A digital Summit like no other: Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict

This is the second in a series of 3 blog posts about the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. See blog 1 and blog 3.

Having done the groundwork (see blog posting) the FCO’s digital team role during the Summit was twofold:

• To take the summit and fringe to those outside.
• To bring the global digital conversation inside the summit so those attending could see the widespread global support.

The team worked closely with the Media Office and was supported by our global digital hubs in Washington, Madrid, Singapore and Delhi to deliver 84 hours of continuous digital coverage

Staying informed

Summit topic pages on GOV.UK provided up-to-date information about the Summit and the 300 plus free Fringe events.

The pages explained the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) in detail and hosted all the key Summit documents such as the International Protocol, the UK National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2014-17 and the Statement of Action. (links)

Foreign Office press releases on the PSVI campaign and those issued during the Summit were published on one ‘news updates’ page, providing journalists and the public with an easy to use record.

People were also able subscribe to Summit emails with information on the Summit and Fringe, driving engagement and attendance.

• The Summit web pages received nearly 140,000 page views between February and June
• There were 4922 tweets and retweets linking through to the gov.uk summit home page
• The gov.uk Summit website was the top website link on social media related to the Summit.

We also live streamed the core summit sessions, and a live-blog on Storify with updates on the speeches, Fringe events, the global relay and highlights from social media from around the world. Once the summit in London closed down for the day the live blog was updated by our digital hubs with information every hour on what was happening in the global relay.

Bringing the conversation to London

Delegates at the ExCel were able to follow the global social media conversation via live screens and on a 6 metre wide digital wall in the fringe area.

On these screens we moved between featuring tweets from around the world, photo montages, video highlights packages and content from our ‘global relay’.

The relay took place over 84 hours with a whole range of events run by our embassies, such as the lighting up of iconic buildings, panel discussions, live performances, street art and even a High Commissioner in a campaign branded balloon flying over the Australian parliament in Canberra.

Every hour round the clock our digital hubs featured content from a different country on the global relay with an animated map to show where in the world the relay had reached.

Play it again

From past experience video of key note speeches has a significant audience. Our Summit   YouTube playlist featured all the keynote speeches including the Foreign Secretary, the Special Envoy and US Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as daily highlights videos from the Fringe, Summit and global relay.

We also asked Ministers and experts attending the Summit to record their messages of support  demonstrating their commitment to a public audience.

So far, videos from the Summit, including the pre-Summit ‘Nightmares’ animation, have received a total of over 180,000 views. Significantly 60% of these views come from countries identified as priorities in our communications strategy.