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2023 Excellence in Social Media Engagement, Large Newsroom finalist

Al Jazeera English Twitter

About the Project

Al Jazeera English Twitter goes beyond the facts to explore the context behind global news stories. Our team provided round-the-clock coverage of the devastating earthquakes and aftershocks that struck Turkey and Syria to focus on delivering real-time breaking news through our daily thread, supplemented by a live blog from our Doha news desk. Our initial tweet received over 908k views an 3.8k interactions. Within our daily threads, we curated diverse content, including live in-the-field reporting, in-depth articles, infographics, and native videos. Our original social video received 1.2M views and 6.7k interactions. We also incorporated user-generated videos from affected areas to raise awareness. We provided timely updates and comprehensive coverage of the unfolding events, capturing not only the immediate impact but the extended consequences.

Since Pakistan’s political unrest last year, ex-PM Imran Khan has consistently been the centrepiece of our engaging content. We extensively covered his rallies and the ongoing tensions. Our exclusive interview with Imran Khan achieved remarkable engagement, with 32.5k interactions and over 1.4M views, making it our highest social video engagement of 2023. On the day of his arrest, our coverage focused on a live thread supplemented by timely updates, allowing us to establish a substantial online voice compared with our competitors. We showcased native videos and galleries capturing the essence of the protests, resulting in a significant increase in our audience reach and engagement. Our team incorporated expert opinions through engaging social videos – gaining impressive interactions of 30.1k and over 1 million views. We successfully cultivated a platform for people to gain insights, exchange perspectives, and foster discussions during challenging times in the country.

As violence erupted in Sudan between the army and the paramilitary group RSP in Khartoum and other cities, we actively engaged and interacted with our users. We focused on producing native content, giving power to those experiencing violent unrest firsthand. Our original digital show featured correspondent Hiba Morgan on the ground, sharing how the conflict-affected her family and millions of others. Hosting Twitterspace discussions, we brought activists to recount how civilians are empowering Sudanese communities and the role of social media in supporting Sudan. Combined, we had over 14k individuals tuning in. Our aim was to ensure their voices were heard directly, without intermediaries, to foster awareness and support.

We responded to Israel’s air strikes in Gaza with immediate real-time updates on Twitter, delivering in-depth coverage of the incident, context on the Israeli occupation and live updates as tensions escalated. We transformed key moments from AlJazeera’s in-field reporting and exclusive interviews into compelling social videos. We used daily threads to keep our audience up to date with the latest developments. Showcasing powerful images in a gallery to depict the affected civilians. We were able to effectively capture the severity of the situation, through compelling video content such as a 9-year-old’s heartfelt plea and the story of a girl losing three limbs in Israeli attacks. These created a profound impact, resulting in a total interaction of 7.2k.