Inside the history of the Royal Family’s Twitter account, from sending the Queen’s first tweet to announcing her death

Tributes to Queen Elizabeth II have been pouring out on social media.WPA Pool/Getty Images.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II was announced by the official Royal Family Twitter account.

A crowd gathers at Buckingham Palace following Queen Elizabeth II’s death.Yui Mok – PA Images / Contributor / Getty Images

On September 8, at 6:30pm British Summer Time, the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s longest-reigning monarch, at the age of 96, was announced.

The news was not broken by the BBC — as many expected — or by any of the UK’s major publications. It was the official Royal Family Twitter account that sent out a 156-character tweet to release the news that would reverberate around the world.

As Insider’s Jake Epstein reported, the choice to announce the death over Twitter shows how much the monarchy has changed over the course of the Queen’s 70-year reign.

Here’s a brief history of the Twitter account that with a single tweet dominated the global news cycle.

The @RoyalFamily Twitter account was created in April 2009 under a different handle.

The Royal Family joined Twitter with the @BritishMonarchy account in April 2009, four years after the website’s launch, according to History.com.

Its first tweet, which featured a link to their official website for the Royals’ “latest images gallery,” was posted on April 28, 2009.

Its next tweet was posted just one minute later, reading, “President and Mrs Obama visit Buckingham Palace.” It included a link to a video posted to the Royal Family’s official YouTube channel, which showed the Obamas shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II.

The account’s name was later changed to @RoyalFamily, although the exact date of the switch is unclear.

The @RoyalFamily Twitter account did not post many tweets in the first few years of its existence.

The account posted 42 tweets in December 2009.@RoyalFamily/Twitter

After its first two tweets, the account did not appear to post again until December 2009 when it announced various royal engagements leading up to the holidays, posting 42 tweets that month.

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Between 2009 and 2014, the account tweeted sporadically, with the majority of its tweets linking to photo galleries on the Royal Family’s official website or brief announcements of events that senior Royals would be attending.

Unlike the account’s more recent tweets, there were rarely photos posted to Twitter itself or personal announcements about the family.

Around 2014, the account began to engage more with its followers and post more personal content about the Royals.

Around 2014, the @RoyalFamily account began to post more personal content and used Twitter to engage more with its followers.

While earlier tweets were typically links to the official website or announcements, tweets from 2014 onwards began to mark a change in how the account was used by the royals.

Subsequent tweets included photos of the Royal Family, tweets in Gaelic to celebrate the Irish State Visit in March of that year, archival materials about the monarchy, hashtags, as well as responses to content about the Royals posted by other accounts.

The Queen herself posted her first tweet from the account in 2014.

The Queen posted her first ever tweet to the @RoyalFamily account in October, 2014. She wrote, “It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.”

The account later confirmed in a follow-up tweet that it was the Queen who “personally” sent the tweet as well as posting a photo of the Queen typing it out on a tablet while at the Science Museum along with the hashtag #TheQueenTweets.

Two years later, the Queen published another tweet on the @RoyalFamily account after her 90th birthday.

She wrote, “I am most grateful for the many digital messages of goodwill I have received and would like to thank you all for your kindness. Elizabeth R.”

Though there is an official account for the Royals, members of the Royal Family have also created their own accounts on social media.

In addition to its main Twitter account, the Royal Family has official accounts on Facebook (@TheBritishMonarchy) and Instagram (@TheRoyalFamily).

Several Royals also have their own social media accounts that are verified and used to post personal announcements and engagements.

The former Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, and his wife Queen Consort Camilla, have an Instagram account and a Twitter account under the username @clarencehouse, the name of their official residence.

Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, also have an Instagram and Twitter account, both under the name @KensingtonRoyal, which refers to their official residence Kensington Palace. It was established in January 2015 and currently has 14 million followers on Instagram.

Following Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle in 2017, @KensingtonRoyal became a shared account for both couples until April 2019 when the Instagram account @SussexRoyal was created for Harry and Meghan alone, according to the New York Times.

@SussexRoyal currently has 9.5 million followers despite the couple having relinquished its use in March 2020, two months after the couple announced they would be stepping down as senior royals.

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and her daughter Princess Eugenie both have Instagram accounts while Eugenie’s sister Princess Beatrice has a Twitter account.

According to Metro, Prince Andrew previously had a Twitter account but it has since been deactivated.

The account announced the death of Prince Phillip in 2021.

The Royal Family have embraced social media more readily in recent years, including posting content that gave Royals’ fans more of a personal connection to the family.

This change in their approach to social media led to the Royal Family announcing the death of Prince Phillip, the Queen’s husband, via Twitter and their website at 12pm BST on April 9, 2021.

The tweet read, “It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”

The same wording was used in the official announcement on the Royal Family’s website, and sent to news outlets worldwide.

The Queen’s death was announced on Twitter two minutes before the BBC.

The announcement of the Queen’s death first came from a tweet posted by the @RoyalFamily account, at least two minutes before the BBC’s own account published the news.

The tweet read, “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.” It was posted two hours after Prime Minister Liz Truss was notified of the Queen’s death, according to Bloomberg.

According to The Guardian, which in 2017 reported on “Operation London Bridge,” the plan in place for the Queen’s death, the announcement of her death would go out to “the Press Association and the rest of the world’s media simultaneously.”

The Press Association’s tweet about her death was posted at 6:31pm BST, one minute after the @RoyalFamily account, while the BBC’s tweet came at 6:32pm BST. The Guardian reported that, “For many years the BBC was told about royal deaths first, but its monopoly on broadcasting to the empire has gone now.”

The Queen’s father and last reigning monarch King George’s death was reported very differently in 1952. King George was found dead at 7:30am and was confirmed by the BBC at 10:45am, over three hours later.

News about his death only spread to other UK newspapers and broadcasters after the BBC’s announcement, according to The Guardian.

According to Bloomberg’s Alex Millson, “That Twitter was chosen as the initial vector for the news shows how much the family’s approach to communication has morphed, especially in the latter years of the Queen’s reign.”

The announcement tweet has received 2.4 million likes and over 700,000 retweets since it was posted.

After the Queen’s death, the Royal Family’s various accounts changed their profile photos in her honor.

The image has replaced the profile photos of every official Royal Family social media account.@RoyalFamily/Twitter

Following the Queen’s death, the @RoyalFamily account changed its Twitter profile picture to the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom.

@KensingtonRoyal also changed its profile picture to the royal coat of arms from one of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge smiling.

The name of the @KensingtonRoyal was also changed from “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge” to “The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge,” to reflect their new titles.

@ClarenceHouse, the account for Charles and Camilla, replaced an official portrait of the couple with its crest, the Prince of Wales’ feathers. Their name has not yet been changed to reflect their new titles.

In the aftermath of the Queen’s death, the Twitter account has posted twice more.

Since its announcement of the Queen’s death, the official Royal Family Twitter accounts has posted two other tweets.

The first was a statement from her son, King Charles III, posted 34 minutes later after the initial announcement. The second was posted September 9, at 9:49am BST, and included a link to a page on the Royal Family website that detailed the mourning and condolences arrangements.

The Twitter account has not liked, retweeted, or replied to any tweets since.

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