Post Office Successfully Shuts Down Hate Speech During Pride Social Media Campaign, Leveraging Khoros to Manage Nearly 250,000 Social Engagements

Post Office, the biggest retail network in the UK with over 11,500 branches, today announced that it managed nearly 250,000 social engagements during their recent Pride campaign, leveraging Khoros, a global leader in digital-first customer engagement software, to respond to over 1,600 homophobic posts and educate them about the LGBTQ+ community. The surge in social engagement began when Courtney, a Post Office social media community team advisor, responded to a homophobic tweet — the tweet and Courtney went viral.

Post Office’s Pride 2020 Campaign

For Post Office, Pride 2020 was all about sharing stories as it embarked on its fourth year of Pride celebrations. To show their pride in being a part of the communities they serve, Post Office developed an integrated marketing campaign to execute corporate, consumer, and fundraising activities across digital channels (web, email, social media). But, with physical events cancelled, social media was their largest channel to celebrate the energy and message of Pride. Perhaps the most empowering campaign elements were their Journey to Pride videos, created by Kindred, which shared the stories and perspectives of their own community of postmasters, partners and colleagues.

#BeMoreCourtney is Born

It all started with a single-worded, negative comment. Demonstrating that there’s no place for intolerance or hate speech, Courtney took the bull by the horns and responded with a bold and brave response that caught the attention of thousands of Twitter users. Courtney’s response went viral, and the tweets kept rolling in over the following three weeks. Most of the tweets were supportive and encouraging, but there were still homophobic comments. Each negative tweet was received with a similar response from Courtney, or other members on the Post Office social media community team, challenging their comments and fostering more positivity and inclusivity. The hashtag #BeMoreCourtney was born, representing those who stand up to prejudice and support the LGBTQ+ community.

“Never in a million years did I expect to go viral by responding honestly to a tweet,” said Courtney. “I’m fortunate for the freedom and support that our team leaders empowered us with to combat these negative comments. I’m proud to be a part of the Post Office team where diversity, inclusion and community is so important.”

Post Office CMO Emma Springham also stated, “I feel proud of how Courtney and the entire social media community team took action and responded to the hate speech that surfaced during our Pride campaign, not only standing up for my journey but others in the LGBTQ+ community.” Springham added, “In the absence of physical events, digital engagement with our customers — especially on social media — was crucial to our 2020 campaign. And this year, our team greatly exceeded anything we had anticipated. Our Pride campaign garnered nearly 250,000 social engagements over seven weeks, compared to 19,000+ engagements in 2019. I’m blown away by the team’s efforts in managing these interactions during these difficult times while remaining true to what we stand for at Post Office.”

How the Post Office Managed Thousands of Social Posts with Khoros

As a result of the #BeMoreCourtney interactions, Post Office garnered 20,000+ social media engagements over the final three weeks of their Pride campaign. Courtney managed these conversations through Khoros’ digital customer care solution (Khoros Care), where she was able to survey the sentiment of the thousands of voices being monitored across social media channels, in addition to scaling with the influx of incoming posts. With Khoros Care, Post Office responded to over 1,600 customer and user comments across all of their social media platforms.

“A successful social media campaign isn’t just about the posts you create. It’s also about your replies to comments and fusing those two elements to produce an impactful and authentic campaign. This couldn’t have been validated more by this year’s Pride campaign,” said Darren Jones, senior social media manager at the Post Office. “With Khoros, our team was able to effectively listen to our customers, monitor national sentiment, and respond thoughtfully and quickly to thousands of individuals — an invaluable asset to continue to build relationships with our customers and community.”

Post Office has partnered with Khoros for the past five years to modernise its offering and deliver scalable care operations across Facebook and Twitter, helping them solve customer problems and create a friendly, helpful community. For more information about the Post Office, visit postoffice.co.uk. To learn about Khoros and its digital-first customer engagement software, visit khoros.com.

About Khoros

Khoros is a global leader in digital-first customer engagement software. We build enterprise software for digital customer service, online brand communities, and social media management — differentiated by award-winning services with 20+ years of experience. Over 2,000 brands, including 52 of the Interbrand 100 companies, use Khoros to power approximately 500 million daily digital interactions, and create customers for life. Khoros has over 10 industry awards from TrustRadius, Stevie Awards, G2, and more. Khoros, built from Spredfast and Lithium, has 9 offices globally and is part of Vista Equity Partners.

About Post Office

• With over 11,500 branches, Post Office is the UK’s largest retail network.
• 98% of Post Office branches are run with retail partners on an agency or franchise basis.
• Post Office provides services central to people’s everyday lives; 99.7% of the population lives within 3 miles of a Post Office.
• Post Office is proud to support their internal, grassroots LGBT+ network, Prism. The group is maintained and grown by Post Office staff of all seniority levels and pushes for greater workplace equality through a range of initiatives.
• Post Office offers the UK’s largest fee-free cash withdrawal network through their 11,500 branches, over 2,000 cash machines and 99% of UK bank customers can access their accounts at Post Office.
• Post Office offers 170 different products and services, spanning financial services including savings, insurance, loans, mortgages and credit cards; government services; telephony and broadband; foreign currency; travel insurance and mail services.
• Post Office branches remain highly valued and trusted, and are the focal point of many communities. For more information, visit www.postoffice.co.uk and to find out about Post Office business opportunities, visit www.runapostoffice.co.uk

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