Evaluation of the Shiny Side Up Partnership’s Know the Dangers campaign suggests that social media campaigns can be beneficial for engaging with specific target audiences, especially through paid advertising.
The campaign comprises a series of short films and infographics designed to increase driver and rider knowledge about the most common motorcycle collisions with the aim of preventing future crashes.
The films were shared on social media, supported by paid advertising. This helped them to reach a large audience – with more than 600,000 views recorded across three waves of the campaign.
The SSUP received funding from the Road Safety Trust to evaluate the campaign, in an effort to understand the level of reach generated by the campaign.
The evaluation was carried out independently by Agilysis, who brought together social media metrics with website analytics and responses to an online survey.
It found the social media campaign was successful, with high numbers of views in each of the waves.
In terms of understanding the views, from those who responded to the survey, the evaluation finds that the resources were useful. Most respondents:
- Watched the films and applied the tips to their riding
- Found the resources engaging
- Thought they were aimed at people like them
- Thought the resources were informative
- Learnt something and could remember information contained in the resources
- Felt that social media platforms were a good method of sharing messages
- Disagreed that road safety messages are too complicated to share on social media
Additionally, the free text responses regarding what they had learnt reflected the campaign aims of recognising hazards, observation, anticipation, and exercising caution through defensive riding techniques.
Nearly half of respondents said that their knowledge of motorcycle collisions increased and that they now follow SSUP on social media.
What can road safety professionals learn?
The evaluation also seeks to contribute to the evidence base for understanding how effective social media is when used as the primary vehicle for disseminating road safety campaign materials.
For other road safety professionals, the evaluation suggests that social media campaigns can be beneficial for engaging with specific target audiences, especially through paid advertising.
As with any road safety communications approach, it says the objectives of the campaign need to be defined in advance, being realistic about what can be achieved through information raising.
For SSUP, the aim of KTD was to increase awareness of the types of risks motorcyclists are exposed to and the evaluation says the use of films appears to be successful in achieving this.
Key messages for road safety professionals:
- Social media campaigns, using engaging videos, provide a method of engaging with target audiences
- Those target audiences should be clearly defined in advance, accepting that one campaign message is unlikely to be relevant to multiple audiences
- Paid advertising greatly increases reach
- Engagement can remain high, even when new materials are posted regularly
- Messages can be recalled by target audiences 12 months later
- A low-cost campaign can achieve high reach
- Target audiences feel that social media works as a method of sharing road safety messages
The evaluation was published on 9 November, to coincide with the 2022 National Road Safety Conference. Its findings were presented by Heidi Duffy MBE, SSUP facilitator.
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