Something magical happens in the festive period and it’s not just the sight of twinkling lights and presents under the tree.
People actually get creative in a way they don’t often do throughout the rest of the year an d its a beautiful site.
Here are eight videos that show creativity and that have lessons that can be re-purposed by any bright comms person through the rest of the year.
Going all Bob Dylan to get round the video is watched without sound issue
As we know, the majority of social video is watched without sound. So, this Police video from Australia dodges the bullet brilliantly. A policeman knocks on the door of a house. He tells his message through prompt cards and a dry wit. Bingo. It reaches second screeners.
2. Make an emotional story the way to get a message across
What’s more effective? Cllr Bob, the cabinet member for environment, up against a wall? Or a kid excitedly counting down for Christmas? For me, its the child and the reminder to give recycling as a gift all year around. I’d love to see how recycling rates were impacted as well as the promising view numbers. Good work, Selby Council.
One used a rewritten Christmas carol supported by subtitles to encourage people to recycle. Through the video they build their Christmas tree from items you can recycle. Good work New Forest District Council.
The National Trust look after thousands of acres of countryside as well as buildings, pubs, homes and other venues. Rather than hector people to go out and walk they made this handy how to guide to make a mouse. You need pine cones. You get those from the countryside. Have you joined the dots?
5. You can use a human face to talk about Christmas work
Network Rail Western used Sarah Fraser to talk about her Christmas Day. It involved work. But popping home too to see her family. Then back out to work. What does it say? It spells out the lengths they’ll go to keep the trains moving everyday. And I love the liberal use of emojis to tell their story.
🏗 In Westbury, Wilts, work continues until 4 January as we upgrade and extend platforms as well as upgrade track.
👏🏻 This will improve safety, reliability and allow longer trains to stop at the station.
Channel 4 News are brilliant at using video on social media to tell a story. You can learn a lot from them. They have a first few seconds with impact. They use sub-titles effectively so you can follow the story without sound. This video tells the story of a homeless ex-soldier. Yes, journalists can do this far easier than the public sector. But think a little. How could you let real people talk about issues?
Norfolk Recycles is a partnership of local authorities and used this campaign to try and make a dent in recyclking over the festive period. I love its clarity.
8. By showing children sing carols and capturing the smiles
It’s a simple concept. Children singing carols at Christmas make people beam. So, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS TRust ask children in to sing to elderly patients. This year they filmed the results.
A little festive treat for you…watch children from Sandwell Day Nursery bring joy to the patients on our older people’s assessment unit with their Christmas singing. Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. pic.twitter.com/bpYB5ljOmP
I’m reading a memoir of a trawlerman at the moment and it’s making me think about public sector comms in 2019.
The skipper remembered how he looked at the boats moored in Peterhead harbour and he felt nagging disquiet that all this was going to change.
So, after carefully thinking through his next steps he moved from targeting cod with heavy quotas to the greener niche catch of langoustines to send to Spain and France. A few years later he looked at the same view and it was different. Those cod trawlers had largely gone and those that were left were struggling.
In 2019, storms are coming.
‘Predictions are very difficult, especially if they are about the future’ – Niels Bohr.
Technology continued to outpace the public sector.
There was a need to improve the quality of video.
The need to use all Facebook has to offer rather than the corporate page grew
The need for human comms grew as did the need for specialist generalists,
GIFS and threads became expected.
Twitter continued to struggle and social media became less social.
The need for digital first grew.
Video grew in importance along with the need to demonstrate evaluation.
Income targets remain a minority pursuit.
In 2019, here’s what I got wrong
Live video hasn’t caught on in the public sector although it thrives in the metric conscious field of local journalism.
360 images and VR haven’t moved into the mainstream yet.
Internal comms didn’t reach a crisis point.
So, what will happen in 2019?
As each year passes, the gap between the cutting edge of technology and the public sector grows wider.
As the public embrace new technology such as voice to use the internet, the public sector lags behind. Weighed down by legacy systems and legacy attitudes many of those in the ship’s wheelhouse are poorly equipped to meet the dark clouds of 2019. But as much as they may wish the clock was stuck in 2005, the dial moves and the boat chugs forward. This year the sea gets faster.
