It’s the social media story of the week, and exhibit A in standing up online for what we believe it in.
by Ben Raza
Yeah, that was me. And (if I can throw in a teeny bit of hyperbole) here’s how it helps to saves lives.
You never really know what’s going to be The Thing that goes viral, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be this. I won’t list the Bedford Borough Council stories that I *didn’t* want to set the world alight this week though, so it was a relief that we had people from across the world (and a few celebrities to boot) sharing our response about Lent.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it: On Wednesday morning, we shared a fairly innocuous “Happy Lent,” message. We had already taken some flak one day earlier, when people had demanded to know why we had posted “Happy Ramadan,” instead of “Happy Pancake Day,” but I felt confident on Wednesday morning that all would be well.
Then came the first response, from Maggie on Facebook:
“Funny you put Ramadan and eid (sic) up first. Its (sic) a Christian country first and foremost.”
To respond, or to not respond?
Bedford is actually a pretty tolerant and diverse place. And while you don’t want to feed the trolls or the ill-informed, you also don’t want to let prejudice be normalised.
Which is why I rattled out a fairly straightforward reply. I added a little bit of historical context for why people observe Lent and Ramadan they we do (because who doesn’t want to know more about the Council of Nicaea?). And then I sprinkled the teeniest bit of sass by explaining that Bedford Borough Council did not, in fact, create the Moon.
I never expected the scale response we received, whether in the comments section, people sharing it on local Facebook pages, other social media sites posting it, and even strangers who don’t live in Bedford phoning our reception to other their support.
Apart from providing some good publicity for the Council though – always appreciated for any local authority – there’s a tangible benefit too. The sheer number of Shares, Likes and Comments on social media spreads our reach and humanises us too. That translates to our posts on Facebook, Instagram, et al being more prominent on people’s feeds, and our messages being more trusted.
You don’t have to have voted for the politicians who are in charge, there are real people working here who genuinely care about our community!
Not every social media post will have the reach you hope for. But if this saga gets just a few more people to Follow us on Facebook or pushes us up the algorithms, and prompts those people to get their children vaccinated or lets them know about dangerous road conditions? That’s good enough for me.
So, with just a little bit of hyperbole, that’s how one Facebook comment, the Moon, and the Council of Nicaea (325AD) hopefully contributed to saving lives.
Whether you’re observing Lent or Ramadan, or if you’re just counting down until you can crack open your Easter eggs, peace and love to everyone. And that includes Maggie.
Ben Raza is an award winning communications and media professional
