As we discussed earlier, the split between the Sussexes and the Cambridges has now been formalized. We thought, months ago, that the Sussexes’ office staff would be based in Kensington Palace, and work alongside (and adjacent to) the Cambridges’ staff. Not so much. The Sussexes will get their own offices and dedicated staff in Buckingham Palace, with a British-American press secretary/political operative Sara Latham will answer directly to the Queen’s communications office. Harry and Meghan will have the internal-royal-family status of the Queen’s own children.
Anyway, there are more pieces of information and more questions regarding the move. I’ve seen a lot of Twitter chatter about whether Meghan and Harry will get their own social media accounts. Nothing has been confirmed or denied about that, but I honestly don’t see how the Sussexes could avoid it. Over the past few months especially, the Kensington Royal accounts have been incredibly busy and high-traffic and that’s partly/mostly because of the Sussexes. They need a social media presence, and I really do think we’ll be seeing a @SussexOfficial Twitter and Instagram by the end of the year. Omid Scobie – a royal reporter who almost always gets it right – says that the decision on separate social media accounts will be made when the Sussexes’ new team is all on-board. I guess that means that when Meghan births Polo Baby, all of the announcements and photos will still be tied to the Kensington Royal accounts.
What else does Omid Scobie say? Sara Latham is for-sure the Sussexes’ new press secretary. Many of the Kensington Palace staffers who worked for both brothers will likely stay on with Kensington Palace, meaning the Cambridges. I take that to mean that the Sussexes want a lot of new people (new, qualified people) who are loyal only to them. Poor Jason Knauf was the Kensington Palace communications honcho and he’s being shifted away from that now, and he’s taking on a “senior advisor” position for the Cambridges’ charitable initiatives. You know what that means: more statements about how Will and Kate are keen about charities. At one point, the Sussexes considered having an office out of Windsor Castle but sources say “it wasn’t doable.”
I’ve also seen a lot about how this separation frees up William and Kate to continue preparing for becoming King and Queen. To that I say… you know Charles and Camilla are up next, right? William will need to prepare to become the Prince of Wales before he even thinks about becoming king. And considering how Charles transformed the Prince of Wales role and the scope of what the PoW does, I think William and Kate will find themselves extremely overwhelmed. And they won’t have Harry and Meghan to hide behind.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.
They will def get their own social media accounts. I don’t see how they can avoid it. And i think once that happens it will provide an interesting look at the work each couple is doing.
I also don’t understand how this frees up will and Kate. Have they been overwhelmed by sharing some staff with Harry and Meghan?
Great and hurry up. It’s pretty pathetic to have charities that Harry & Meghan patronized, along with bloggers & residents , sending random tweets to the public. It’d take KP’s communications an hour or two of harrassment to put post a picture. Now, if Will & Kate sit in a room, with clenched jaw and crazed smiled face for 45 minutes , there’s endless amounts of posts.
Like I said, “Hurry up!”
+1
Ha! +2
I don’t think they would have hired their own Communications person (who will also have staff under her) if they didn’t intend to have their own social media accounts. If they were would stuck with the Royal Family accounts, they could easily be stuck with their Communications people. Their basically their own division within BP but still independent in many ways.
Twitter…didn’t she just establish it was beneath her?
No. That’s just how Lainey and some of her readers chose to interpret it. A couple more things:
1) Twitter isn’t the only social media;
2) Having a professional social media presence run by an office is different than personally engaging.
No she didn’t. She said she doesn’t read it. And considering how racist and vile social media has been towards her, it’s obvious why.
Is this the new spin for why certain fans think the Sussexes shouldn’t have their own SM accounts? People know damn well why she said what she did at the panel.
Yeah, it’s the latest Cambridge fan spin.
Can you say more about the panel – not sure what you’re referring to??
Reese’s original comment alluded to Meghan’s statement about avoiding Twitter on last Friday’s IWD panel. She and certain (read: Cambridge) fans are deliberately misinterpreting her statements and pretending as if there hasn’t been an onslaught of hatred against her on SM.
Wrong on all accounts.
I’ve always been a MM fan. Never have I ever said a negative thing on any board about her.
