#ReclaimSocial 2020 – A day full of positive messages

On Thursday 6 February we celebrated #ReclaimSocial 2020, the third year that we’re all coming together to highlight the positive side of social media.

There were thousands of inspiring messages on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn and we were grateful to have the support of CharityComms, NCVO, Charities Aid Foundation, Giving Tuesday, ACEVO, Social Misfits Media, IG Advisors, Zurich for Charities, Charity Digital News, Glitch, Action for Happiness, The Samaritans, among others.

With more than 3800 posts that reached over 14 million people, it was great seeing so many of you make our feeds more inspiring.

It was also the third year in a row that #ReclaimSocial trended on Twitter reminding us that social platforms are not always negative. People are still craving positive stories and it’s time to be more consistent with it!

#ReclaimSocial is not just a campaign. It’s a movement of positive people who want to change the face of social media for good.

Thanks for all your support and we’re already thinking of the next steps on how we can grow even more!

How to be positive when talking about important issues

We’ve had a very interesting chat with Nicola Gee, Senior Social Media Manager at WWF UK some months ago for the #ReclaimSocial podcast. This time, we wanted to find out more about how WWF UK are using social media for good. How can you stay positive when talking about the climate emergency?

At WWF-UK, it’s our job to inspire hope that we can fight the nature and climate crisis facing our planet. That’s why we share stories from the field on wildlife populations increasing, news stories of brands taking sustainability seriously, and content on how together we can all fight for our world. Hope is stronger than fear – and with hope, comes action! We’ve seen this time and time again when our supporters have rallied together to raise funds to help tackle the Amazon and Australia fires, petitioned for the UK to declare a climate emergency, and more. – Nicola Gee, Senior Social Media Manager, WWF-UK

West London Mission are also working on an important cause, empowering people affected by homelessness, poverty, and trauma to live more fulfilling lives. We know that they are doing an amazing job since they’re also part of our BRIDGE programme. They’ve joined #ReclaimSocial 2020 and we wanted to find out more about their plans for the day

WLM will be posting online using the #ReclaimSocial promoting our own current advertising campaign, aiming to break the stereotypes about rough sleepers and homelessness in general. We would like to see people’s perceptions altered towards a more positive direction and realise that they should not bucket homeless people in just one big group but to see that they are individuals with their own distinct skill sets, passions, dislikes, and personalities. –Panos Balalas, Communications and Marketing Manager, WLM

Articles talking about #ReclaimSocial

We were happy to see several articles mentioning #ReclaimSocial:

• Forbes wrote about #ReclaimSocial and the growing movement of positivity
• We’ve talked on CharityComms on how we can #ReclaimSocial as communicators
• CharityDigital talked about #ReclaimSocial and the heroes of positivity
• HelpfulDigital shared their own favourite uses of social media
• The European Fundraising Association covered #ReclaimSocial and how charities are joining
• Madeleine Sugden shared her top tips on how to improve your social media etiquette
• Emmy McCarthy wrote a blog on why we need to #ReclaimSocial and how we can

Examples of inspiring posts using #ReclaimSocial

It was very inspiring seeing so many different posts from individuals and organisations who want to make social media more positive.

Here are only a few of them:

To find out more, make sure you look at the Twitter Moment from Zurich for Charities and also by searching at the hashtag #ReclaimSocial on Twitter and Instagram.