Polly Barnfield, OBE, breaks down a Bradford cycling charity's successful social media post about gifting bikes to refugees. The post had a four-month waiting list and sparked high engagement by combining professional design, emotional storytelling, and a clear call to action. She shows how to use platform features to build relationships with local shops and clubs, turning posts into sustained community support.
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Today we're with one of Bradford's Green street pioneers. This is the capital of cycling. Looking at how promoting a good cause on social media can drive engagement and community capital. Cycling is a charity that, as you can probably tell from this post, works to help grow cycling in Bradford. And they've done an amazing initiative which they've publicized through social media during Refugee Week 20 to help connect bikes with the less fortunate to enhance their lives. Firstly, I want to look at the post itself. It's such a professional look and image and I think that any business could do something like this with Canva or any other sort of photo editing tool where they've literally taken an image of them sorting out the bikes in the shop and then they've added in the wording, which is great. And it's great that they've also put in the the website, which is fantastic. First of all, it's a great looking post, so clearly know what they're doing with a fab image and it's also a really then emotive description. So they went to a lot of detail explaining that they've got a lot of people on their waiting list now for their bike gifting scheme and at present the waiting list stands at around four months. So that shows that they desperately need more bikes to be to be donated. And it said these bikes provide much needed transport to those who have very little. So again, it's giving you that emotion behind it. It helps connect you with the story as to why they're doing what they're doing. And then it seems some recipients, people that receive them go on to volunteer in the workshops and they just feel like they're actually more valued member of the community. And then they've commented that that includes Ahmad, he's in the image himself, so he's actually volunteering his time, which is incredible. And then they're just explaining what they need from you. So they've gone on to say, this is what we're doing, this is the reason why this is the effect it has on people. And then they're saying exactly what they need you to do. So whether it's giving a few pounds or giving some volunteer time or it's giving an old bike. I think all in all it just gives a feeling of well again, it's just emotion, it humanizes the organization, it brings you on the journey through good storytelling. It really helps get the message across and got amazing engagement off the back of it, which was incredible. So it really raises awareness of what the team are doing in terms of Bringing a community together. And you can see by all of the questions, they've gone back in, they've answered every single one of them. People are genuinely interested. People have gone on and shared the post itself, which, as I say, just raises awareness what the team are doing to bring the community together. So I think the overall message is community, it's about helping people and I think we've really got that across. And so I guess my message to any business is that it's. Social media is a great way to support causes that matter the most to you. But make sure you get as descriptive and emotive as possible, because it always helps. If I was these guys, I'd want to be engaging with other psycho shops, maybe cycle clubs, etc. Because, you know, it would be a great way to again, do skill swaps or do some volunteering. So what I would do is go to the Engage tab in my maybe platform and I would add in cycle clubs or. Yeah, like local. Local cycling shops, for example, within the wider Bradford area might be further away. You add them in and then you create a little. You create a little group. So you would click here and then all the bike shops that you've added in would then come up here and you could go in and start. You know, it's just about building relationships with them so you don't have to send them or anything straight away. What you can do is start going in and liking their content. You can engage, you can comment, you can share their posts, because, again, it just shows, you know, they might be able to do some kind of reciprocal campaign. They might be able to promote what these guys are doing and it might just be that they've just never come up on their radar before. So it's just such a great way of finding businesses to engage with and do it on a regular basis without actually having to troll through Instagram or Facebook or Twitter to do it. Now, if you've got any questions whatsoever, click on the little blue button. We'd love to help.
