The Health Research Authority makes it easy to do research that people can trust. The regulator, an NHS organisation, recently closed its X account. Head of Communications Eve Hart wrote an update for colleagues on what this decision means for the HRA, and has agreed to share it here to support comms colleagues still deciding what to do with the accounts that they manage.
If you can’t measure it, you shouldn’t be doing it.
The HRA’s communications team is part of the Government Communications Service (GCS), and its operating model for communications is clear that data and evaluation should inform our practice.
Since the social media platform Twitter was bought by billionaire Elon Musk and rebranded X, this has been a challenge. Where once the HRA’s highest performing social media account had a trusted blue tick and was rich with engagement, in the last year the site has changed beyond all recognition. And our analytics have gone. Without paying £1,000/month (which is greater than the cost of keeping our whole corporate website up and running!) it’s no longer possible to measure the impact of our social media content … what’s worked well, what missed the mark, and what have we learned?
At the end of 2023, confused about what the lack of data meant for @HRA_Latest, I asked my friends. At CommsCamp (a free conference for public sector communications professionals with tiny budgets!) I ran a session consulting with equivalents in other organisations. The consensus was that watchful waiting was the best way forward. Whilst we felt the winds of change, many of our audiences remained on the platform, and they still expected to hear from us.
By mid-2024 things had not improved. Accounts removed from previous iterations of the platform for harassment or discrimination were allowed to return, and the site’s algorithm was changed to push content from organisations like ours down in feeds. If we added a link, our posts would be shown to fewer people. But there were new shoots of hope as alternative platforms started to spring up and grow leaves. Maybe we should move to Mastodon, think about Threads, bring it on Bluesky? We registered our account names, just in case.
We started a social media review, well underway today. This includes an assessment of the range of platforms available to us. Using the HRA’s stakeholder categories and data from Ofcom we’re assessing what the different options would mean. Where do researchers expect us to post if our systems are down? Where does the HRA Community want to see us celebrate the amazing contribution they make to UK research? Where is the patient and public involvement community, we miss their input?
But whilst the starting point had been to use data to drive a decision to finally leave X (or not), this work is now looking forward rather than back, as our corporate profile on the platform was deactivated last week.
The media regulator has criticised social media platforms (especially X) for their role in the racially-aggravated violence which appalled us all earlier this month, and the owner of the platform has himself helped misinformation to spread. X is no longer a safe space for communications colleagues to manage as part of their roles, nor should we direct our stakeholder there for the latest information from the HRA. It’s counter to our values, and the careful work we’ve done to make sure ours is an organisation which people trust, and where they want to work, volunteer, or get involved.
In the coming weeks we’ll be talking to you about your comms plans. If we’re supporting you with a project or piece of work as part of which we were going to use X, we’ll work with you to identify other channels to reach the audiences you want to, and to measure the impact of your work. These are exciting times for team comms as we work to find new ways to achieve our external comms objectives and support the HRA.
Where we can measure it, we’ll be doing it. And we’re going to be proud of it too.
Eve Hart is head of communications at the Health Research Authority.
Neurodivergence is becoming more recognised as research improves. Research shows that as much as eight per cent of us have our brains wired this way. Rather than a challenge to employers Gabby Willis, who has had her own diagnosis, explains that it can be an asset in the team that’s not hard to accommodate.
How long have you worked in comms? For your neurodivergent colleagues, it might be longer than you think.
I was diagnosed with ADHD-C (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – Combined Type) just over six months ago, after years of wondering why everything in my life felt so much more difficult than everyone else expected it to be. One of these things, despite me having completed a journalism degree and worked in digi-comms for the past few years, was communication. Oh, the irony.
My ADHD means that I can struggle with interpreting social situations and have done so since I was a child. My professional communication skills have been honed by years of masking my anxiety around speaking to and interpreting the tone and intention of others.
Behind the calm and knowledgeable exterior is a woman second guessing every single word. This can be frustrating, but ultimately, I believe it has served me well in my career. I have been a professional communicator for most of my life, always conducting a ‘vibe check’ of my audience and making sure my need for accessible communications is a two-way street.
I’ve been told many times that I make communicating look effortless. I’m ‘polite’, I’m ‘professional’, I approach everything from emails to social media with measured consideration and am in many ways the picture-perfect confident communicator. In reality, I feel anything but. It is often a mask that requires a huge amount of effort to maintain.
My manager, who is also neurodivergent, calls me a “natural born professional communicator”. He’s always quick to clarify that this is by no means to downplay the years of professional development I have also put into my craft, and the effort it takes. But it’s made me think deeply about what neurodivergent colleagues can bring to a comms team.
So, without further ado, here are some skills you should embrace from your neurodivergent colleagues (with the obvious caveat that not all people with neuro differences experience these traits in the same, positive way, and that many of these things will also apply to neurotypicals. As the old adage goes, if you’ve met one neurodivergent colleague, you have met one neurodivergent colleague):
Vibes checks
Many of us exhibit hyper vigilance to varying degrees. Whilst this is unpleasant for us, it can benefit you because we are more likely to spot when something is ‘off’ in the mood of Teams call or meeting with external stakeholders. We may also be the first ones to notice that colleagues are uncomfortable with messaging about organisational change, or if the air-con in the office is too cold, alerting internal comms to any potential issues.
Reading between the lines: clarification, and concise communication
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is also common, particularly in those of us with ADHD or ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). This leads some of us to over-communicate to avoid being misunderstood, or to second guess our interactions with others. ‘What did they really mean when they said X?’ and ‘Can you clarify point X, please’ may be things you hear from us. Instead of being frustrated by this, I encourage you to see it as an opportunity to reevaluate your approach. We may be able to help you make something clearer and more concise, or to identify ways to clarify ambiguous calls to action.
Accessibility and inclusion
Accessible and inclusive communication is second nature to many of us. As above, we put a lot of effort into making sure that our communication to others reflects the accessibility that we need to be shown in return. There may be nobody better than us to bang the drum for WCAG requirements, diversity of contributors to audio-visual content, and appropriately responding to awareness moments.