My take, I watched the entire panel discussion and it was pretty clear she felt Twitter was beneath her. Don’t like my take on what she said so you’re saying I must only like Kate is so pathetic and insulting to women on all fronts. The entire narrative that it has to be women vs women bc one doesn’t like what one said.
Calling me a Cambridge fan is a laughable and WEAK comeback. Can we try to be more forward thinking? At least put in a good effort and realise that these women vs women narratives will only stop when we women actually STOP accusing others of not being able to be objective to one women bc we must be prefer one over another? It’s so disturbing.
I don’t see Lainey’s comment so I have no idea the reference to which is being referred too.
Well, if you think she was acting like social media was “beneath her” — then you should really take a step back and consider why you jumped to that conclusion. Because your quip sure sounded WEAK to me.
How do you call yourself a fan and jump so easily to denounce women and put them against each other? You defend blindly. Did you actually listen to her speak? Do you listen to the words she uses? Probably too interested in her dress and putting down those who oppose her to actually hear the lovely message this women conveys about women and girls.
MM sounded like she was above the fray. Weak? No, statement and fact. Twitter is beneath her so why perpetuate the rubbish. Women can actually believe MM is subject to harsh racism, classism and be treated like rubbish in the media and still not defend every absurd thing that comes out of her mouth. Again, it’s called being objective in case you missed it the first time.
Twitter IS beneath her. It’s beneath Kate too, and you and me, and even all the hatrons. It does nothing good.
I actually don’t necessarily want Harry and Meghan to have their own separate social media. I almost would rather have everything they do come with the endorsement of the offical Royal Family account. I don’t think social media competition ultimately benefits Harry and Meghan. Better for them if all the followers just follow the Royal Family account so their popularity gets more eyeballs to the work of the other memebers of the Royal family.
I think they Harry and Meghan should really have their own accounts.
In 20 years or less William will be king so its best that the Sussexes separates from them now and gave an established online presence for their work.
It’s 2019. People have social media for their plants and pets. It’s so amusing to me that this is a thing.
Ditto.
Right. I don’t see why it would be a big deal. Harry and Meghan are products of this modern tech world now, they should have their own social media accounts and be done with it.
“And considering how Charles transformed the Prince of Wales role and the scope of what the PoW does, I think William and Kate will find themselves extremely overwhelmed.”
I bet you they greatly reduce the amount of work that role entails. No way are they interested in doing half of what Charles has done in the 50 years hes been doing it.
Also this is silly but I love the thought of Will being the next “waity”- but “waity”-ing for his turn to be king. I actually hope Charles does *not* abdicate. He’s been very patient and has worked EXTREMELY hard waiting for his chace and he deserves his shot.
No way Charles abdicates. That’s a huge no no after Duke of Windsor did do.
There’s no way he’d wait 50 years as PoW just to abdicate. I don’t get where that idea is coming from (not you, specifically, but generally…are people really thinking that?).
Liz should abdicate. But she knows no one can do it as well as she does, and she doesn’t want to sit aside and watch them all make hash of it.
Seems a no brainer for their own social media accounts. They will have their own projects that they’ll want to talk about in their own voice.
The relocation of comms to Buckingham Palace is interesting on a few levels.
The conspiracy theories about this move are annoying. This is not a promotion or a demotion. It’s simply restructuring of duties and preparation for the future. I believe Harry and Meghan should have separate social media accounts because their engagements will have more in depth coverage and they will have more control over their press and message.
Seeing as W&K have now been taking up more work in the last year, there’s no doubt that they are preparing themselves for the role. William especially has been standing in for Charles at investures for quite some time now, and has been attending meetings that Charles would have also gone to probably 20 years previous. This move to shift H&M elsewhere is to help Wills in his role just as much as it is to help Harry.
If anyone deserves their own social media accounts its Anne and the Wessexes. They do a hell of a lot of work – and have done for many years but we rarely hear about it because their work gets lumped in with everyone else on the main SM accounts.
I hope they get their own social media accounts. Its going to funny to watch and see if kp loses a lot of followers if harry and Meghan get their own account. They only gained a ton of followers because of meghan.
