The world and its granny have been chatting about the royal baby over the last week.
It’s fair to say that the term 'media frenzy' is an understatement in this instance and the coverage was unavoidable whether you were interested in an update or not.
I’m not going to lie, I did get quite excited about it all, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only person that begun following the official @ClarenceHouse Twitter account last Monday morning when I woke to the news that Kate had been taking into hospital in the early stages of labour.
The world’s media waited with baited breath for any form of update, and I found it quite amusing that they had to stretch out hours of news coverage on, what was, let’s face it, very little news!
But thankfully we got the news that we had been patiently waiting for, albeit four hours after the birth.
A proclamation signed by doctors who delivered Prince George was rushed from the ward and displayed on an easel at the gates of Buckingham Palace. I’ve since read that Prince William’s birth was announced in the same way back in 1982, so this tradition has been preserved to allow well-wishers to visit the palace to capture a little piece of history.
But 31 years on, things are very different. I find it endearing that they retained this royal occasion, whilst also fully embracing modern day communication channels to keep the public informed, in their own words.
From keeping an eye on the official Clarence House Twitter account, I was pleasantly surprised (and actually really impressed) at the social media activity carried out last week:
Like most breaking news stories these days, the world was told of the news on Twitter. The tweet from Clarence House announcing that “Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm” was re-tweeted more than 9,000 times in the first 20 minutes.
Twitter also confirmed on their blog that, following the announcement of the baby’s birth, there was more than 25,300 Tweets per minute surrounding the royal baby.
Once the news circulated that 'it’s a boy', the hashtag #RoyalBaby that had been trending worldwide last Monday quickly changed to #RoyalBabyBoy.
Clarence House used this opportunity to filter through the noise and create their own #WelcometotheWorld hashtag, asking Twitter users to tell them about any other new arrivals sharing a birthday with the new Prince.
Politicians, world leaders and celebrities took to Twitter to send messages of congratulations to Kate and William, and Clarence House was obviously monitoring these tweets as they quickly re-tweeted well wishes from David Cameron, Barack Obama and the Royal Navy.
In the days following the birth, Clarence House used Twitter to keep their new followers posted on quotes from the Royal family, posting messages from The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge thanking staff at the Lindo wing and sharing image galleries of the royal couple leaving the hospital.
Storify
As Clarence House was the main official Twitter account disseminating the latest updates, it was also inundated with replies and stories coming through their own #WelcometotheWorld hashtag. Not wanting to keep the stories to itself, it shared a selection of snaps and stories on Storify, a story-telling based social network.
The Storify feed collated images, captions and the tweets shared by other users for people to read, like, comment and share. It also acted as a claim to fame site for the newborns sharing a birthday with Prince George showcased on the Storify timeline. That’s surely one to tell the grandkids!
Google+
If you’ve still to nip out and buy an 'It’s a boy' card and stock up on stamps, there’s no need as Google+ has made it that little bit easier for you.
To mark the historic occasion, Google’s own social network Google+ jumped on the bandwagon and is giving Google+ users the chance to sign an online congratulations card to celebrate the birth of the royal baby.
To sign the online card, users simply share Google’s update via the Google Plus ‘+1’ button and add their message to the comment box. Users have until Tuesday 6th August to sign the card before a printed version will be presented to Kensington Palace. So you never know, Kate and Wills could be sitting down to a cuppa in the next few weeks while Prince George is napping to read your personalised message. If you’re interested, you can sign the card here.
Everybody loves Instagram, and it turns out so do the Royals. The British Monarchy has a dedicated Instagram account to capture the latest photos from Royal events and ceremonies. They were quick off the mark last Monday evening, making sure they had a smartphone handy to capture the moment the Queen's Press Secretary and a footman posted the official announcement of the birth on the easel.
To keep their 23,000 followers happy, they proceded to post a close-up of the announcement for all to see before Clarence House shared the snap on Twitter.
This social media activity lends itself well to Kate and Wills, as there’s no doubt they’ve helped modernise the Royal family over the years thanks to their engagement, Royal wedding and now with birth of a son – not forgetting Kate’s fashion credentials, of course!
They’ve managed to win over a younger generation – myself included – and kept us interested in what they’re doing. With social media being an ideal way to keep followers updated on news, images and developments, I’m glad to see Clarence House are aware of that and have adopted an official presence on the main social networks.
Clarence House has gained thousands of followers across Twitter, Google+ and Instagram in the last week and I just hope that they continue to keep these newly found followers interested by continuing to use social media in innovative ways as they’ve been doing this last week.
Keep up the good work folks!
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article