Empathy
Empathy can be as much a learned skill as something you are born with. When you are responding to audiences who may be experiencing hardship or heightened emotions, such as during the recent harrowing events in Southport and subsequent rioting, look to your neurodivergent colleagues. We may be struggling with internalising the atmosphere and battling our strong sense of social justice, or we may again be the first to suggest an empathetic approach to acknowledging and dispersing tension.
Crisis management and problem solving
Hand in hand with empathy comes crisis management; many of us (with ADHD in particular) thrive in a crisis. My brain is chaotic, and there is nothing like a crisis to give me the challenge I need to remain stimulated and on task. After facing many made-up crises from my own co-morbid anxiety, a real professional crisis will see me remain level headed and pragmatic. This also means that I love to get stuck into solving a problem and will happily do the research and deep dives needed to investigate all avenues needed for a potential crisis response. It is better to be safe and prepared than to be sorry.
Strategy, project management and seeing the bigger picture
Following on from the above, a need for structure is a common neurodivergent trait. This can show up in a keen eye for strategy and project management. If you’re planning a big campaign, it might be one of us who is keeping you on schedule, helping you see the bigger picture, and coming up with exciting new ideas. We might also make excellent meeting chairs.
Perfectionism and pattern recognition
Do you hate proof reading, or analysing social media statistics with a passion? One of your neurodivergent colleagues might love to take this off your hands. It must be clarified that it is cliche to expect everyone with ASD to be a whizz with numbers, but many neurodivergent people count pattern recognition and analytical skills among their strengths.
Creativity, passions and enthusiasm
Need a creative solution to a problem? I’m ya gal! There’s nothing quite like the opportunity to do creative work to keep me motivated and working at pace. A common ADHD trait is hyperfixation, and whilst this needs to be carefully managed so that it doesn’t become a problem, I can hyperfixate for hours on creating a stunning branded social media campaign of graphics that will stand out from the rest. This is not quite a special interest (which is a potentially contentious term for some) for me, but in a similar vein many neurodivergent colleagues will be extremely skilled at or knowledgeable about the areas of work they feel most passionate about, leading to boundless enthusiasm and a drive to share this with others.
Whilst I have only scratched the surface here, I hope this blog has given you something to reflect upon personally or within your team, whether you’re neurodivergent or neurotypical.
Gabby Willis is communications and external affairs officer (digital) at IfATE Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.
Extra help
* Neurodivergence can include a number of diagnosis including autism, attention defecit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), attention deficit disorder (ADD). While some people may still identify with the diagnosis of ADD, ADD is no longer diagnosed by medical professionals. Instead, they diagnose three types of ADHD (inattentive/ADHD-I, hyperactive-compulsive/ADHD-HI, or combined/ADHD-C).
In addition, neurodivergence can also include dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia or developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD).
Firstly, I uploaded an image of the British seaside from Wikimedia Commons that I’m using under a creative commons license. This gave it something to work with.
It’s an amusement arcade on a wet day in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset. What can I say? I’m a child of the 1970s. I saw a lot of these on day trips to Rhyl in North Wales.
This is a British seaside amusement arcade. We can hear seagulls, rain and the distant bleep of slot machines.
It brought this…
Which was okay, but those seagulls were not making it. I hadn’t actually noticed the people in the picture so was pleasantly surprised to see them identified as humans and walking like them too.
But I wasn’t happy. So, I tried again. This time I wanted more rainfall and flashing lights in the amusements.
This is a British seaside amusement arcade. We can hear rainfall and the distant bleep of slot machines. There are lights flashing in the amusement arcade. We can also see rainfalling on the damp road and the reflection of approaching cars.
This brought a better result.
And asking it to retry made for better results although the audio is still not there.
All useful. So, I thought I’d take a look at what the results would be if I gave Pika nothing to work with.
Here is the anime version of that same prompot
This is a British seaside amusement arcade. We can hear rainfall and the distant bleep of slot machines. There are lights flashing in the amusement arcade. We can also see rainfalling on the damp road and the reflection of approaching cars.
No, that’s not what I’m after. But my own fault for choosing a Japanese film style.
And then finally just text.
This is not what I’m after at all. The cars look like they are from the 1950s, the signs look foreign and so does the road surface.
But hey, that’s on me.
Lyp synching
One interesting part of Pika is the ability to take video and merge it with imported audio.
I thought I’d give this a test by uploading two rtandom videos and seeing how they knit together.
So a couple of seconds of the vox pop in Bristol saying ‘another one?’ in an incredulous voice was the fiorst one I found.
Then I added a short clip of Roy Keane being interviewed.
To make this…
Not perfect but at first glance, it’s the audio being mixed with the video to give the Bristol woman Roy Keane’s voice.
Technical part
For the video, I’m able to change the tilt, zoom, pan and rotate and I’m also able to tweak prompts and retry. The moral of the story here is to keep trying and experimenting.
Conclusion
As something to add life to existing images this looks fantastic. I’m not convinced I’d use straight text to video. Overall, this could be useful for cutaways and supporting footage. The sounds I’m not that impressed with but the lip synching is dangerously good. I’m not sure ethically whay you’d use it.
Text to video
This was not good. Yes, it’s amazing that some words can end up as video and you’ve got to give them that but in terms of using this I wouldn’t.
SCORE: 1 out of 5.
Text to video with an uploaded image
This was really good and I can see a definite role in animating images for cutaways and better story telling.
SCORE 4 out of 5.
Sound
This was bad. Yes, there were slot machines but they were implausible. You’d need an alternative source for your audio.
SCORE: 0 out of 5.
Lip synching
It’s very easy to come up with something that at first glance looks the part. The ethics of it is another thing.
SCORE: 3.5 out of 5.
The site is free but at $8 (£6.27) a month you can take the Pika logo off, extend the video length and frame resolution and buy extra credits. The pro version is $58 (£45.46) a month.
