Author Archives: Dan Slee

VIDEO XMAS: Six Songs, Two Dramas and an Epic Fail

There is something about the festive season that gives comms people free licence to be more creative.

The season’s cheer means that people are a bit more relaxed about the content they put out. As a result there’s been a slew of engaging content.

Some of it has a call-to-action while other content is a more relaxed human approach. A timely reminder that the people who work there are human too.

So, in the style of the Radio Times Christmas edition, here’s a quick run-down of some of the may clips that caught my eye.

Sussex Police’s domestic violence drama

Police would steer clear of domestic violence a few years ago. That’s changed. This video focusses on a child getting ready for Christmas under the shadow of warring adults. A call to the police leads them to come around.

Staffordshire Police’s Carpool Karaoke

A few years ago, Dover Police captured a singing cop while on patrol. It showed a human side. This Staffordshire Police video updates that. There’s carols. There’s also a conversation about the dangers of cybercrime. Why does it work? Because it’s just people talking. It’s brilliant.

West Sussex Council’s 12 days of Christmas

Christmas comes but once a year but grittimng can be four times in a 24-hour window. This light hearted clip shows the 12 days of Christmas with recycling and other messages. Excellent.

Bath & North East Somerset Council’s recycling singing

Mountains of wrapping follows Christmas and it’s always as well to get the message in quickly.

Derbyshire Constabulary’s Road Safety message

The is unusually affecting. The transcript of a potential road traffic collision is played out by children’s voiceover and toys. ‘Stay with me, stay with me,’ one child shouts as the victim loses consciousness. Drive safer is the message.

New Forest District Council’s location lyrics

Everyone loves a Christmas carol. The singing plays as council staff point to different parts of their district to pick out the key words. Merry Christmas.

Dorset Police’s Christmas pop hit

Taking inspiration from Carpool Karaoke is Dorset Police’s singing staff who make the clips on their lunchbreaks. There’s even a dog joining in.

West Midlands Ambulance Service’s epic fail

In amongst the more light-hearted clip is this excellent short clip from an ambulance service that flags the perils of driving with snow and ice on the roof. A block of ice falls froim a car in front and spins crashing into the windscreen of the following car.

County Durham & Darlington Fire & Rescue Service

Proving that firefighters are not that great at singing but very good at joining in the seasonal cheer are is this example. Happy Christmas. And switch off your fairy lights.

This is good work. The trick now is to take this creativity into the New Year to shoot warm human footage that engages then too.

Full disclosure: I’ve helped train people in video skills from Durham and Darlington Fire & Rescue Service, New Forest District Council, Bath & North East Somserset Council and West Sussex Council.

30 days of human comms #34 Visit Wakefield or your man will leave you

I like this. It made me laugh.

If you are worried that your man may leave you, can I suggest Buried Secrets at the museum?

30 days of human comms: #33 Dorset Police respond to snark on Facebook

Anyone who has ever run a social media account for the public sector knows that from time to time people will post comments.

This ranges from the the helpful and questioning to the hostile and abusive. Abusive content, for my money, should never be engaged with. Have a swear filter on your Facebook page. Have a statement setting out what you’ll stand for and what you won’t.

This post from Dorset Police is perfectly judged. Someone complains that speed camera fines at Christmas go into the police’s pockets to spend on their Christmas party. It’s fake news and it is good to challenge it.

dorset police fb

The point is made that the government get the fines money, the police enjoy letting their hair down. But most importantly, the fines may help reduce some of the 27 deaths on the road across Dorset.

The level of likes in support of the comment show this was a well-received approach.

Thanks to Kristian Ward for this.

30 days of human comms #32: Essex County Council respond to snark on Facebook

There is a very sound school of thought from my Uncle Keith that you should never argue with an idiot.

However, sometimes the well placed response can make a point to the wider world.

Here, Essex County Council after 48 hours of getting grief about snow, ice and grit responded. The

grit 1

And the well judged response through gritted teeth:

grit 2

The trick is knowing which to pick to respond to and which to ignore. Always count to 10 first and it always helps to get a second opinion, too.

