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Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) is one of the UK’s leading classical ballet companies, touring nationally and internationally with a programme that spans iconic productions and contemporary commissions.

Since 2022, HDK has worked as a digital marketing partner for BRB, providing support across social strategy, content planning, reporting, paid advertising, and campaign delivery.

Main photo: Manvir Rai

Birmingham Royal Ballet social strategy

The challenge

In 2022, following a new brand identity and the disruption of the pandemic, BRB wanted to take a fresh look at their digital and social media presence. With a busy in-house team balancing multiple tours, performances, and partners, they needed more than an extra pair of hands. They needed strategic direction and space to think longer term.

The questions at the start were fundamental: who were their audiences on social media? How did BRB want to engage with them? And how should the brand come across online?

Birmingham Royal Ballet on Facebook

The solution

We started with the big picture. Audience mapping, peer analysis, and collaborative workshops helped the BRB team clarify their goals, refresh their content themes, and define their tone of voice across platforms.

From there, we moved into ongoing support that has adapted to BRB’s needs over the past three years. That has meant shaping social media strategy, planning and delivering campaigns, building out their TikTok presence from scratch, and providing regular performance reporting across channels.

To make reporting more manageable for the internal team, we developed a Looker Studio dashboard that streamlines data collection and analysis, giving BRB clearer visibility of what is working and where to focus.

We also support BRB on paid social and digital advertising, including conversions and pixel setup, and step in to plug gaps when team members are away on tour.

How we did it

Audience mapping and peer analysis to inform social strategy

Collaborative workshops to define tone of voice and content priorities

TikTok strategy and channel development from launch

Regular social media performance reporting across all platforms

Looker Studio dashboard built for streamlined data and insights

Paid social and digital advertising support, including pixels and conversions

Ongoing day-to-day marketing support around BRB’s touring schedule

Birmingham Royal Ballet on TikTok

The results

Since November 2022, BRB’s social media following has grown significantly across every platform.

Instagram has grown from 58,244 to 92,824 followers, an increase of 59%. Facebook has grown from 87,458 to 151,886 followers, an increase of 74%. TikTok has grown from 138 to 3,058 followers, an increase of over 2,000% since the channel launched.

Nuts & bolts

Social media strategy
Audience mapping, peer analysis, and content planning across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and paid social channels.

TikTok development
Built and developed BRB’s TikTok presence from 138 followers to over 3,000, establishing the company on a platform new to them.

Looker Studio dashboard
A custom reporting dashboard that brings together data from across BRB’s social channels, making analysis faster and more accessible for the internal team.

Paid social and advertising
Campaign planning and delivery across paid social platforms, including pixel setup and conversion tracking.

Performance reporting
Regular reporting on social media performance, campaign impact, and audience engagement to inform ongoing strategy.

Instagram

+59%

follower growth since 2022

Facebook

+74%

follower growth since 2022

TikTok

+2,000%

follower growth since launch

I just wanted to reach out and say what a great job HDK has done with BRB's new social media strategy. We as the digital team have little experience in building strategies but HDK have done a great job of managing and guiding the process and have really delivered a piece of work that will really help us going forward.

HDK's hands-on approach was just what we needed to take us to that next level. Not just a safe pair of hands, HDK is a company who are constantly looking for new ideas to challenge and excite our audiences. They were a brilliant extension to the team.

Birmingham Royal Ballet social strategy