Should you still be using your corporate X, formerly Twitter? It’s a question I’m often asked so I thought I’d write an analysis.
There are a great many reasons to not use the organisation’s channel. Since the takeoever of Twitter by Elon Musk it has opened back up to some unsavoury characters. A BBC investigation reported that it was now unsafe.
I loved early Twitter but I’ve not used the platform in earnest for 12-months. I grew sick of the algorithm pushing me extremist politics and anyway, the people who had made it a great place had moved on.
As this tweet says, it’s pretty unusable.
The state of Twitter. It’s becoming impossible to even post a local news story without dozens of weird replies about free speech from people in America (or possibly Russia..). It’s almost completely unusable for journalists at this point.
But should you still use it? It depends on your audience.
Your own personal account
There’s two questions to answer with this. Your own account and the corporate account. For your own account, hey, that’s down to you. If you find it a deserted hellscape then don’t use it.
It’s true that for comms people, the discuission has moved more to LinkedIn and Facebook groups.
This is more about the corporate account.
What X is good for
It’s very clear that journalists remain all over the platform. National reporters as well as local ones are still finding stories there and organisations are still connecting with them there.
Indeed, the UK Home Office in the days after the summer 2024 riots have been using their account as a ticker for prosections.
Like this one.
Our teams continue to work around the clock, along with the police, to charge people as quickly as possible and ensure justice is served, following recent public disorder. As of today, we have charged 159 people. See below for real-time updates today ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/kVkuAwwqpL
Indeed, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s video to lay down the law to those found breaking the law has been seen 3.5 million times in three days on the platform. The video went to other channels too.
Both of these channels were responsible for the flow of information from the street and neighbourhood before the events in Southport reached a wider regional and national audience.
But how about the health of the platform as a whole outside an emergency?
One thing I do when I’m conducting a social media review is to calculate the number of dormant accounts on what used to be Twitter. I use a subscriber tool called Fedica. Helpfully, it can give you a breakdown of followers on any account and analyse if their account is active. What is dormant? It means no posts in the past six months.
As a real world experiment, I decided to run the rule over the public sector in the Black Country where I live. Where’s the Black Country? It’s that bit of the West Midlands west of the M5. Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton self-identify as Black Country.
So firstly, I thought I’d run the council accounts through Fedica to analyse them.
Here’s what I found.
Black Country council X, formerly Twitter, accounts active followers v dormant followers
Dudley Council @dudleymbc active 26 per cent dormant 74 per cent.
Sandwell Council @sandwellcouncil 24.4 per cent active dormant 75.6 per cent.
Walsall Council @walsallcouncil active 15.7 per cent dormant 84.3 per cent.
Wolverhampton Council active 26.3 per cent dormant 23.7 per cent.
Source: Fedica.
First reaction? That’s a lot of dormant accounts.
Around 75 per cent of all four council’s X, formerly Twitter followers haven’t been active.
So, for @walsallcouncil, of the 35,000 followers this means just over 5,500 have been active in the last six months.
This makes me reflective as I set-up this account in 2009 when I was working for Walsall Council. I sent the first tweet and battled to convince people to take it seriously.
Scrolling through their timeline I can also see the number of people who have seen the tweet. Around 300 is common rising to around 750 for the more popular content.
But Walsall is not an outlier. The other Black Country councils in the region have a similar number.
But, is this just councils? How about the NHS?
Black Country NHS X, formerly Twitter, accounts active followers v dormant followers
Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust @DudleyGroupNHS active 33 per cent dormant 67 per cent.
Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust active 34.9 per cent dormant 65.1 per cent.
Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust @RWT_NHS active 35.5 per cent dormant 64.4 per cent.
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust active 30.7 per cent dormant 69.3 per cent.
Source: Fedica.
NHS accounts show around two thirds of accounts are dormant and are all showing similar numbers. That’s fewer than compared to local government.
Perhaps the recent pandemic is the reason for this as health news then came at a premium.
But how about blue light services such as police, ambulance and fire and rescue?
West Midland blue light services X, formerly Twitter, accounts active followers v dormant followers
West Midlands Fire @westmidsfire 22.2 per cent active 77.8 per cent dormant. West Midlands Ambulance Service @OfficialWMAS 25.3 per cent active 74.7 per cent dormant. West Midlands Police @WMPolice 22 per cent active 88 per cent dormant.
Source: Fedica.
The police take the prize. West Midlands Police had the highest dormant numbers with 88 per cent followed by West Midlands Fire and Rescue on 77.8 per cent and West Midlands Ambulance at 74.7 per cent.
Yet while the region’s police have the highest number of dormant accounts a recent tweet about the arrest of a man with what looked like a gun at a riot in Birmingham was seen more than 77,000 times.
#CHARGED | We've charged a man with possessing an offensive weapon during a gathering in Bordesley Green.
We detained a 46-year-old man on suspicion of having a weapon on Monday evening.
The first thing to say is that there are some hugely talented people who work in the public sector in the Black Country. I’ve worked with several.
Indeed, I’m sure those comms people are not relying on X, formerly Twitter, to get their message out and I’m pretty sure they’re alive to the issue of falling users on Musk’s platform.
The recent riots sheds light on what to use in an emergency. Big numbers can still be reached when information is at a premium.
There’s talk about Twitter alternatives such as Blue Sky, Mastodon and Threads. None of them have the reach of Twitter at its peak. Of those, Threads Meta’s Twitter alternative is the strongest horse to back but some distance away from being a full Twitter equivalent in the UK.
Users on Threads are moving upwards but UK users can still be measured in hundreds of thousands.
But for Elon Musk’s platform, it’s striking that the Labour Party’s successful General Election social media constituency strategy was Facebook groups, WhatsApp and Nextdoor. Why? They correctly identified that’s not where the constituents were. Journalists and other MPs, yes. Voters in that constituency? Not really.
People have moved away from what used to be Twitter but haven’t entirely abandoned it. LinkedIn and Facebook groups are there for discussion.