In 2019, the single greatest gift a comms person can have will be strategic vision. To know what is coming down the track is one thing. Having the time and space to manoeuvre will be a luxury.
One take is that social media has gone from the positive sunny uplands into something darker and negative. Another view is that it has matured and the positive as well as negative sides are in view.
Social media will continue to get more closed. The public comment is being replaced with the walled garden where people feel freer to speak. This explains the rise of Facebook groups, Messenger and WhatsApp and the decline on Twitter. This will continue.
Get ready for strategic Brexit chaos. If you are in the public sector, the impact of Brexit will be profound. The worst case scenario of ‘no deal’ is food shortages, medicine running out and a whole lot else. The best case is short term deep uncertainty. So, expect strategically, get your troops in the right place and expect smaller budgets as the public sector will inevitably take the financial hit.
Get ready for tactical Brexit chaos. The UK public sector is well placed to deal with emergencies as terror attacks have proven. Local Resilience Forums provide the platform for councils, central government, police, fire and NHS organisations to handle emergencies. I’d be recommending polishing up these links as there is a fair chance they’ll be used. Digital comms needs to be at the forefront of any breaking scenario. Good luck, Kent County Council. With Dover on your patch how well you do with this has national significance. This is local government, NHS, fire and police. Not just the Whitehall Department for Leaving the EU.
Get ready to support elected members. As the waters ahead get choppy there is a need to give extra help to elected members and those in comms who deal with day-to-day social media channels. Some of this may be perceived. Some of what will come won’t be.
Spotting and rebutting fake news. As things get thrown up in the air there’ll be plenty of misinformation. Some deliberate from Russian trolls and some accidental by your mate Dave who heard something in the pub. The ability to screen, spot and rebut swiftly is needed in the public sector in 2019. A process that allows swift rebuttal in minutes not days is needed.
Prepare for bankruptcy.Northamptonshire County Council’s financial problems showed that there are problems stacking up in the public sector. Some organisations will fall over in 2019. Re-building will be a specific skills set.
As trust in institutions is hammered, the need to give social media to the frontline grows. I’m returning to the theme of ‘sharing the sweets’ and letting others have access to social media. The need to train and devolve in this most crossroads of years has never been greater. Your librarian can handle telling people about their table top sale. You’ll have other things in your inbox. Trust me.
Hello 5G. The 5G mobile network will start to roll out in 2019. As this explainer shows, this means that people could be able to use a mobile phone out and about to download a film in 10 seconds rather than 10 minutes. This will start in 2019 but will take time to roll out. This will mean a greater use of mobile devices to access websites and video.
Voice. The market for voice to search an activate the internet is growing beyond the tech bubble. What was niche 12-months ago is getting mainstream and will get more so in 2019. Yet, public sector websites risk falling behind this trend. How can people search your website using voice? Can they? Or will they fail?
Same as it ever was. Yes, you’ll need to demonstrate your evaluation and as the landscape continues to make tectonic shifts the role of the communicator as educator to the organisation rises. Please fulfill that role. Please.
Facebook won’t go away. The debate about the ethics of Facebook will continue but as a platform there’s no prizes for saying that it will remain the largest single platform consumed by UK people.
Facebook groups will get even more important. For public sector people, the lack of budget means a creative use of the Facebook platform with the ability to search out relevant Facebook groups will become an increasingly key skill.
AI continues to rise. There will be useful tools offered by vendors that use Artificial Intelligence that help make public sector comms people’s lives easier.
Local Democracy Reporters prove their worth. The BBC-funded journalists have fanned out across the country and are intended to fill the gap in local government coverage left by hollowed-out newsrooms. Some bright public sector people have spotted that good relations with them can lead to positive coverage across eight local news titles simultaneously instead of one.
Gig economy comms teams. Bringing people in with specialist skills for one-off projects will be default.
The best ideas will come from journalism. For the last 10 years journalism has been on the ropes. Like the boxer who has taken too many blows the betting was how quick it would fall. While there will be fewer titles in 2019, the best ideas of how to use digital channels will come from journalism and not the public sector. They have the resource – just – but they also have the existential business case.