Thanks to Ryan Davies for spotting this.

BEING HUMAN: The first 30 days of human comms… and what I’ve learned

castle-gate

When I started on a whim to blog #30daysofhumancomms it was to collect together some examples of human content that worked for me.

There were about half a dozen that had stuck in my memory and I’d hoped with a prevailing wind this could stretch to 30. Maybe.

But as I added more I spotted more and more people – thank you – came up with alternatives.

Over the course of the month a staggering 10,000 unique users came and read the content. Thank you for stopping by, for sharing and for coming up with suggestions.

I’ll continue the series

Not every day but because I keep finding things I’ll continue. Because they keep cropping up.

Why human comms?

The best content is the right thing in the right place at the right time. Yes, I get the need for evaluated calls to action. It’s not how many people see it. It’s what people did as a result of seeing it. So important. But if you don’t have an audience in the first place you’ve got nothing. If all your audience get are calls to actions you are not social. You are a pizza delivery company stuffing leaflets through the digital door. This is where the Paretto principle comms in in social media. If 80 per cent of your content is human and engaging this earns the right 20 per cent of the time to ask them to do something. It’s something I strongly believe in.

What have I learned blogging human comms for 30 days

Examples don’t take long to blog.

People respond to them.

They are the secret sauce that makes social media accounts work.

You know them when you see them.

They don’t just exist as a snappy tweet but can be a poster, a media comment, an interview or can be on Facebook too. Often they are not things thought up by comms at all.

What is striking seeing them together is seeing so many on Twitter and in the coming series I’ll look out for other channels, too.

31 days of human comms listed by subject area

Twitter update

  1. Hampshire Fire & Rescue’s rescued bench tweet. See here.
  2. Doncaster Council’s thread for their gritter World Cup. See here.
  3. London Fire Brigade remember the Kings Cross Fire. See here.
  4. Thames Valley Police’s drugs find. See here.
  5. Cardiff Council’s GIF traffic warning. See here.
  6. The Yorkshire motorway police officer and his wife. See here.
  7. The @farmersoftheuk Twitter account. See here.
  8. Lochaber & Skype Police talk to someone at risk of domestic abuse. See here.
  9. Kirklees Council’s GIF that reminds people that gritter drivers are human too. See here.
  10. London Midland sign-off. See here.
  11. The NHS Trust with a sense of humour. See here.

Video

  1. Doncaster Council and Jake the sweet sweeper driver. See here.
  2. The basketball playing Gainesville Police officer. See here.
  3. Sandwell Council as car share for #ourday. See here.
  4. Burger King tackles the bullies. See here.
  5. Sefton Council’s message on a national subject. See here.
  6. Bath & North East Somersets singing food hygiene certificates. See here.
  7. A Welsh hardware shop’s Christmas advert. See here.
  8. Dorset police’s Christmas somg. See here.

Facebook update

  1. Sydney Ferries name their new boat Ferry McFerry Face. See here.
  2. Queensland Ambulance Service takes a dying patient to the ocean a final time. See here.
  3. A missing dog pic from New Forest District Council. See here.

Customer service

  1. Edinburgh Council’s out-of-hours Twitter. See here.
  2. The human railway conductor’s announcements. See here.

Stopping your job to being human

  1. The busking police officer. See here.

Media interviews

  1. A newspaper interview with medics who treated Manchester bomb patients. See here.

Media comment

  1. North West Ambulance Service’s response to a man abusing a paramedic. See here.

Posters and signs

  1. Dudley Council’s spoiled tea sign. See here.
  2. Welcome to Helsinki place marketing. See here.
  3. Virgin Trains’ new trains poster. See here.

Rebuttal

  1. The BBC respond to The Sun newspaper. See here.

If you have a suggestion I’d love to hear from you. Drop a note in the comments or @danslee on Twitter.

30 days of human comms: #31 the NHS Trust with a sense of humour

Health people can have a sense of humour too.