So what to do with it?
If you want to reach journalists and people in an emergency then X is still relevant.
On a routine day-to-day the numbers in these examples don’t support frequent use. To reach residents its WhatsApp, Facebook groups and Nextdoor. To reach journalists its maybe a mix of WhatsApp and X.
Right now in 2024, public sector X, formerly Twitter makes sense as a prime emergency channel rather than a prime daily platform.
This may mean a recalibration of how you use the account rather than abandoning it altogether.
It’s August 2024 and a number of foreign countries are posting travel warnings after the outbreak of rioting – let’s not call it protest – across England and Northern Ireland.
What started with the murder of three children in Southport became a riot fuelled by misinformation and then disorder in more than a dozen towns.
The Civil Contingencies Act requires UK police, council, fire and rescue and NHS to warn and inform.
I’ve gathered toghether some content that has lanfded. It’s important to stress that it’s not always the eye catching that works. Yes, there’s some arresting footage of police body-warn cameras but there’s also some very straight forward meat and potato communication that scores well because it is timely.
But alonngside the messaging, don’t forget media relations.
The conviction and sentencing of those accused of taking part in disorder is now an important part of the process.
Justice must seen to be done to deter those who could take part in future disorder.
Here’s some that’s caught my eye.
Communicating the incident
X, formerly Twitter, still has a role in a breaking news situation. Wisely, Merseyside Police limited who can reply to the original message. A similar message on Facebook has been shared 350 times in seven days.
LATEST | Emergency services are in #Southport after a major incident this morning (Mon). One man has been arrested and a knife seized. There are casualties.
After the deaths of the girls in Southport comes remembering and honouring their lives. Mersey and West Lancs Teaching Hospital NHS Trust.
And also Sefton Council on Instagram lighting up a civic building.
Communicating disorder
But as the situation spread to a far right-inspired riot in Southport and to other towns in England the situation became more charged. Merseyside Policeshared some shocking bodyworn camera footage.
Communicating condemnation
In other towns there was condemnation of the trouble caused such as here, Rotherham Council. Sometimes, attractive content isn’t needed. The simple text of it works here.
Communicating arrests
Putting through the door of one of the suspects accused of taking part in the rioting in Sunderland. Face obscured to not jeopardise a future trial from Northumbria Police.
And body worn content showing the arrest of suspects – with faces obscured so as not to jeopardise their conviction.
Communicating recovery
It’s important to show the recovery phase. Here, the people of Sunderland turned out to help with the clean-up operation in the city centre after violence. This post from Sunderland City Council.
And here, Liverpool City Council didn’t hide the deep impact of the violence. Here, library staff on TikTok talk of their shock after their building was targeted.
Mark and Debbie who work at #Spellow Hub, express their sorrow after the destruction of their community hub. The service gives vital support to the community and the devastation caused by the appalling criminal actions of a minority has left people in shock.
Again, residents taking part in the clear-up posted by Hull City Council.
A simple picture of gifts thanking Cleveland Police officers who tackled trouble in Middlesborough gets huge reactions.
Communicating recovery from the residents
As much as the content from official channels is important – and it is – there’s certainly something to be said for sharing other recovery content. After all, this shows powerfully that the community are on the side of law and order.
Here, a Southport football player Jordan Lussey offers free coaching to kids from the town.
If there are any parents on here from Southport who’s children are distressed after todays events.
Please DM me. I am hosting a Football Camp this week and your children can attend free of charge.
It’s also important to remember the role that traditional media plays in these moments and that their content is shared back online. Here, a Liverpool Echo piece is shared back into the Southport Community Facebook group.
And this from South Yorkshire…
And court reporting which is an important part in the process…
On the subject of media relations…
Alison Hernandez, police and crime commissioner for Devon gives a masterclass in communicating restrained anger and praise on BBC TV. It’s five minutes but worth the watch.
As the dust starts to settle on the horrific murders of three children and rioting in Southport two important questions start to emerge for public sector communicators.
Firstly, how to communicate on a hyperlocal level in an emergency?
Secondly, how to challenge the world of disinformation that can come with it?
Communicating on a hyperlocal level
Ofcom’s Review of Local Media correctly shows the dartboard-shaped new landscape of communicating locally.
It starts with your street as the bullseye and radiates out to your neighbourhood, town or city then your county nation or region. It looks like this:
The channels radiate from WhatsApp and Facebook groups locally right up to TV and radio nationally.
In an emergency, Twitter has been the default first platform for the public sector to communicate on since 2011.
Indeed, London Ambulance Service stopped answering the phones to the media and relayed their statements on Twitter as the incident played out.
But Twitter, now X, is not what it was. The limit on tweets you can see has blunted its effectiveness at reaching people. Its timeline is no longer in chronological order.
What is now happening is the local emergency and the disinformation that surrounds it is playing out first on WhatsApp and Facebook groups.
The big problem is this escapes the gaze of police, fire & rescue, NHS and council people who operate on a town, county or regional level.
It’s important to say there is no criticism in this post of those organisations responding to what was a triple murder in Southport followed by a riot then recovery. Quite the opposite, teams from Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire & Rescue, North West Ambulance Service, Mersey and West Lancs NHS Trust and Sefton Council stood up to be counted.
Like this post.
In an emergency, information rather than click-attracting content is key.
I’m sure there will be a more detailed study into the events and lessons learned but as a blogger some things struck me.
The timeline for Southport
Firstly, let’s look at the timeline to see how it measures up against the Ofcom dartboard.
At 11.50am on Monday July 29, a man armed with a knife attacked children at a venue in Southport.
Jamie Lopez, a reporter for the subscription news service The Lancashire Lead, recalls how the information vaccum was filled with rumour:
“I was born and raised in the town and on Monday spent hours waiting in fear for official news to come through. The WhatsApp groups and Facebook comments were filled with terrifying stories of what may have happened and just how many people were affected.
