Case Study: National Zakat Foundation

The Challenge

NZF’s social media strategy was manual, informed by the opinions and experiences of their team members rather than analytical insight. Their online presence was small, and campaigns transactional with no solid structure. 

Therefore, NZF could only make assumptions based on intuition and were without data to support these choices. Topical content was selected based on ‘gut feeling’, and they were not tracking a core set of KPIs. This resulted in a strategic vacuum with disjointed individual campaigns that achieved varied engagement and resonance.

The Solution

It was clear to NZF that without analysis and understanding of the community they wanted to connect with, their strategic efforts would be unsuccessful. Having heard about our advanced social data skills and capacity to provide insight and actionable learnings to steer and optimise projects, NZF approached Ten Bear for expert guidance. As their chosen vendor, we worked with NZF to help them understand how their social media strategy could be adapted to effectively build relationships within the community.

Together with NZF we identified focus campaigns and conversations for analysis, in addition to the key questions they were looking to answer:

• How do we engage our community?
• What is our current narrative & standing within the community?
• How should we change & move forward?

Using Brandwatch Consumer Research Platform and some supplemental manual analysis, our project lead Cherry Stokes collated, segmented and structured thousands of conversations to uncover actionable insights and answers.

A keyword search was used to track conversation across all online media and specific social channels. In addition, we created a social panel of UK-based individuals (a broad and natural focus group) that had discussed Zakat on Twitter. We then analysed NZF’s existing campaign, including community response, performance of other institutions, and finally general conversation around Zakat during Ramadan (March-May 2021).

During our research, we observed an absence of certain data that we had expected to find, indicating that not all conversations were taking place publicly. The reasoning behind this formed the cornerstone of our analysis around Zakat.

The end result was a hefty 75 page report and delivery consultation to ensure NZF’s understanding of the insights uncovered during our investigation.

“We have completely reframed our approach – it has become so much more than transactional content, we’ve gone from a basic social media strategy to a complex community management approach – and are focussed on creating and shaping safe spaces for the community to discuss and engage with us in an authentic way.” ~ Zaynab Tariq, Communications Manager, NZF

The Result

In addition to pinpointing the specific content and topics that would resonate most with NZF’s audience, we also found that the action needed to connect with the community was far from what any of us could have predicted. From our analysis, we identified four key requirements for NZF’s new social media strategy.

1. Honesty: People respond to relevance and relativity. Informative, unbiased content creates a sense of trust and freedom to choose, and decisions are made based on individual views and values.
2. Listening: Relationships and trust are established by responding to the needs and concerns of the community. Responding to, and helping to shape a dynamic narrative will deliver a more positive experience.
3. Individuality: A segmented audience allows NZF to tailor their approach to the different groups identified within our analysis. Adapting rules of engagement, tone, and language of responses offers a more effective way of targeting people.
4. Safety: Many Muslims feel more comfortable asking questions and discussing their faith in closed groups. It is important for NZF to create a safe space for their audience, and engage with private groups to provide an authentic experience.

“We have completely reframed our approach – it has become so much more than transactional content, we’ve gone from a basic social media strategy to a complex community management approach – and are focussed on creating and shaping safe spaces for the community to discuss and engage with us in an authentic way.” 

We look forward to seeing this new strategy take shape, and to working with NZF again in future. If you’d like to know more about this, or want to discuss a similar project with us, get in touch.

Want to see how Ten Bear can help with your social listening efforts – get in touch today!