— Case Study
The English-Speaking Union was changing young lives. But nobody knew who they were.
When an organisation spends decades shaping how young people think, speak and argue, you'd expect that story to travel.
For the English-Speaking Union, it wasn't travelling as far as they'd hoped.
As a team who spend our working days trying to say things clearly and persuasively, oracy is a subject close to home - so when ESU came to us, we wanted to help them make more noise about the difference they were making.
What we found was an organisation with a genuinely powerful mission that audiences simply weren't hearing about. Here's how we fixed it.
KEY INSIGHTS
Challenge
The ESU needed to boost brand awareness and increase registrations for a range of events and initiatives.
Diagnosis
The problem was invisible; ESU was promoting Oracy, a skill which is often seen as something people are born with, not a skill they can learn.
What We Did
We shifted the storytelling itself, moving away from abstract talk of oracy's benefits and towards clear before-and-after narratives - using real student voices and testimonials to show how speaking skills change opportunities, not just performance.
Average engagement rate achieved across social content.
Engagements achieved across social content.
Impressions achieved across social content.
The Challenge
The English-Speaking Union came to us with two goals: boost brand awareness by growing impressions across LinkedIn and Meta (Instagram and Facebook), and increase registrations across their initiatives - from ESU membership to their regular and flagship events.
The Diagnosis
The awareness problem ran deeper than a lack of visibility. ESU's core challenge was that it promotes something invisible and underestimated. Oracy - the ability to speak confidently and articulately - is often seen as something people simply have, not something that's taught. That meant audiences didn't feel an urgent problem to solve, and the value of ESU's work was easy to overlook. The bottleneck wasn't the mission. It was the story being told about it.
What We Did
We built a multi-channel social media strategy centred on three content pillars - Education, Engagement, and Thought Leadership - giving every part of ESU's work a clear home and consistent promotion on the feed, while still leaving space for regular and flagship event content.
We shifted the storytelling itself, moving away from abstract talk of oracy's benefits and towards clear before-and-after narratives - using real student voices and testimonials to show how speaking skills change opportunities, not just performance.
Alongside this, we produced content that educated audiences on the breadth of ESU's work: event promotion, engaging social quizzes, and behind-the-scenes content spotlighting the trustees and people driving the organisation forward.
Our Human-First Approach
Confident speaking is often seen as something you're born with, which is exactly why ESU's work was easy to overlook, and abstract arguments for oracy weren’t going to change this perception.
To make the mission accessible to all, we rebuilt the English Speaking Unition’s content around real young people telling their own before-and-after stories, showing how finding their voice opened doors, and gave the trustees and people behind ESU a place on the feed too.
Once audiences could see the people impacted by ESU’s mission, they could see - and be invested in - it too.
The results are in
In the months following working with Giraffe Social, ESU's social presence went from quiet to unmissable, achieving over 1.9 million impressions, and turning a story nobody knew into one audiences engaged with directly.
The content that moved the numbers
Oracy is a hard thing to make visible. We made it feel real - before-and-after student stories and behind-the-scenes moments that gave ESU's audience a reason to care, without ever feeling like a pitch.
In their own words...
Working with Giraffe has been a game-changer for the English-Speaking Union. Their commitment to our brand has been evident in every post, campaign, and interaction.
The team has an in-depth understanding of social media trends and a remarkable ability to craft tailored strategies that resonate with our target audience. They don't just manage our accounts; they bring a creative flair and a strategic mindset that have significantly boosted our online presence and engagement rates.
Judith Bijeri
Assistant Marketing Director, English-Speaking Union
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