“Most of those suggestions had lots of details wrong but ultimately the key point remained true – children and adults had been stabbed by a lone attacker who’d embarked on a spree of unimaginable terror.”
“All of a sudden I was getting all these messages flashing through on my phone, on WhatsApp and things,. No one really knew what was happening or where it was — at first we were worried it might be some of their friends.”
So, misinformation and confusion on WhatsApp and Facebook groups first as the incident played out. It started off as being hyperlocal.
Just over an hour later came the first statement on the Merseyside Police website.
Far right social media had gone into overdrive. They immediately blamed Islamic terrorism with unfounded allegations the attacker was from Syria and had come to the UK illegally. See here, here and here.
By the morning of Wednesday July 31 Nigel Farage MP had got involved. He posted a video questioning what information was being withheld rather than asking the question in Parliament and getting an answer.
Legitimate questions, commentators said, but he could have got answers had he asked his questions in Parliament.
What was being hidden?
In the UK, the law forbids police immediately identifying a 17-year-old but in the world of conspiracy ‘they’ don’t want you to know who it is because ‘they’ are hiding something.
A court order was later made to identify the accused as Axel Rudakubana who was born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff.
So, it wasn’t a Muslim immigrant who came illegally on a boat at all.
Organised disinformation
The News Agent news podcast produced an excellent investigation into the background of misinformation (accidental) and disinformation (deliberate) around the Southport incident.
I strongly urge you to take a few minutes to catch-up on this if you work in the public sector. It sets out the far right conspiracy playbook that if you spend any time online you’ll see.
One of the means of conspiracy, the podcast reports, is ‘they’re not telling you stuff’. They’re hiding it from you.
Who?
‘A shadowy cabal, the Deep State, the woke.’
It sounds crackers but it clearly has traction.
This isn’t unique to Southport. This practice, the programme reports, is well established to encourage division and hate.
This may or may not be be the case but this probably won’t help the police, NHS or council communicator faced with an unfolding incident on the ground.
I’m a member of hundreds of Facebook groups across the UK. In part, this is a legacy of work I did during COVID to support councils across the West Midlands and from work I’ve done with the public sector across the UK. Occasionally, content from them drifts to the surface.
Fired by revulsion and anger at the Southport murders the misinformation about the identity was being circulated in groups such as the Cannock Chase Discussion Group which has 9,500 members.
The Sunderland Have Your Say Facebook group’s 35,000 members were also alive with misinformation days before violence was to flare there.
Horror then shock then a determination to come together by clearing up the damage.
Heartening.
And also…
But also…
So, the Facebook group can be a compelling part of the recovery just as much as they can be a source of speculation.
Indeed, content created by the public sector was shared into Facebook groups such as this Mersey Care NHS Trust post which captured the mood of remembrance and reflection.
The role of WhatsApp, Nextdoor and Facebook groups
The incident in Southport falls squarely into the findings of the Ofcom Review of Local Media.
It played out on WhatsApp and Facebook first. This is a danger point. Rumour fills the vacuum. Once the official statement has been released the message used to be immediately amplified by traditional media. The only vacuum was word of mouth. Now, that’s not the case.
I’d add the community-based network of Nextdoor into this street-by-street mix.
Emergency planning v3.0 and spreading the message on Facebook and WhatsApp
Emergency planning is the duty on the public to warn and inform in an emergency.
This is something that police, fire and rescue, council, NHS and others have a legal duty to plan for.
If traditional media releases are emergency planning v1.0 and social media then using Twitter has been v2.0 then the evolution of WhatsApp, Facebook groups and Nextdoor would be a v3.0 iteration.
This is the phase the puublic sector must now adapt to.
How to plug into WhatsApp and Facebook groups?
I was working in local government around 2010 when the English Defence League came to Birmingham. The first time they came they spread rumours of a white youth being stabbed by an Asian gang. It was pandemonium. The second time they came the police were ready for them.
The second time, a senior officer active on Twitter was scanning for misinformation and then shooting it down in real time.
If there’s a rumour of a stabbing who are you going to believe? An account you don’t know or a police officer you follow?
This incident was a breakthrough moment for me.
A similar Eureka moment is needed with the latest evolution of Emergency Planning, the v30 which has WhatsApp, Nextdoor and Facebook groups.
Ideas for WhatsApp
In peacetime, the lesson from the first WhatsApp Channels are that images with text are sharable and do best on the platform.
So, would a pre-existing WhatsApp Channel that can share an image with text with a request to share into subscribers groups be an idea?
Absolutely.
Indeed, Liverpool City Council used their WhatsApp Channel to spread a video appealing for calm.
The value of using WhatsApp to send a message to particular community leaders in a specific language also presents itself. The good part of a fractured media landscape is that it’s fractured and you can reach your audience with some research.
Could this work in the first minutes of the incident? Potentially and the recovery phase, too.
Ideas for Facebook groups
The lesson from the General Election in Facebook groups is similar to WhatsApp. That’s sharable images. So what would that look like? Key points from the statement as Sefton Council did when encountering online rumour? Images of community clean-up with text, maybe?
Within 15 hours this post from Sefton Council showing a landmark lit up in pink in memory of the attack wqas shared more than 130 times and 300 engagements. That’s a positive number however you look at it.
A strategy of posting and forgetting probably isn’t the most effective way to use Facebook. Being proactive and sharing to groups is definitely the way to go. I’ve heard of some police forces having an email list of Facebook group admins. I’m not sure that’s the most effectiove way to talk to them but the idea of taking them seriously I absolutely love.
Ideas for Nextdoor
This is harder to review since what a council posts to Nextdoor is invisible if you are not in that particular community.
But the partnership agreement with Nextdoor by a public body allows a message to be sent to EVERY subscriber. This is a hugely helpful step in an emergency. One downside if you go down this path is that you can only see messages which land on your page. You can’t see the discussion that falls outside it. In a situation like Southport that’s probably not helpful.