Do we talk to young people or don’t we? The public sector needs to ask itself if actually wants to talk with young people in the places where it hangs out. As the media landscape continues to fracture, this will involve experimenting in new places. The alternative is to be honest and tell people that you’re not interested in talking to them.
So, that’s it. There’s storm clouds ahead. But there have been storms before. Prepare. Look ahead. You’ll get there.
Shout if you need a hand. I’m dan@comms2point0.co.uk and @danslee on Twitter.
Someone in their 20s once stopped me in my tracks talking about all that video they had of themselves when they were a kid.
Those first steps, she said, that first Christmas it’s all on VHS, isn’t it?
Actually, for this 40-something year old, no it isn’t. I have their heirloom family album of 1:1 pics that was instagram cool the first time around and no video until I’m at least 22.
So, as 2018 runs out and 2019 starts, here’s some apps for you to play with on your smartphone or tablet when the turkey is done, the Brexit arguments with relatives are through and you’re bored of the telly.
The benefit of this is that you get to road test some apps and you’ll be able to make more creative filmmaking decsions when you are next back at work.
I’ve taken a look at them on android and made a note when there is an ios version of the same app. It’s becoming a busier marketplace so if you don’t fancy what’s there keep looking.
VHS Camcorder (VHS Cam) app by Rarevision.
This is brilliant. It allows you to shoot video in the app that looks like a VHS camera. You even get to add text in the manner of a family video from 1986. Get out the scalextric and make it look like Bruno Brookes is still on Radio 1. You need to shoot within app. From there the clip is saved to your gallery on android. You can shoot wider than a mid-80s TV but as their own website points out, why would you do that? It can shoot 480 to 1080. It’s available for android and ios.
Framelapse Pro.
This allows you to shoot timelapse photography. Want to capture an afternoon painting a wall? Or a birthday party? The standard VHS film speed is 25 frames per second. This app staggers when you shoot each frame. So in other words it takes just over six minutes to shoot a frame of footage. You can leave it shooting infinitely for longer projects. So, that new bridge or regeneration project can be captured as it arises. You need to shoot within app. You also need to keep your phone powered. It’s available for android.
Glitchee Cam and Video FX
Glitches are effects that change how you see the picture. One irritation of this app is that there’s limited effects you can use without reviewing it. However, once you review some extra features open. Like a heartbeat that builds tension, lightening for a wtf moment or drunken that makes the screen go a little awry. They may be useful in your story telling with your film making. You can shoot within app or import your own clips that have the glitch added. But don’t worry, a copy of your pristine original remains on your device until you delete it. Both apps are available for android and ios.
ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS FOR COMMS workshops 2019
As video is what your audience is likely to be consuming your video strategy will help you deliver a successful communications strategy.
To help you achieve this, I’m running workshops in 2019. Delivered along with cameraman, filmmaker and academic Steven Davies the sessions will help you plan, shoot, edit and post engaging comms video. We’ll make sure you are safe and legal, GDPR, copyright law and PSBAR compliant.
We’ve had four years of experience and have delivered training for more than 2,000 people across more than 300 organisations.
I’m always struck how every organisation is different yet is resolutely the same.
If only IT would give us the kit we need.
If only we were told about things earlier.
And especially if only people didn’t say: ‘We need an X.’
The ‘X’ is the thing the organisation demands of comms as the cure-all elixir.
It can be a press release, microsite, poster, flyer or maybe even a QR code.
What ‘X’ is in each organisation I find quietly fascinating.
So, after a discussion on the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group I decided to run some unscientific research into what the most popular. The purpose is partly to show folks they are not alone but also to see how much the organisation – however misguidedly – has become digital.
And the winner is…
Of course, that was the top five.
A microsite, logo, put this on Twitter, piece on the intranet or website, an app was 4 per cent,
A request for a flyer was 2 per cent.
What’s striking is that press releases are still being asked for. But while it may be the number one ask it’s not in a position of dominance. Just 14 per cent.
As I sat on the train scrolling on my phone for Brexit news, a curious landmark update dropped into my timeline. It was 10 years, the tweet told me since I joined Twitter.
It made me think and reflect on the journey I’ve taken and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Many have been good and others not so good.
