Oil & Gas Innovation Centre

Social media, website updates and e-newsletters

The Oil & Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC) connect businesses to researchers in Scotland’s universities to address the industry’s innovation challenges and opportunities. From its launch in 2014 until it merged with the Oil & Gas Technology Centre, it supported over 100 commercial innovation projects.

OGIC’s marcomms team decided to outsource its digital communications in 2018. They knew my work with other Innovation Centres in Scotland (such as CENSIS), and invited me to take part in a three-way pitch with two agencies. Which I won.

The contract with OGIC covered social media, website updates and regular e-newsletters, with three main audiences: industry, universities and funders/stakeholders. In the first three months alone, I generated a strong but sustainable rise in engagement:

• Twitter impressions up from c 3,000 a month to 18,000+, and c 40 relevant, high-quality followers added per month
• LinkedIn followers up 500-100 a month
• E-newsletter open rate up by 50%

Numbers apart, I also aimied to increase awareness of OGIC’s activity among key public-sector stakeholders such as Scottish Funding Council, Scottish Enterprise, and MSPs. Through targeted tweets and activity, OGIC received regular retweets from all of these, as well as Cabinet ministers, industry leaders and key media.