Marketing and communications agency Thread & Fable specialises in sport, education, youth and the public sector. Founder Rebecca Roberts was successful in securing a contract with the UK government's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office to deliver its student-voice campaign on safe international travel.

The project involves supporting student ambassadors to create and distribute articles and social media content to amplify crucial foreign travel advice in a way that resonates with young people. Each participant receives ongoing support, training and updates over the year. To deliver this, Rebecca needed an efficient way to communicate and ensure all ambassadors had easy access to the resources they needed.

She chose to build a private group on Guild because it’s a trusted, safe and privacy-focused community platform. She told us why this allowed her to deliver the project efficiently as well as provide the security that both the client and the student ambassadors needed.



Results in brief

  • Efficient onboarding and training of student ambassador team
  • Streamlined provision of resources and communications throughout a year-long project
  • Frictionless collaboration with contributors and project partners
  • Privacy compliance and duty of care on behalf of public sector client



Why did you want to create a community for the Travel Aware Student Ambassadors programme?

“The programme is all about authentic voices championing an issue that can change and save lives by helping young people to travel abroad more safely.

It’s crucial that our ambassadors' voices come through clearly.  We needed to collaborate, not tell them exactly what to say or do.

At the same time, they needed lots of support, advice and resources along the way.

A community meant we could both collaborate and communicate efficiently.

We had a space to share messaging and assets, updates, advice and resources to help ambassadors develop their skills, and keep everyone in step with the campaign.

At the same time, our ambassadors could ask questions and support and learn from each other, which added to their creativity and confidence. That wouldn’t have been possible if we were working with everyone individually.”


Why did you choose Guild to build your community?

“I wanted a community platform that was safe, simple and separate from the social media platforms that we were using to deliver the project. As soon as I set up a trial on Guild it was clear it was the right choice.

Guild is intuitive, makes it easy to structure discussions and resources, and our group is completely private.

It also feels professional. Many of our participants are taking their first steps in the world of work. A professional platform reinforces that we're all here to get things done.

Guild feels very human and personal but it reminds us we’re here to get things done. It was good to set that tone from the very start.

It was also great value for money. There are no frills yet it still has all the features you need. Working with both young people and a public sector client means all those aspects are important.

Looking to the future, the option to be part of Guild’s wider network is also a plus. It gives us the opportunity to bring in experts or even recruit participants, while still keeping our own private space”.



What do your members like about Guild?

“One thing I notice is that the DMs are surprisingly important. Sometimes people are a bit shy about asking a question, so it really helps that they know they can ask me or each other for 1-2-1 support.

It takes away fear and uncertainty. People can ask for help and make progress so much more quickly.

The community allows ambassadors to get ideas, see results, and celebrate successes together.

At times we’ve been working on quite quick turnarounds if a topic is in the news. We could share vital information with everyone at once, and follow up with the feedback and reassurance they need to get creating. That’s helped the students feel more confident and motivated.

Mobile access has been a bonus too. Our members are often travelling and don't always have WiFi, or are keeping up to date with the group while busy with lectures and university life. With Guild, they don't waste time looking for information and it's easy to ask for support from us or their peers.

Plus, I know I've got all those resources and answers in one place. Often the same questions come up repeatedly. Not having to rewrite or resend the same thing saves a huge amount of time. I can simply point people to a resource or a pinned conversation.

And if I do need to bring in support from an assistant or partner, again, they can just jump into the community and get to work.

Being in a group together lets members support each other with applause, feedback or share each other’s content. Our ambassadors are in universities all over the UK. Working remotely like this it’s really motivating to see what others are doing and get a bit of a boost from your peers.

Email campaigns and newsletters just can't provide that feeling of momentum that you get in the community.

Finally, it's a huge bonus that our members are learning to network and collaborate as well as create. That’s going to be an amazing skill in their future careers.”



Would you recommend Guild to other ambassador programmes?

“Our experience is that Guild is ideal for working with students and higher education ambassador programmes.

Even though your participants are adults you still have a duty of care to offer them a platform that’s trusted and safe. They’re building skills and confidence, so starting with a professional atmosphere really sets the right tone.

Also, using Guild is more than building a community. It’s also incredibly efficient.

People need to know basics like where to send documents, how to get paid, or how to submit work. Questions and answers in the group have saved so much admin and let our participants spend time on the work that matters.

You know that if one person has a question, it’s likely that it’s relevant to everyone else in the programme.

We don’t need to worry if people have a certain type of software, set up lots of different logins, or keep resending information. We just make sure that the latest information is in the Guild group. It’s so straightforward to use. People just find their way around without having to ask for help.

Our participants know that Guild is the first port of call for anything they need and if things change, we can let everyone know at once.”

Want to support your project with an online community? 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Contact us if you want to know more or have any questions.