European Estonian Song & Dance Festival V
Social Media Management
In September 2018 as part of Estonia’s centenary celebrations, the fifth European Estonian Song & Dance Festival brought together 250 singers from Estonian choirs and folk dance groups from 14 European countries to the city of Leicester in the Midlands.
The three day programme of performances took the audience on a musical journey through the last 100 years of Estonian history. The songs and dances represented the years from first independence in 1918 to annexation by the Soviet Union in 1944 to the regaining of nationhood in 1991 and, further still, into the new millennium.
Social Media Management
Rehearsals in full swing
Curly Strings performing
Performances at Jubilee Square, Leicester
When I heard that the European Estonian Song & Dance Festival V was coming to Leicester, I was very excited and immediately volunteered to help with promoting it on social media! As a native Estonian now living in the UK, I wanted to do my bit and play an active part in Estonia’s centenary celebrations.
The main objective of the event was to introduce Estonian music and dance to a wider audience in the UK and to celebrate Estonia’s centennial together with Estonians who live abroad so working closely Katrin Puutsa, another willing member of the volunteer team, I put together a detailed social media content plan for the dedicated Facebook page. The plan included a variety of engaging content that was a mixture of original images and videos alongside curated content from the media and user generated content alongside Facebook advertising to encourage ticket sales for the main event at The Venue, De Montfort University.
To generate interest and reach amongst a wide audience demographic, we created weekly campaigns including ‘Performer Spotlights’ and ‘100 year campaign’ which took the audience on a nostalgic and emotional journey through the last 100 years of Estonian song & dance. On the day of the event, we had a great time capturing and broadcasting live performances and the atmosphere behind the scenes through Facebook Live videos.
All in all, it was a very successful event with visitors coming from as far as Australia, the US and Canada and it received some great publicity including an interview on BBC Radio Leicester, an article covered by news outlet Estonian World as well as appearing in the national news on Aktuaalne Kaamera and in daily newspaper Õhtuleht in Estonia! Once the event was over, we continued to raise awareness of the event by sharing highlights from performances and links to the media which featured the event to maximise reach and awareness.
I really enjoyed working with Katrin during those intense couple of months leading up to the event but sticking closely to the social media plan and the devised strategy, we worked really well together as a team and can feel proud to have contributed to the success of this centenary celebratory event!
“I would like to thank Katie at Nysnö for all the help and advice to make the social media campaign for European Estonian Song and Dance Festival V a success. Katie offered professional advice about social media content, devised a comprehensive plan to maximise reach and created engaging content to engage the audience. I would highly recommend Nysnö for anyone looking for help to manage their social media. The service and communications were timely, and it was really easy to work with Katie, as she also answered and explained more specific queries and did research about the algorithms and promotions and made it easy to understand.
— Katrin Puutsa, European Estonian Song & Dance Festival V