girlfriends groups (WAGS), pockets of Diaspora personnel, Station groups and forums. Groups and individuals often take the trouble to disseminate information for us voluntarily and this, too, helps spread the word of the Federation’s work and we are most grateful.
Forums visited by RAF personnel and their family members (for example PPRuNe, ARRSE, Mumsnet, E-Goat and RearParty) regularly refer to Federation alerts. As a result, many more visitors have been drawn to the site and signed up to receive their own alerts from the RAF Families Federation.
A winning formula The continual update of the front page stories, on an almost daily basis, works to provide a constant feed of new information to those who have subscribed to the Federation tweets on Twitter, Facebook and Blog. It also provides an ever-changing look to the front page for those visiting on an ad hoc basis.
The Federation website provides a unique function by feeding stories of particular interest to its audience. Importantly, it also feeds information on what the Federation is up to, where, in the media, its work has been featured, and provides feedback and reports compiled from evidence received.
Going Viral There is no doubt that the decision to place the survey questions online, as well as taking them around units, was the right one. Not only did it boost enormously the responses received but it also drove more of the Federation’s audience towards the website and its work.
Positive Experience Core information on the back pages is also updated regularly to keeps the information current and accurate. Links to other sites are kept under review so the Federation is not directing individuals to defunct sites or sites that have changed location. We believe the ease of navigation of the site and our willingness to link to other organisations of interest to the RAF family all contribute to the browsers’ positive experience.
Expanding Piece The Federation section of the website is an expanding piece of work and now carries the titles: The Federation; RAF FF
Reports, Quarterly Updates, RAF FF Stories in RAF News; Evidence- Gathering; Online Surveys; Promotional Items; Meet the Team; Contact Us and Federation News.
This year we have made far more use of the video playing facility and have been able to include sound bites, interviews from radio and television as well as televised coverage of Defence Committee sessions the Chairman has attended.
Sponsorship Sponsorship has always made an important contribution to the Federation’s marketing activity and year on year we have had cause to be grateful to Sodexo Defence for their unfailing generosity in funding the Federation’s Annual Report. This year has been no exception and we welcome their enduring commitment to our work.
For the next two years of the Federation’s contract sponsorship will play an even greater role as we work within a tighter budget. We are already in conversation with ISS Defence Services who hold the RAF Catering Retail and Leisure contract to see how we can work together to the mutual benefit of both organisations.
Families Days Families Days are a tremendous opportunity to meet with serving personnel and families in a more informal setting and to chat about our work. We attended many Station Families Days this year and believe this helped raise our profile, particularly with non-serving family members.
Profile After only 4 years, the profile and reach of the RAF Families Federation is, in our humble opinion, impressive and we are confident that our multi-layered comms strategy is reaching target audiences, particularly those serving. Non-serving family member awareness is likely to be weaker but we are confident that, if the Federation is needed, individuals will quite quickly turn to searching the Internet. And even a search of ‘RAF’ will bring up the Federation - so we are only a Click away from those who need us.
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