Ten years ago I went to Coventry as part of an audience of local government comms people to hear ex-BBC journalist Nick Booth talk about what the future would look like.
It was a future, he said, where allotment holders would blog, councillors would film themselves and reach 30,000 on YouTube and where Birmingham Post reporters like Joanna Gearey would check the news by asking her followers on Twitter. Joanna works for Twitter in New York now. Each of Nick’s points was backed-up with an example but the line that stopped me in my tracks was this…
‘We will no longer have to go through the Priesthood of journalists to talk to our residents.’
As a press officer, this spoke to me. There was a better way changed my life. But this is no happy ever after romance. There are jags in the story. But it made me think of the key lines and lessons I’ve learned.
The line became the first of several lines that became staging posts along my journey.
‘Facebook is where you meet people you went to school with. Twitter is where you meet people you wished you went to school with.’
In 2008, discovering you could connect with people you didn’t know through an app on your phone was genuinely life changing. For me, then discovering that you could meet them at the Birmingham Social Media Cafe that then thrived was even more amazing. For a few years it met downstairs at a cafe near New Street station. Once a month you could meet with people that you’d seen online.
Ten years ago there was something about the West Midlands that encouraged Twitter to take root. It was a place big enough to have a critical mass of people who gave a stuff about the place where they lived and who wanted to see where this new technology would take us all.
‘I trust my officers with a baton. Why wouldn’t I trust them with a Twitter account?’
Back then, it wasn’t comms people who inspired me. It was those who’ve never written a press release but knew what the internet was. Back then, non-comms people were the people who were doing the most challenging things because no-one had faxed them the rule book. The countryside ranger, the hyperlocal blogger, the coder and the resident.
Here’s an example. One day the Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police turned up in full uniform at the Birmingham Social Media Cafe to ask what social media was and how it could be used.
That copper was Assistant Chief Constable Gordon Scobbie. A solid man with a strong jaw who you’d imagine would take a pace towards trouble rather than away. Like the Brum bloggers, he also gave a stuff. But his concern was the policing of the region not websites. Only a few years previous, West Midlands police officers were banned from using the internet to help with their work. Now things would change. He worked out how social media could be used and then in 2011 post-riots convinced the right senior people that the answer was not to ban it but embrace it. The man should be lionised.
Officers, are real people, Assistant Chief Constable Scobbie concluded.
‘Walsall Police Station at 19:11 today, not on fire. Look how not on fire it is. Very not on fire.’
When rioting broke out in the summer of 2011, rumours circulated across Walsall that the police station was on fire. Step forward PC Rich Stanley who shot the damaging rumour down in flames using his Twitter account and a pic taken on his smartphone.
Suddenly, the purpose for social media started to take shape. It was not the shortage of ideas. It was a shortage of time.
‘#jfdi just fucking do it’
And so started the glorious golden era of #jfdi in local government where it all seemed possible.
Austerity hadn’t quite bitten and there was the capacity to experiment.
Seeking forgiveness was easier than asking permission. Don’t wait for IT. Just do it. I started testing and experimenting myself and through Twitter I found my tribe. We all found each other. But the people who thought that social media was driving people apart couldn’t be more wrong. But what was really surprising was that the bright ideas in local government comms were coming from the provinces. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Derbyshire, Devon, Monmouth, Orkney and South Lanarkshire.
‘Organisations don’t tweet, people do.’
In my own corner of the world, we ran #walsall24, a 24-hour wall of noise on Twitter to paint a picture of the day-to-day.
‘I don’t go to conferences any more. They’re boring’
In London, there too was a recognition that the world had changed but that Government hadn’t. Inspired by some US ideas, 20 or 30 met in a pub one Saturday to stage an unconference. Seeing as no-one was running events that were tackling how things are changing, they’d run their own one. There was no agenda. The attendees decide what they’d talk about. Ideas emerged.
John Peel once said that punk was realising that if you sold your brother’s motorbike and knocked over a phone box you had the £100 you needed to record and release a 7″ single. Of course, the first localgovcamp in 2009 was going to take place in the West Midlands. Twitter was connecting people in local government who also gave a shit.
