Our work

first direct: UK’s first social bank

Brief: Wolfstar has provided strategic online public relations and social media consultancy to first direct since 2008. For this campaign the bank wanted to become known as the UK’s first ‘social bank’ in a bid to further highlight its continued innovation in the banking sector.

Activity: Working closely with first direct and other partner agencies, Wolfstar created the UK’s first social media newsroom for a financial services company – a site designed primarily to help journalists who are looking for the latest first direct news and resources.

Wolfstar developed a programme to help orientate the first direct public relations team with the new media landscape.  As part of this process we provided counsel which helped them build capacity within the space by revamping the online newsroom and launching presences on Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

Wolfstar launched the first social media newsroom and integrated it with a Twitter presence, creating a news and response feed for journalists working online. Wolfstar also conducted a live webcast in partnership with The Independent and the Carbon Trust which generated significant coverage in both the mainstream media and across the social internet

Results: Visitors to the social media newsroom increased from five a week for the old press office site to more than 2,400 a week. The success of Wolfstar’s modernised media relations approach included achieving the number one ranking on Google News on the opening day of the Copenhagen summit.

Today, the first direct social media newsroom is acknowledged as an exemplar of best practice and is one of the most frequently cited case studies at social media and public relations conferences.