The health bible the BMJ kicked things off with an earnest piece about whether or not Peppa Pig was encouraging the waste of GP’s resources. You can read the piece here.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust contributed to the debate with this tweet:

Not leaving things there, the medical profession responded:

And the trust responded too:

Why is this good? The debate around Peppa Pig was a slightly tongue-in-cheek discussion on when and when not to use a GP. For an NHS Trust to remind people that they were human too isn’t such a bad idea. There was no significant event that would have overshadowed the jest.

Thanks to Rachael Stray for spotting this.

30 days of human comms: #30 London Midland signs off

It’s unplanned and ironic that the 30th post in this series is one from a railway company I’ve often despaired at.

London Midland were a train company that operated through the North West, Midlands and London. The trains I largely travelled on in the Black Country had no wifi, no plug sockets, no coffee and no tables. They also used to have their drivers poached.

But as a company their social media was superb. Human. Engaging. Real time. This company set standards their trains rarely did.  If you were sat outside New Street station and wondering why you were not moving along the tracks their Twitter would tell you in good humour.

So, their sign-off when their franchise came to an end was no surprise:

Be more human. Be more like London Midland’s Twitter.

NICE, NICE BABY: Seven examples of good icy weather comms

twittergritter.jpg

Oh, the weather outside is frightful… and its the time to baton down the hatches.

If local government can get icy weather comms right they can keep people happy.

Here is a round-up of some content that worked well:

The myth-busting web page

There is a regular set of moans. You weren’t out. You didn’t grit. You didn’t grit enough. Having a web page like this is an excellent resource to have at your finger-tips. You can see it here.

rochdale

The video from the cab of the gritter

It’s a video that is the perfect length to work on Twitter. Less than 20 seconds and shoots down the allegation that there were no gritters out. Great work.

The snowman post

This post from the Mayor of Walsall asks people to chip in with their snowmen pics. It prompted people to respond with images from across the borough.

The video of the gritters heading out

This is perfect. Gritters loaded up and heading for the exit at the gritting depot. Evidence that the work is taking place.

The shared hashtag and the conversational response

The #wmgrit hashtag works in the West Midlands as a 20 minute journey can cut through two or three council areas. So 10 councils have joined together to share the searchable hashtag.

The news jacking of the big event

Ahead of the Merseyside derby Liverpool Council were telling people of the work that is going to take place to keep the game running smoothly. It fills a vacuum and was well shared.

Getting the message out early

With cold weather ahead this tweet to ask people to look after each other was well recieved.

Thanks to Viki Harris, Andrew Napier, Liz Grieve, Kelly Thompson, Paul Johnston and Dawn McGuigan.

30 days of human comms #29 Kirklees Council’s GIF to remind people that gritter drivers are human too

There’s an easy target when the snow falls. It’s the council’s fault that the roads were not gritted fast enough, thickly enough or enough times.

On the very pointy part of the sharp end are the gritter drivers who have to be up and out.

This tweet and GIF from Kirklees Council is a reminder that those at the wheel are human too:

 

30 days of human comms: #28 A newspaper interview with medics who treated Manchester bomb patients

davenport

So far in the round-up of human comms we’ve looked at digital content that the organisation has shaped itself. But it doesn’t have to be digital to be human.

More than 20 people were killed in the Manchester Arena bomb earlier this year.

Manchester as a city rallied and there was an outpouring of pride and determination.

Leading all that was the public sector across the city with police, paramedics, hospital staff, fire and the Mayor’s office.

In the very front line in all this were the paramedics and the hospital staff.

In the weeks after the bombing, the Press attention turned from the immediate impact to the stories of survival and recovery. Requests for interviews were made. But not all requests for granted.

Careful handling by Salford Royal hospital’s comms team led to a set of interviews and pictures with the local newspaper the Manchester Evening News. You can see the full story here.

Human comms is not just what you create but also what the Press can create with you.

Be more human. Like the A&S staff of Salford Royal.