I’ve said before that going to my first unconference changed my life. Instead of waiting to hear what people with powerpoints have to tell you you can do it yourself. Ideas can bounce and be improved to fail or fly. On the way back from one UKGovCamp I had to sit by myself on the train home because the inspiration was too much.
Unconferences said that we could do it. So, why don’t we?
So we did. It’s where the commscamp event I’m involved with first started. And the brewcamp meet-ups.
‘The answer is quite simple. Eventually, all the old suits will die.’
In 2010, a very senior government comms person announced that the future of communications that year was going to be the printed A-Z of Services. I spent years banging the table that it wasn’t if but how local government should use social media.
It didn’t matter what they said. Those of us who knew what the future would look like just carried on without them. It was exciting times. There were ski tracks in the snow we followed and learned from. When one decided to use Facebook to tell people election results we gasped at her audacity. When I started to tweet that the gritters are out on a cold night I did so after a fight. Quickly, all this became the norm.
There was a group of people, too many to name here, who pioneered things not to advance their career but because they knew it was the right thing to do. For several their daring was frowned upon. I’m still proud to know them.
The partnership – and it was a partnership – that build comms2point0 played a part in changing things. But change would have happened anyway.
‘Die press release die! die! die!’
A blog post by Tom Foremski fired me. One of the first presentations I ever gave in front of an audience was on this topic. After a few years blogging my thoughts I was starting to get asked to speak to people. The essence of it was that sending words all the time was a bit pointless. Some people were keen on this. Others were not.
‘But the revolution never happened like we thought.’
Social media was going to shine a light through the crap and give citizens a voice. It was going to let us talk with residents directly without having to go through the priesthood of journalists.
Well, it both has and it hasn’t.
Where I live in Quarry Bank in Dudley there is a nature reserve. There has been a planning application to build houses on part of it. It was opposed with a 10,000 name Facebook group who mobilised 1,000 objections in an unprecedented display of people power.
In the old days, a protest outside the planning committee would have been it. And if the Express & Star photographer was called away to a fire instead the protester’s voices would only have carried a hundred yards into the cold night air.
The revolution is on Facebook. But councils themselves are still as immobile. And then there’s Donald Trump. Trump is everything I thought was impossible in 2008. Negativity. Hate. Abuse. Echo chambers.
Waking up to hear he had been elected was a dark day. My own innocent belief in the optimistic positive power of social media died that day. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Bad people can use it, too. And win.
‘The future is here, its just unevenly distributed.’
While one part of the population are digital natives at the bow wave others are not.
‘It’ll get interesting when it gets boring’
This was a throwaway comment I once heard a bloke called Dave Briggs say. Dave was a former local government person who in the early years of my journey became freelance to evangelise about how the web could be used by the public sector to make people’s lives better. He works in-house now rather than freelance making good the direction he spent years telling others about.
Dave’s line is something I’ve thought of often over the years. He was right. We now don’t have the excitement of the early years of the love affair but digital tools have become the norm. It’s not the shiny tool that’s exciting but the change we can make to people’s lives using it.
‘It’s the right thing in the right time in the right place.’
I check the news on Twitter. I download the meme and share it with my brothers on WhatsApp. I book workshop places on Eventbrite and what sparks me is the ideas that emerge on the Public Sector Headspace Facebook group. Thriving with almost 3,000 members and almost 11,000 comments, likes and reactions in 28 days.
I realise the other day that I try not to train people just about social media now. I just look at what works best. If that’s a bit digital, that’s fine. But the idea of running an event just about social media seems pointless.
‘I love newspapers but I’m still intoxicated by the power and possibility of the internet.’
In many ways, what I do now is just the same as I did 10 years ago before I joined Twitter. I tell stories and help people communicate. Just how I do it has changed.
I’m a director of two companies, comms2point0 and Dan Slee C2 Ltd and the work I do directly and indirectly comes from what I do on the internet. That’s a positive.
But the 10 years has cast the positive side of social media with the negative. It is no golden bullet, It has caused a revolution. Just not always the ones I thought. It can be good It can be bad. Twitter is no longer the place it was. The optimism has gone. But it has moved rather than dissipated and its got more realistic.
