Case study · Digital audit and strategy · WA · 2016
DFES: a social media strategy for when it matters most
In an emergency, social media is a direct line to the public. We audited DFES’s channels and built a strategy to keep that line clear and trusted.
Client
Department of Fire and Emergency Services
Where
Cockburn, WA
When
2016
What we did
The brief
DFES coordinates emergency services across WA for natural disasters and emergency incidents, with more than 1,600 operational staff and corporate personnel and over 27,000 volunteers. When something goes wrong, the public needs to hear them clearly and trust what they say.
The brief: audit DFES’s social media, build a strategy that served its operational goals, and set out best practice for each platform.
The work
We audited DFES’s social media performance and built the strategy on one argument: in a crisis, social media is not a nice-to-have. It is infrastructure, and it has to work.
It covered how to get life-saving information out quickly and clearly, how to make DFES’s voice sound trusted rather than bureaucratic, and how to fit content to each platform without losing the weight of the message.
The takeaway
Clear and engaging are not opposites. When lives are on the line, you need both.
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