When the number of rhino that had been poached illegally reached staggering numbers by January 2012, Flow Communications decided to lend its expertise and its voice to the anti-poaching movement.
The idea was to create a social media presence that would focus on a positive message and educate people on the five species of rhinos – Sumatran, Javan, white, black and the Great Indian one-horned rhino.
“When I approached Flow Communications, I had already created a Facebook and Twitter page called All in for rhinos but I needed a more clear social media strategy – and that’s when we decided to rename the whole campaign to I love rhinos,” says Lisa Jane Campbell, a passionate rhino activist who decided that she had to do something to stem the poaching.
Flow Communications created a new Facebook page called I love rhinos, and renamed the old All in for rhinos Twitter page to I love rhinos as well.
“We decided to call the campaign I love rhinos because the campaign is about education and bringing a positive voice to a dark situation,” says Flow writer Mildred Thabane, who also handles both the I love rhinos pages.
“Lisa Jane didn’t want to focus on the negative, and people responded really well to that. The Facebook page has 586 likes and we have 1 208 followers on Twitter,” continues Mildred.
Flow Communications also shot a video of Phila the rhino at the Johannesburg Zoo – a black female rhino that survived being shot nine times by poachers in the wild. The video was shot in honour of World Rhino Day, which is held on 22 September.
“Phila’s story is about survival. And we thought it was a great message to send out on World Rhino Day to tell people not to give up in the fight against rhino poaching,” concludes Mildred.