Report, report, report
If you see misinformation and disinformation hit the report button on social media. I don’t see much hope with doing this on CX, formerly Twitter but I’ve anedcdotally heard of Facebook taking complaints more seriously.
Conclusion
‘All politics is local,’ is a commonly heard phrase that was first heard in the 1930s.
All emergencies are local, too. But as my first news editor once said local can be a very elastic term.
There’s no question that the new landscape that gives a local voice to local issues needs to be one that the public sector needs to understand.
It needs to grasp the hyperlocal landscape of WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups and Nextdoor.
But running alongside is the second challenge that is more insidious and that’s how to challenge misinformation.
Should resource be allocated to monitor and tackle this? I’d say so. But that’s easy for me to say because I don’t work for one of the public bodies that dealt with it. Being several steps removed to see the absolute need to tackle that rumour.
I’d be interested in seeing the debate around these questions.
I remember hearing Carolyne Mitchell, the Scottish communicator, say that it is better to sort things out in peacetime rather than when cars in the street are on fire.
In a week when cars in the street have been set on fire I’m reminded how very true this statement is.
You never really know someone until you talk to them at 4am, an internet meme has it.
Even then, I’ve had some early morning conversations with people who have turned out to be absolute coins.
Imagine if you had the huge responsibility to appoint someone to an important job. Yes, there’s the interview but I’ve known some people be brilliant at playing the interview game and then be shocking at the actual job.
There’s an AI for that. Of course there is.
This week, I’m trying out whitebridge.ai a tool that searches digital footprints online. It could be you, a potential employee or someone you are looking to meet.
As a wheeze I thought I’d try it out and then blog the results.
I could have done someone else but I wouldn’t have been 100 per cent on whether or not it was accurate. That hobby painting Napoleonic War-ere lead figures? Well they could I suppose but how do I feel about that?
The website
The website is pretty straight forward.
It searches publicly available records for the person with social media channels, public networks and other public records.
The results
So I dive in…
After two or three minutes it comes back with the report. And 307 data points checked.
Overview
The overview is a broad summary.
Dan Slee is a prominent figure in the field of public sector communications, known for his innovative use of social media and digital tools to enhance public engagement. He is the Director at Dan Slee and co-founder of comms2point0, a consultancy specializing in public sector communications, offering training and consultancy services1. Dan has a rich background in journalism and local government, having served as a Senior Press and Publicity Officer at Walsall Council, where he played a key role in the award-winning Walsall 24 experiment2. He is also recognized for his contributions to the Guardian’s Public Leaders Network and his influential blog, which ranked fourth in Cision’s Top 10 PR Blog list3. Dan’s recent activities include promoting the use of WhatsApp Channels for public sector communications and analyzing the impact of AI on media and public relations. His insights and practical advice continue to shape the landscape of public sector communications in the UK.
RESULTS: Well, it’s all factually accurate. The Guardian Public Leaders Network stuff was more than a decade ago so hardly topical. Nor is the Walsall 24 experiment.
SCORE: 3 out of 5.
About
They got the about right. I live in Dudley in the West Midlands and there’s links to some of my social media. Not linkedIn which is interesting.
SCORE 5 out of 5.
Career
They’ve got that I moved from journalism into the public sector and that I do thinks with public sector comms. I’ve worked in the West Midlands and London? Well, that’s half right. This is where serving on the Guardian Public Leaders Network comes in. It was a voluntary role. Things like this I can clear-up but others wouldn’t.
SCORE: 4 out of 5.
Leisure and hobbies
Apparently, I like making tea, creating musical duets and support Arsenal. I don’t mind a cup of tea, sure but Arsenal? Eh? This comes from a post about an AI-post about Arsenal player. That’s a big leap of faith I’m not that struck about.
As for tea, yes, I like tea but I wouldn’t like to be categorised as one of the nation’s tea drinkers. Had someone started a conversation prompted by the TikTok about tea making I’d be fine with that.
And as for the line about my liking to create musical duets they couldn’t be more wrong.
They correctly surmised that I like hiking from a TikTok I made of my son on the top of Catbells in the Lake District.
What seems to happen here is that the platform will take a fact it discovers and then draws a pretty hard and fast conclusion.
SCORE: 2 out of 5.
Negative media
This one was fascinating. It lists a series of scores around substance abuse, scandal and breaching professional standards. I was all clear on these and got a green tick.
However, one box needed attention. Looking into it it was because I’d blogged about the danger of a fake profile on Facebook. Interestingly, it flagged this up ‘for review’ without coming up with a conclusion. From a legal perspective, I’d be a bit worried if I was basing a decision on a conclusion made without context.
I’m also not on any global sanctions lists which is a relief.
SCORE: 5 out 5.
Gallery
It pulled together a stack of images. They were accurate but I’m not sure what there is here that a Googfle Images search would not have found.
SCORE: 5 out of 5.
Cost
From £21.15 per search so its not something to chuck around.
SCORE: 1 out of 5.
Overall conclusions
After running my search I ran a couple of other searches that drew blanks.
With more than 300 data sources there’s plenty of places to look. It will save time. There’s plenty to get your teeth into. But sometimes the extrapolation from very limited resources are slightly off the mark. It’s a starting point not the destination.
Probably useful as part of the recruitment process.
When I was a younger man than I am now I loved mustard.
Our local Sainsbury’s had a choice of four and I would buy them to experiment. After all, what mustard would taste good on a ham sandwich was quite different to a barbeque sausage.
So, when our Sainsbury’s moved to a new site four times as big the mustard choice also expanded. There was now 16 different types of mustard. There wasn’t just one type of Dijon mustard. There was four. And English, spicy beer mustard and three types of American burger mustard.
Choice now paralysed me and the first time I went I left without buying any.
What I’d come across in this is something academics call ‘choice overload bias’. This means that when there is too much choice your satisfaction can actually decrease. We are tormented by the fact we may be buying the wrong thing.
Communicators who are looking to reach a local audience are faced with choice overload bias on a regular basis. What channel to use when there are so many?
