Strategic social media consultancy

The background

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) partnered with Arke Agency during a time of strategic and operational change, including the rollout of a new website and brand identity.

Alongside this, the marketing team was managing increasing demand from stakeholders across the organisation, with growing pressure on strategic planning, prioritisation and processes.

Arke was commissioned to help define and embed those foundations.

The challenge

Like many organisations navigating change, the RCVS marketing team was balancing strategic responsibilities with a high volume of requests from across the organisation.

Existing processes around briefing, approvals, prioritisation and campaign planning had evolved without a set structure over time, creating inconsistency in how work was requested, managed and measured.

Together we built a marketing blueprint for optimised operations across teams.

Our approach

Arke approached this marketing consultancy project as a strategic operational partnership, working closely with stakeholders across marketing, communications and the wider organisation.

The engagement focused on three core areas:

1. Discovery and stakeholder alignment

Through workshops, interviews and operational audits, we mapped the current state of social media activity across the organisation, identifying pain points, workflow bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement.

This process helped establish:

• Clearer understanding of stakeholder needs.
• Existing communication challenges.
• Audience and channel requirements.
• Operational gaps in planning and approvals.
• Areas where greater consistency and governance were needed.

Importantly, this discovery phase created alignment across teams and encouraged wider participation in shaping the ways of working.

2. Strategy and framework development

Using the outputs from the discovery phase, Arke developed a structured framework designed to support both immediate operational needs and longer-term strategic planning.

This included:

• Messaging and communications frameworks.
• Channel guidance and content principles.
• KPI and reporting structures.
• Briefing and intake processes.
• Workflow and approval systems.
• Planning templates and governance documentation.

The focus throughout was practicality: creating systems and guidance that could realistically support a lean internal team while improving clarity across the wider organisation.

3. Enablement and organisational adoption

A major part of the engagement centred on internal enablement.

We facilitated workshops and produced supporting documentation to help teams better understand:

• The role of social media within the organisation.
• How communications should be planned strategically.
• What information is required to build effective campaigns.
• How different channels should be used.
• How stakeholders and marketing teams could collaborate more effectively.

Rather than introducing unnecessary processes, the objective was to create greater consistency, stronger prioritisation and more efficient ways of working.

The outcome

The project delivered a structured operational foundation, helping establish clearer processes, stronger internal alignment and a more strategic approach to communications planning.

While the social media consultancy was not centred around traditional campaign performance metrics, its impact was reflected in the organisation’s response to the work and the adoption of the frameworks across teams.

This consultancy also created a stronger platform for future marketing maturity, equipping the RCVS team with clearer operational processes, shared strategic direction and tools designed to scale alongside the organisation’s evolving priorities.

The impact

For many organisations, the challenge is not a lack of marketing activity, it is the absence of clear operational structure behind it.

This project demonstrated how operational consultancy, stakeholder engagement and strategic facilitation can create long-term value by helping organisations build the foundations required for more effective communications and collaboration. Equipping the team with the tools and processes to support them as they scale up.

For RCVS, the outcome was not simply a revised marketing process. It was the beginning of a more connected, strategically aligned and operationally confident way of working.

Head to our marketing strategy page to learn more about our consultancy and retainer services to help take your organisation to the next level.