The Cambridges are also very popular, it would be unlikely they loose their millions of followers just because H&M are given a new account. Probably just the people who follow it to see H&M will unfollow – which must be a small minority since the KP page had a few million followers before Meghan came along anyway.
I don’t think KP is going to lose all their followers, but there was a significant increase in followers after the wedding in May. I think it’s something like a few million more on IG? I forget the exact numbers but it’s a lot. I don’t think those people are going to leave en masse, but if enough of them do, KP could see a sig drop in their followers. But, even if 3 million stop following KP on Instagram, they would still have over 4 million followers, so I think they’ll be okay lol.
I think the very same, Becks1. KP wasn’t pulling the numbers they do now before Meghan. The people who followed the Cambridges before and the ones who became fans in reaction to Meghan will remain.
I think the Sussex brand would benefit from a separation and I could see Meghan using the platform to highlight the successes of their patronages even when their isn’t an event
I mean…I’ll unfollow. I had zero interest in the Royal Family pre-Meghan and my interest is pretty zero’ed in on her. I think the majority of their US fans are more Meghan fans than anything else.
It’s just the matter of important events taking place and therefore the number of followers rising at each. I have been following for a long while now and noticed the numbers rising when W&K were on tour in 2017, when H&M got engaged, When Louis was born and the chistening, and when H&M got married, etc. More and more people on SM are also getting interested in the royal family in general so it shows in the followers the KP and RF accounts rising.
I rarely unfollow anything unless it’s really driving me nuts. I think most people wont even bother unfollowing unless they really don’t like W&K. I don’t think it will account for much of a drop.
The number of “likes” that posts on the KP Instaram account were getting exploded after Meghan joined.
I can’t wait for this to happen so that each couple will stand on their own and we will see clearly how much work they do. All the allegations of William using Harry and one couple outshining the other will hopefully end as it will be clear what each is bringing to the table.
Do the Cambridges “hide” behind Meghan and Harry?? How? The same Harry whose numbers are even lower than the “lazy” brother? And please,they don’t need to hire “a lot of staff”.. to do what?
They just need their secretary and assistants,like all the others.
About the SM,as one of the royal reporters pointed out,it takes a lot of work to manage a new account,above all when you have rabid stans fighting in the comments. If now the situation is bad,it will get worse. I don’t think they need to hire other people and waste other money for these things.
Interestingly,Amily Andrews also said that BP staff already does some of the work for KP.
Is that the same Emily Andrews that wrote an entire article about everything that happened at Meghan’s baby shower before the shower had even taken place?
Indeed it is. But anyway, V’s last statement about BP helping KP is nothing new so I don’t know why it should be treated as some “interesting” revelation. They HAD to step in because KP was becoming so incompetent with their operations (and that’s basically thanks to William’s ineptitude).
I meant the work done for their SM accounts.. And sure,that is William’s fault too. I imagine him sitting at his desk,being an absolute inept at moderating the rabid stans’ fights. LOL
This just seems like common sense. The Cambridges can focus on their projects and initiatives and the Sussexes can, too.
The ONLY problem will be the comparison of the two Royal accounts. By the end of the year it will be easy to see which team actually got more done. Let the Charitable games begin!
This all makes sense. I know that Harry will eventually be in the Anne/Edward/Andy role, and, with the planned slimmed down working royal roles, have his family phased out of this field. However, considering how much emphasis Will and Kate place on living a “normal” life and wanting that for their children, there’s no way the 3 kids begin to be actual working royals until their late 20s, or 30s. That’s almost 3 decades of Meghan and Harry needing to work in this capacity. They need an office that will work for them and not tag along behind Will’s Prince of Wales/King staff.
I think (if the monarchy lasts that long), it will be interesting to see how slimmed down it stays with the 3 eventual adult Cambridges and their families.
What’s with the British thing for matronly hats? Even worse in white: She looks like a nurse from the 1950’s. I just never find them flattering in the least. Does anyone? Can someone explain this?
I find references to Harry being in the same position as Andrew laughable. Harry is far more high profile than Andrew ever was. He has been given more important roles and responsibilities, and even though William will be King, Harry, his American wife and his offspring will never be in the shadow of the Cambridges, they are far too popular worldwide.