When I started my career in local government the channels were a hard to use website, the local paper, local radio and quarterly residents magazines.
Social media obliterated all that and there are so many more places to get information.
I’ve gone through their 36,000 lines of data for you so you can better navigate the metaphorical supermarket shelves.
Key findings
Local newspapers are in an existential crisis. This time they really mean it. Print weekly paper readership across the UK has dropped 19 per cent in 12-months. Regional dailies have dropped 15 per cent in the same period.
Not only that, but there has been a loss of 271 titles between 2005 and 2022.
We already have news deserts. There are boroughs in London without a newspaper circulating and the same can be found in other parts of the country.
We don’t want to pay for local journalism. Not only do we not want to pay we don’t want to pay for ads. Digital or otherwise. Ad revenue is pouring out of the hole in the newspaper’s bucket.
There are experiments with local news. A spate of email-first news services that cover cities have taken off but all attempts at building a new form of journalism over the past 20 years has struggled. There are hyperlocal independent sites across the UK.
Struggling journalism is bad for democracy. The Government’s Cairncross review into local journalism and other academic research all point to this. There is a link between voter turnout and newspaper circulation.
Yet, the demand local news as an entity is surprisngly strong. Be that local politics, events, weather, sport or traffic, weather and travel we want to know about it. All of us. Not just the over 50s.
Local news and current affairs is surprisingly of interest. Almost half – 49 per cent – of 16 to 24-year-olds are interested in local news in their area. I know. I’m shocked as you are. This rises to 73 per cent of over 55-year-olds. This may be the roads that are being built, the cuts to the leisure centre or the event in the park.
But local campaigns not so much. One in five 16 to 24s is interested in a campaign on somethinmg like crime rising to a quarter of 55 to 64-year-olds.
And yes please to weather. Maybe its because we’re British but the category of local weather updates was the most popular with people. Six out of ten of younger demographics were interested rising to 80 per cent of over 65s.
But how we’re accessing this local news has splintered more than I could have imagined. If its not local newspapers then what?
This is where this handy illustration comes in.
I think of it as a dartboard with your street at the centre radiating out to your neighbourhood, city, town, village then your county then your nation.
In your street, it’s WhatsApp and Nextdoor you plug into then as you go wider its social media, newspaper’s social media and then as you approach the region and country its TV and radio too.
I like how they’ve made this visual.
In your street or neighbourhood, WhatsApp and the neighbourhood site Nextdoor are important. As you move towards the town or village and up through the country to the region or country then other platforms become important.
We often forget about TV and radio. There are 39 BBC stations and 250 commercial radio stations and in Wales the Welsh language S4C station plays an important regional role. But broadcasting only comes into play on stories that will reach broad audiences on the edge of the dartboard.
Local news is being consumed by social media with local groups like Facebook community groups now the biggest single place. The secret to good data, I find, is that it can challenge your own experience. I’ve been an advocate for Facebook groups for a long time but even I’m surprised to see that nationally it is now in pole position for local news.
The BBC. I often say in training that making friends with your BBC local democracy reporter (LDR) is essential. They are a trusted channel and that single LDR can shape content for multiple outlets.
Delve deeper and you’ll find newspaper’s digital footprint is important. The data shows 17 per cent for websites and apps of news outlets. Confusingly, it adds 9 per cent to other nmews websites such as Reach plc’s Birmingham Live. Reach fill prettty much all the top 10 for web pages with the highest audience.
People have left print for the web but sill trust local journalism.
Younger people consume through social media. The stat given is 16 to 34s are consuming news twioce as much on the socials compared to adults aged 55 and above.
Podcasts locally? Nah. Podcasts have enjoyed a boom in the 2024 General Election coverage but with five per cent using them for local news this isn’t a factor locally just yet.
While it breaks down into age demographics it also breaks down if you drill deep enough into regional differences. So, if you’re Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, West Midlands, South West, London or wherever a bit of time spent to refine the data would be time well spent.
A word of warning.
There is a top level summary of 56-pages and the data sets of 36,000 lines you can plough through.
When you break it down
I’ve selected one of the many data tables to include in its entirity. As you’ll see, there are some surprises.
Q: What sources do you get your local news from? By percentage (source: Ofcom)
Channel
16-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
Social media (FB, Insta, X)
63
63
59
56
44
36
TV
29
43
50
54
64
69
Word of mouth
45
46
41
49
54
59
Radio
27
32
32
34
32
29
Print newspapers
17
15
17
20
24
32
Newspaper websites & apps
14
19
23
21
26
23
Messaging or neighbourhood apps (WhatsApp & Nextdoor
14
19
23
21
26
23
Email newsletters
15
22
16
18
20
18
Local news websites
22
22
23
19
20
18
Search engines
34
37
39
31
29
24
Conclusion
I thought the local news landscape was fractured but I had no idea it was as fractured as this. Of all of iot, I love the dartboard graphic that shows how local news can feel very different depending on your perspective.
So, if its your street or neighbourhood its one thing – WhatsApp or Nextdoor – but as you move out its social media then TV and radio.
Given that there is this change none of us can take things for granted.
‘Switch off,’ they say when you go on holiday and then they give you an epic reading listof books about your day job.
Not in this blog post there isn’t. The only doctorate you should be studying for in your deckchair in Weston-super-Mare, Barry Island, Portrush or Troon is that of eating ice cream and playing crazy golf.
Here’s a book list of recommendations crowdsourced from the Public Sector Comms Headspace. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.
It’s split between fiction and non-fiction.
None of these are about PR and comms.That’s why they are on the list.
Non-fiction
PIER REVIEW by Jon Bounds and Danny Smith
“Two friends from Birmingham decide to settle an argument on which is the best pier by visiting them all. Part travel book and part history. This is THE book to read in a deckchair eating an ice cream.” – Dan Slee
“I recommend for anyone that has an interest in sport. It’s inspiring and demonstrates throughout that sport is about much more than just participating, being good or even winning. It teaches discipline, hard work, resilience, team work, determination and so much more.” – Laura Beale
“A book based on his travels in Europe and it’s a sometimes laugh out loud read. So it’s an especially good choice if you have an European destination in mind.” – Vicky Croughan.
