On the 6th February Time To Change held their Time To Talk day. They used social media to spread the word and encouraged people to take time out of their day to talk about mental health with their friends and families. The night before as commuters came through London's Kings Cross station they were faced with giant tea cups featuring the hashtag #TimeToTalk. This raised awareness and the photos were then shared online via social media.
The #TimeToTalk hash tag on Twitter played a big part in the day and many people tweeted about their experiences, leading to this eventually becoming a trending topic on the site. The campaign also had a presence on Facebook, encouraging people to write statuses promoting the messages behind Time To Talk day, and encouraging friends to join in. The Facebook presence included photography of Time To Talk day biscuits and teabags that were being used to promote the special events, along with Youtube links to their television adverts.
A live blog was regularly updated throughout the day on the campaign's website showing pictures of celebrities on TV talking about Time To Talk day, newspaper coverage, a live webchat, trending on Twitter, photos from the public that were shared on social media and also sharing links to support services. The website made use of user generated content from social media sites by involving the public's photos of them taking part and compiling them in the blog.
This campaign, and particularly this event of Time To Talk day, are a great example of how an integrated approach to media can have a big impact on awareness of a topic. Although traditional media has a wide reach, social media brought this campaign to life with real people sharing their experiences and sharing photos. This lead to greater reach of the campaign as others saw their friends on social media discussing the campaign when they may not have noticed it in a newspaper or watched coverage on TV.
