World Press Freedom Day is a United Nations holiday to raise awareness of the importance of a free press. As the first Twitter brand campaign around @TwitterNews, my partner Tom and I set out to mobilize people on Twitter to talk about World Press Freedom Day.
We interviewed journalists and they told us that having a large following on Twitter can help them secure their next job. For local journalists dealing with shuttering newsrooms, this need was particularly acute. So we created #FollowLocalJournalists, a global day of action to spotlight local journalists who break the news before it is a trending hashtag.
On Twitter, we led with a call to action and showed people how to participate:
We worked with local news outlets to buy print ads and website takeovers in markets around the country and create lists of local journalists people could follow in a tap:
And people, newspapers, organizations, and acclaimed journalists joined in—from around the globe:
The campaign was celebrated by journalists:
And the results were newsworthy:
95% more World Press Freedom Day Tweets in the US vs the prior year.
35% more World Press Freedom Day Tweets globally vs the prior year.
40% of all global World Press Freedom conversation was about #FollowLocalJournalists.
And most importantly:
Journalists saw 38% more new followers than on a typical day.