“Really fascinating, neutral, and well-written, analysing Labour’s successes and failures at general election and putting them into context with what else was going on at the time. There’s even a chapter on this year’s win.” – Liz Wotsit
“For a more lighthearted read try Riding the Waves by Jane McDonald. This is an incredible tale of determination and self reliance and Jane being Jane it’s also funny. Top Yorkshire lass.” – Josephine Graham
“This has been out a decade or more but is the book I most enjoyed reading in 2024. A readable detailed story of the first years of The Beatles that ends in 1962. Essential.” – Dan Slee
“When I was a kid I was the most voracious reader ever and was at the local library at least once a week getting my quota and my Mom and Dad’s too, which were mostly sporting biographies and autobiographies. It’s because of the latter that I know more about cricket and snooker players of the 1970s than I’ve known of either since because I’d read their books when I’d read mine. Find yourself Freddie Trueman’s Ball of Fire autobiography and immerse yourself in a different world.”
“Incredible, really moving with a lyrical writing but in a way that absorbs you. My favourite reads of the year when it was released. Nice and short too.” – Michelle McVeigh
“For pure entertainment, I love the Why Mummy Drinks series by Gill Sims. Something about the busy working mum frustrated by a husband who thinks a lasagne is a quick dinner chimes with me for some reason.” – Ruth Fry
“As a chronic and uncurable Mancunian, I must recommend The Manchester Man by Mrs G. Linnæus Banks. Its a tale of rags to riches, set in the context of some of the real events of the world’s first industrial city. Its the ultimate place narrative.”
I’ve decided to read the document for you because if its on your list at all it is probably no higher than 9th.
Here’s what public sector comms need to know.
Preparation was a shit show
Just how much of a confused shit show preparation was can be best illustrated by the flow chart which shows how things would work.
If you look at the UK map from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and think your own country was better let me tell you no, it wasn’t.
A confused web of bodies, duties, laws and responsibilities that nobody can understand least of all in an emergency. Within them were documents, the report says, with opaque language designed to deflect from work not being done.
Bad planning lead to more death
In short, the report says that more people died because thought in the planning stage wasn’t given.
There was no allowance for the fact that the pandemic would hit some parts of society more. This led to more people dying if they had a condition such as heart disease or if they lived in a deprived area or were from an ethnic minority group.
Lessons from the past were not learned and there was no space for dissenting voices.
In short, the report is clear that the planning process failed.
So what’s recommended?
The most headline grabbing is that the UK government and the three devolved governments need to create an independent new UK-wide body for responding to emergencies.
All this would also see the current network of local resilience forums in England and equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland replaced.
Once the new body is up and running exercises should be done tio test how effective they are and then lessons need to be adopted.
But the problem is, governments don’t know what’s going on locally and the boundaries of these local bodies don’t always tally with boundaries for the NHS, police and other bodies. This needs to change, the report says.
So does the mish-mash of having public health representation on these bodies. Sometimes they are part of them and sometimes not.
Communicating in England and Wales
Of course, public sector communicators will be looking out for the word ‘communications’ in this document.
Rightly, the voices of the bereaved are uppermost and can be found in panelled quotes in the document. This is really important as it helps decision makers remember just why they are doing this. I hope when it gets to it other patriots of the report will draw from the experience of public sector communicators.
With this in mind, one passage stands out.
The directors of public health, the public health workforce and local government have a critical contribution to make to pandemic preparedness and resilience. Their knowledge and skills are an important local and national resource to be drawn upon in whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience.95 They are in regular contact with the local population and therefore have an important role in communicating their needs to the institutions whose responsibility it is to prepare for and build resilience to whole-system civil emergencies.96 There should be far greater involvement of directors of public health and local public health teams in developing those plans.
Those at the coalface in the pandemic have spoken to me about messages coming from the top down with little chance to influence them. After the white heat of Boris Johnson’s 10 Downing Street stay at home announcement the national message were least effective locally. Messages with local voices better suited to an area worked best. If this is what plays out from the report this could be a good thing.
Are public health directors good at communicating? I’ve heard some pretty conflicting stories. Public health is a local government thing so prepare to step forward local government communicators with your best advice and your best diplomatic manner.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
There’s a different set-up in Scotland with a resilience division of Scottish Government. In Wales, there are separate processes. There’s not much in the report about communications for either country. Although Wales’ systems were called ‘labyrinthine’ so good luck in trying to understand how things work from a standing start.
In Northern Ireland, the suspension of the power sharing agreement which saw politicians absent themselves didn’t help, the report said. Infection rates more closely tracked with the Republic of Ireland rather than the rest of the UK which makes sense given the freedom of movement.
Whatever. The UK-wide approach to tackling the next big emergency will be simplified and UK-wide, the report says.
Preparing for the next
It’s entirely right that the document focuses on how the arms of government can be made to work more effectively next time. There’s lots in the report for emergency planning nerds.
The key recommendation is for a UK-wide independent statutory body for whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience. There’s an emphasis in asking what the third sector, public health and community consultation in the regular decision-making too. Presumably, this would be a communications task, would it?
What’s worrying is that communications doesn’t really feature in the report. Maybe that will come. The public sector communicator needs to look through the document for places where they can put a hand up.
One place they can try and use sharp elbows is where the report looks at the importance of what capabilities there are on the ground. A second is to take part in exercises when they are staged and be vocal during them. The report is clear that exercises need to be staged and their lessons implemented.
Mind, you it was nice to read the report’s war on jargon…
‘as jargon obscures communication rather than enlightens the reader.’
I feel this needs to be printed out, memorised and then quoted as a reason for making communication clearer.
Of course, the worry is that emergency planning remains perpetually 9th on the list until the next time.