Not everyone I’ve met through social media has been a beautiful person. But that is life.
Over time, events like commscamp were around the day-to-day and how to make it better rather than the synapse blowing enthusiasm of the new shiny toy. And that’s fine.
Social media has become simply the way people talk to each other and communicate. The interesting stuff is how it can change people’s lives not the shiny of the channel itself.
But if anything, the gap between what people are doing and what large organisations are doing has got wider not smaller. It can be summed up by the council who posted a link to consultation on Facebook but then ignored the dozens of comments posted to the link.
Innovation is not running #ourday on Twitter once a year. Its doing things differently, learning from it and doing it better next time around.
Ten years has felt like a long time. It feels like a different world.
Thank you if you’ve connected with me online or in real life.
Let’s do better.
You can find me @danslee on Twitter or on LinkedIn or dan@comms2point0.co.uk by email.
It’s Christmas and you can almost taste the mince pies in the air.
But aside from that the air is filled with that glorious commodity…. creativity.
My timeline is filled with imagination and experimentation.
There are videos, advent calendars, tips, jokes and things that grab my attention. Content that tries harder and flies higher than at other times of year. It’s almost like the shoes have been kicked off and the blow football has been cracked out on a school night.
It’s great to see.
The thing is, where is this spirit of experimentation for the rest of the year?
Creativity is for life. Not for Christmas.
Make yourself a New Years resolution to stay creative.
It’s Christmas time… and there’s no need to be afraid. Not now you’ve got this long list of presents for comms and PR people.
If you are after a secret Santa, a stocking filler or some ideas to buy a loved one this list is for you. Some are serious and some are not so serious.
A big thank you to the Public Sector Comms Headspace group who helped draw-up this shortlist.
Bullshit button
Amaze your friends and impress your colleagues by hitting the bullshit button everytime you’re asked to reach out, sprinkle fairy dust and achieve a paradigm shift. Not available in stun. Sadly.
A box of E-numbers from the 1970s especially for you. Caution: don’t be tempted to chop out a line of sherbet dip and snort it. True story: a school friend did this in VI form for the LOLs and didn’t look at all healthy after doing it.
Lively up that office party with snaps of yourselves posing for the LOLs. Also quite handy for events that need sharable content. Like an awards bash. Or a community event.
Tired of spotting the spelling mistakes in other people’s content. Why, with this mug you can celebrate your (correct) ability to tell people where they are going wrung.
‘Hey! Comms person! You know I said can you weave your magic on this pdf I knocked up with clipart? And you rolled your eyes? Well, it’s okay! I gotcha back! Here’s a magic wand!’
For the comms person who pulls things out of the hat.
Fed-up of never getting credit? Speed up the complaints process by having a simple to complete set of stickies to help streamline the job for you. The box marked ‘promotion’ as desired outcome is rather marvellous.
Scarfolk is a fictional council. However, I’m sure the place exists. A book of the Facebook page of the meme. It’s brilliant. Worth it alone for the call-to-action: ‘For further information please re-read.’
‘Mobile First Journalism’ by Paul Bradshaw is a cracking read from someone I rate very highly. Full of advice and tips on how to create content on a budget. It shows there are lessons in 2018 comms people can take from journalism.
The Disappointment Diary was a star last Christmas and for 2018 it’s BACK! With added disappointment. Cut out the middleman and take this pre-booked calendar of disappointment.
I see into the future! You will get a visit from someone who wants you to do something at the last minute! Or maybe even they haven’t even got round to telling you! A crystal ball set. Perfect. How did I know you needed one?
Need a pic of a man with a beard licking a puppy? This book is for you! Explore the world of obscure stock pics and marvel at the photographer who has the perfect shot for the web search: ‘man on toilet + eating ice cream’.
One for someone who wants to know where we are now
Tom Dixon spent years as part of the Westminster bubble as a reporter. In this book he traces how comms has influenced elections. From more innocent days through to Trump, Brexit and fake news. It’s a cracking book and I suggest you read it.
