SOCIAL MEDIA Social media remained huge for the park over the last two years and our presence increased beyond our dreams, particularly during the periods when we were in lockdown due to Coronavirus in 2020 and 2021. Our Chief Executive Officer, Steve Nichols, continued to throw himself in front of the camera and filmed hundreds of live videos with many of our animals and birds. The ‘Lives’ enabled us to remain connected with our thousands of followers and keep everyone updated with their favourites at the park. Videos were streamed live to Facebook, and it was soon apparent that our ‘Super Steve’ was fast becoming a social media star across the world. Over 3 million views later and a resounding success, we are hoping Super-Steve will not get camera shy too soon. The charts below show the numbers of unique users to our Facebook page, and demonstrate how numbers have increased gradually to June 2020, with a huge leap in numbers in early 2021 due to a ‘live hatching’.
The popularity of the ‘live’ videos and our use of social media prompted us to develop a short survey for our followers in order for us to determine just how beneficial they have been throughout a very difficult time for everyone across the world. The survey was launched in April 2021 as we approached the lifting of restrictions. A huge amount of people have responded so far and have overwhelmingly said that the videos helped people cope with the challenges associated with the pandemic.
We will be carrying out a full analysis of the comments received shortly, and the outcomes will be detailed in our next Annual Report.
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