Polly Barnfield, OBE, breaks down a 8 Below Husky Rescue post to show how charities connect with people online. A striking puppy photo stops the scroll, an emotive rescue story builds trust, and a clear call to action drives sign-ups. Any charity can use these same tactics: visuals, storytelling, partnerships, and explicit asks.
Chapters
Today we're looking at how to help people connect with you on social Media. This is 8 below Husky Rescue. Now, you would imagine that it would be easy for a rescue center or rehoming center, anything like that, to connect with people easily, particularly using social media. However, there is an art to it which any business can learn from. So what I love about this, I was just. Well, first of all, it's the image. Now, you cannot beat a puppy. Of course you can. You cannot be a gorgeous little animal. And here, I mean, anyone on Instagram would immediately be, you know, taken by that if you're a dog lover, a pet lover, or just to be honest, a general human being. So many gorgeous puppies there, which would immediately make you stop scrolling. So first of all, it is about the image. If you want to connect with people, particularly if you're a charity or particularly if you have a story to tell, then the image is what's going to stop people scrolling on Instagram, first of all. So think about what will connect. So I call it hitting people in the funnies or hitting people in the fields. Get them in the funnies. It's got to be like a gaff or a meme or something funny if you want to hit them in the fields. It's something that's emotive and a lot of the times it is about, you know, the humans behind a business or indeed the pets behind a business. Now here, and this is all about the puppies, as you can see. So it's saying polar pups incoming. Then they've gone into lots of details saying how, how they welcome them into their care. It's hard to believe these guys were dumped in a bucket. I can't even imagine at less than a week old with their eyes still sh. Rescue Me Animal Sanctuary and that amazing hand reading team have done a phenomenal job. And then the puppies are heading to a member of the rehoming team to continue their development and find their forever homes. They're explaining that they don't really know what breed they are, but they think they're X, Y and Z. They're going to stay in their care until they're ready for their forever home. However, you can register your interest by the website. So this is about a rehoming center and an animal sanctuary working together, which is lovely. So it's, you know, it's nice to see, I guess almost two charities or two, two bodies working together. And again, a lot of charities do this within the charity sector. A lot of volunteer, volunteer organizations sort of you know, cross, cross, collaborate and things like that. So it's really, really good to see that and for them to, you know, show how grateful they are. It shows people, I guess, you know, like, people get an insight into what the animals have been through and therefore, you know, they can connect with it and then they can also then look at, you know, what is actually going to happen with them now. And then they've been very clear and saying they're looking for a forever home there. So they will obviously clearly vet people to make sure that they are the right type of people to take on a breed like that. And then they've said to you, they've got the call to action so you can register your interest by the website. So that is stop scroll, AKA stop me from what? From scrolling on past you with the image. Then it's telling me that what's incoming, it's telling me their story, it's telling me about how they're working together so we can really get that human factor. Then it's giving me a call to action and they can see that they're based across the UK and people have just absolutely fallen in love with these apps, these gorgeous creatures. Now, any charity can learn from this. It's about storytelling.