A big thank you to members of the Public Sector Comms Headspace who chipped into this list including: Julie Hannan, Jane Jarvie, George Vekic, Lauren Kirk, Shayoni Sarker Lynn, Alex Duffy, Leanne Ehren, Naz Ayele, Kathryn Clarke Yglecias, David Bell, Mark Templeton, Paul Compton, Emma Wild, Kelly Quigley-Hicks, Rob Bruce, Jude Knight, Meriel Clunas, Sharon Dunbar, Jon Matthias, Josephine Graham, Kathryn Smith, Hayley Douglas, Kaylee Godfrey, Ann Bridges, Heather Turner, Alana Feasey, Susan Haig, Emma Bowman and Tom Gee.
Video will play a huge part in the success of your communications strategy in 2019.
When to use video and when not to is just as important as knowing how to shoot video for any effective communicator.
Key video insight for 2019
Smartphone use in the UK will pass 92 per cent by 2025 – source: Deloitte, 2018.
Those aged 16 to 24 in the UK spend on average an hour a day watching YouTube – source: Google, 2018.
Video will account for 82 per cent of web traffic by 2020 – source: Google, 2018.
There are more than twice as many people watching video on YouTube in the third quarter of 2018 at 1.2 trillion than 510 million on Facebook – source: Tubular Labs.
A majority of UK over 55s own a smartphone – source: Ofcom, 2018.
58 per cent of UK people with a mobile phone watch video once a week, Deloite, 2017.
The optimum length of a YouTube clip is almost three minutes compared to 15 seconds on Facebook – source: Google / Facebook.
Sport recieved 1.8 billion views in the UK in first six months of 2018 – source: Tubular Labs.
There are 25 million unique viewers a month of the Daily Telegraph Snapchat channel – source: Daily Telegraph.
ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS FOR COMMS workshops 2019
As video is what your audience is likely to be consuming your video strategy will help you deliver a successful communications strategy.
To help you achieve this, I’m running workshops in 2019. Delivered along with cameraman, filmmaker and academic Steven Davies the sessions will help you plan, shoot, edit and post engaging comms video. We’ll make sure you are safe and legal, GDPR, copyright law and PSBAR compliant.
We’ve had four years of experience and have delivered training for more than 2,000 people across more than 300 organisations.
The FutureProof publication has been a Blue Peter annual for the past three years. In other years, it has been a collection of essays. This year, it has focused on individuals who are steering a course. ‘Twenty one pioneers who are shaping our industry’ and told in a quirky classical story telling format.
Across the download there are 22 people in 21 entries, 20 are individuals and two are a double act. Kudos to Sarah Hall for piecing this together and credit to her for celebrating those she sees as playing a vital role in shaping the industry. It’s a thankless task. Every list is subjective and every list is unique. Add one in you’ll leave more out.
Here’s what struck me.
Men dominate the list but I’ll bet women dominate the future. Thirteen of the list are men and nine are women. If this exercise is run again in a few years time I’d be highly surprised if that balance isn’t flipped with women in the ascendancy. A few years ago, I’d noticed that much more women are being appointed to junior roles. Those people are now working their way to senior posts. Quite right too.
Eighteen of the list are private sector. No doubt they deserve it. Many names are new to me as I tend to work in the public sector.
Just one is from the public sector. I’d take nothing away from each person listed in the book. The Government Communications Service’s Alex Aiken is a good example of a pioneer shaping our industry. But there are so many others from the public sector too to admire. Long hours. Poor pay. Constant sniping. Why would anyone do it? Because they can genuinely make a difference. How many communicators would handle the Manchester Arena attack? Or the London terror incidents? Or Grenfell? Or a 60 per cent budget cut like local government. Yet, the public sector did.
Three are from Higher Education. One man and two women. All three deserve it.
None are from the Third Sector. Charity comms is an area that has its own unique challenges and some exceptional people working in it. I can name you some but it also makes me think about the need for people across sectors to learn from others. A good idea is a good idea.
Strategy rather than delivery is recognised. None of the 22 are operators in the trenches although all will no doubt argue they’ve had their time knee-deep in mud.
It got me thinking about who I’d list and then quickly binned the idea as career suicide. As someone who works with hundreds of people over the course of the year so many people impress. But trouble making Robert Phillips author of ‘Trust Me: PR is Dead’ would be one.
