Action for Accreta campaigns for greater awareness and better care around placenta accreta, a serious and under-recognised maternity condition. Much of their community is made up of women who’ve lived through it, and through the trauma that often comes with it. That’s a campaign that matters and it’s also one that had, until recently, no social media presence at all.
The Challenge: A blank slate, and an audience that doesn’t trust easily
There wasn’t an existing account to fix, an old strategy to rework, or a dormant page to revive. Action for Accreta needed a social media presence built entirely from scratch, at a time when their cause was gaining real momentum. They were campaigning for government and Royal College guideline changes, and needing a public voice to match.
But this wasn’t a typical brand launch.
The people at the centre of this campaign are, in many cases, trauma survivors, and trust isn’t something you can shortcut with a content calendar. Building an audience here meant building trust first, and everything else had to follow from that.
Our Approach: Trust first, then story, then scale
Earning trust before asking for attention
Before a single post went live, the priority was understanding the audience Action for Accreta needed to reach, and reassure this audience. People who’ve experienced medical trauma are (rightly) wary of being spoken about rather than spoken with. So the approach started with how stories were gathered and shaped: working directly with people to help them tell their own experiences, rather than extracting a quote for content’s sake.
Turning real stories into content that resonates
With trust as the foundation, the next piece was building a content mix that balanced awareness and education with genuine, first-person storytelling, the kind that doesn’t shy away from the reality of the condition, but handles it with care. This is where the sharpest, best-performing content came from: not polished campaign assets, but honest stories, shaped with a light enough touch that they stayed true to the people who shared them.
Building the presence and the momentum
From there, it was a straightforward but unglamorous job: consistent posting, platform-appropriate formats (reels, posts, stories), and a steady cadence that turned a blank profile into an active, growing community, tracked and refined week by week rather than left to chance.
What actually changed
- 352 followers, up 93.4% in the most recent 90 days (net +170), from a standing start of zero
- 49,491 content views across posts, stories and reels in the same 90-day period
- 9,427 accounts reached, with 58.6% coming from non-followers, proof the message was travelling beyond the people already in the room
- 1,692 interactions, and 1,306 profile visits from people actively seeking out the page
Beyond the numbers, three things stood out:
A community built from nothing.
There was no existing audience, no borrowed credibility, no head start, just a strategy that worked.
Real stories became the strongest content.
A reel on the reality of high-risk pregnancy, and a summit panel announcement, were among the best-performing posts, each passing 2,000-3,000 views.
The right audience found it.
87.9% of the audience built is women, the group this campaign most needs to reach and represent.
“Working with trauma patients means trust isn’t given easily. Rachel understood that instinctively and helped us build it in a way that felt genuine. She had a real skill for drawing out people’s stories and shaping them into content that resonated. A thoughtful collaborator who made a real difference to our social media strategy.” Nik Adhia, Co-founder of Action for Accreta
What we learned
Trust has to be earned before growth can happen.
For causes built on lived experience, audience-building isn’t a numbers game first, it’s a relationship game. Get that right, and the numbers follow.
The best content isn’t manufactured, it’s given space.
Real stories, handled with care rather than polish, consistently outperformed anything more produced.
Zero is a real starting point.
Momentum can be built from nothing, provided the strategy respects the audience it’s trying to reach, rather than just trying to reach them faster.
Starting from zero, or working with an audience that needs careful handling?
That’s exactly where we come in. Whether you’re launching a brand-new presence or trying to rebuild trust with an audience that’s been let down before, we’ve done both, from sensitive charity campaigns to commercial brands. No hard sells, no lengthy retainers, just practical strategy and a partnership rooted in honesty.