The Royal Family & Social Media – Students would keep the Monarchy

This week Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their long awaited engagement. The news kicked off a  flurry of discussion on The Student Room – what do students think about the British Monarchy?

They are often criticised for being no more than a tourist attraction with little real contribution to the country but over the past three years we have seen the launch of the Royal Family into the world of social media in an attempt to relate to the general public. The creation of a Facebook page last week follows other moves into the social media space such as the Monarchy’s Flickr account earlier this year, a Twitter profile @BritishMonarchy in 2009 and YouTube channel 3 years ago.

However the Royal Family have had a large unofficial presence on the world’s largest student site, The Student Room, since 2008. With over 10,000 posts discussing the ‘Monarchy’ and ‘Royal Family’ they are one of the most talked about brands on the site.

In April this year a poll was setup by students  to gather youth opinion on abolishing the British Monarchy and the results are as follows:

• 37.66% – Yes abolish the monarchy
• 62.34% - No keep the monarchy

The full ‘Should the monarchy be abolished’ discussion can be found here containing over 600 posts

Social media has been used heavily by the Royal Family following the announcement of Prince William’s engagement and there is already a thread discussing ‘the cost to tax payers’ on The Student Room, which has attracted over 100 posts today, including some interesting and well thought out arguments from royalists sticking up for the crown.

It’s always good to see how quickly discussion regarding a brand or event can spread on the site and is a great example of the benefit of word of mouth communication. Why not visit The Student Room now and do a  simple site search to see how much your brand is being talked about? Or sign-up to our monthly Newsletter to get regular student Insight to your inbox for FREE.