Back in the lockdown summer of 2020 we launched Earthtopia, a channel to help people ease eco-anxiety and highlight solutions to the climate crisis. As an specialist communications agency, we work with many sustainability-focused clients but we also wanted to use our skills to create something meaningful ourselves. Flash forward to 2024 and we now have 500,000+ followers - making it one of the biggest eco communities across TikTok and Instagram.
It’s been an exciting couple of years, including a book deal plus invitations to Youth COP and the inaugural Earthshot Prize awards ceremony. We’ve engaged over 15 million people in the last year alone and partnered with a host of like-minded brands, charities and organisations including the UN, Surfers Against Sewage, eBay, Nike and Gumtree.
As you can probably imagine, we’ve also researched, posted and learned a lot. So here are our top five tips for creating and building an engaged social eco community:
1. Be relatable - Finding your niche and owning it will ensure you create authentic content. The more you humanise and normalise a behaviour (such as taking climate action) the more you’ll reach audiences beyond your current followers and inspire people to act. Remember to stay relevant to your target audience and give them a reason to follow you and engage with your content. Our ‘How to Save the Planet’ series for example, features easy to adopt eco hacks that are weaved into everyday situations.
2. Focus on driving an emotional response - There’s a whole host of emotions that come to mind when discussing the climate crisis, so every piece of content we put out needs to make people feel something. Lots of our community have told us they struggle with eco-anxiety, so we keep things positive and solutions-focused to cut through the doom and gloom. Before scripting each video we ask ourselves, what reaction do we want our community to feel? e.g. 'That’s awesome! 'OMG I cannot believe that', 'That's hilarious', 'This makes me angry! etc.'
3. Utilise trends and trending sounds - This may sound like a no brainer, but often brands are scared to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to trends. The key isn’t necessarily speediness, although it helps to be one of the first, but to make sure you offer something new, interesting or funny. As a team, we run weekly meetings to stay on top of fast-moving trends and cultural moments, and find the most natural way to link them to the state of the planet or the frustrations and successes related to trying to live more sustainably.
4. Provide clear actions (and hope!) - Keep solutions and actions clear, concise and easy to adopt - a hopeful tone is a powerful tool. By imagining a better future that people can help shape encourages them to try something new or take action against companies, policies or governments who aren’t on the same wavelength.
5. Quality & Consistency - It’s not always MoM growth. Some days the algorithm will feed you thousands of views, others it will only be hundreds. Continue to build, test, and learn, but always ensure you’re making quality content that you're proud of and has a look and feel that is easily identifiable as your brand/channel. Start videos with a strong hook, ensure each line is useful or inspiring, use interesting visuals and short snappy edits to keep viewers watching to the end for the clear call to action, and always use specific hashtags!
Rob Greenfield is Account Director at specialist communications agency 33Seconds and Head of Earthtopia, one of the largest eco communities on TikTok and Instagram.
