At Kensington Palace, the London home Prince William and Kate Middleton and a few of their other relatives, there are about 100 staff members on the payroll, doing anything from cooking and cleaning to communications and accounting. For the last five years or so, there have also been social media managers on the palace staff, and ever since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March, those staffers have become increasingly important to running William and Kate’s affairs, even though they are working from home and the Cambridges are sheltering-in-place at Anmer Hall, their country home in Norfolk.
Over the last few months, the Cambridges' Instagram account @KensingtonRoyal has featured more personal messages and inside looks at their daily lives than ever before. On Monday, the account made a few small changes that further prove that Kate and William are taking social media seriously as a part of their royal role. The display name changed from “Kensington Palace” to the “Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” and the profile picture was updated to a recent shot that features the couple and their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.
Back in September 2014, the younger generation of royals made their first foray into public-facing social media when they started a Kensington Palace Twitter account, which followed William, Kate and Prince Harry. A few months later, they added an Instagram account as well. As all three were making the transition into full-time life as senior royals, the accounts became a reliable source of updates on their engagements and a reflection of their close relationships. When Meghan joined the family, she was featured on the account, and it featured behind the scenes looks at the couple’s May 2018 wedding. Like the account shared by the rest of the royal family, the posts were written in the third person and usually only featured photos previously published by media outlets.
In late 2018, Meghan and Harry decided to leave Kensington Palace for Frogmore Cottage in Windsor and move their staffers to Buckingham Palace, where the rest of the family’s offices are. When they started their own @SussexRoyal account in April 2019, they changed their approach almost immediately. Their display names were “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex” from the beginning, they chose the pictures themselves, and the captions had a less formal tone and were occasionally signed by Meghan or Harry. They used the account to share private and exclusive photos, and when Archie Mountbatten-Windsor was born, the account was the first source of information. In January, it was where they announced their royal exit.
When the royal family first began to address coronavirus, Kate and William’s aides hoped that they would still be able to make in-person appearances and carry out their work as normally as possible. But as the country went into a full lockdown, video calls became the new site visit, and social media was a way to document them afterward. They also started to share more impromptu views of their home life, like the video they took of George, Charlotte, and Louis celebrating essential workers in their backyard.
At the end of March, the @SussexRoyal account went silent, and aside from a few surprise sightings, and calls and videos shared by other nonprofits, Meghan and Harry are mostly keeping their lives under wraps. Thanks to the changes brought on by coronavirus, it’s Kate and William who seem to be carrying on their approach to interacting with the public.
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