts also made it easy to generate insights and share reports with colleagues and stakeholders.
Thaddaeus Brown
Digital Communications and Commercial Officer
