It’s always good to see what works and what doesn’t.
Consistently, when I’m looking at content for a social media review the worst performing content has been generic campaign content shared by a tool kit.
If you work in comms you’ll know a toolkit is a pre-designed piece of content that may include a leaflet, a header image and social media content. The idea is great. It’s the centre recognising regions are hard pressed and could do with something on a plate. I can also imagine earnest conversations about ‘brand consistency’.
But here’s the truth. Tool kit content is failing. It ticks a box. It is it’s own metric but the audience doesn’t connect with it. They much prefer content with local voices.
“We’ve issued a toolkit to 100 organisations as part of the campaign,” the Teams call runs.
Everyone nods.
“The greatest danger about communication,” George Bernard Shaw once said “is the illusion that it’s taken place.”
He could have been talking about a whole host of national campaigns you’ve stepped over in the last few years.
But the danger isn’t just that communication hasn’t taken place it’s also if you’re posting to social media that you’re irritating your audience and harming your future reach. This is not a victimless crime. It’s an act of collective self-harm.
In 2006, journalist Tom Foremski wrote a blogpost ‘Die Press Release! Die! Die! Die!‘ after a bottle of red wine. In amongst the blood on the wall was an argument that words alone were pointless in a landscape where hyperlinks and images were more important.
Is it time for the same for toolkit social content?