Future comms made easy: social media, PR and digital communications.
Sometimes things just fall into your lap.
The job is to spot these gifts and do something with them.
Step forward New Forest District Council whose dog warden was sent a gem of a missing dog picture here:
The dog turned up safe and well. Look at it? Its a pretty distinctive image.
Too good to waste, Sara Hamilton has re-used the image for an event on her council’s Facebook page.
That’s a great use and a great re-use of an image. Well done, Sara.
This is beautiful.
A Welsh hardware shop has created a Christmas advert for £7 that’s funny, beautiful and charming.
“We wanted to show everyone you didn’t need John Lewis’ budget of £7m to create something special,” Tom told his local paper the County Times.
Thanks to Leah Lockhart for spotting this.
There was a curry house when I worked as a reporter who used to ring up every week to try and get into the paper.
This ranged from the actually newsy, like fundraising for Children in Need, to the not quite so, like we have a food hygiene certificate. Back then everyone used to have them. But then came the one to five start ratings for hygiene. They became something to shout about.
One council in the South West has thought-up a new way to shout about these certificates. Send out the environmental health officer to sing a Christmas carol with them.
Our Public Protection Team has been out checking food hygiene standards on the first day of @BathXmasMarket.
Look who’s on song with a festive 5 out of 5, @AngelfishCafe.👍🎶@VisitBath pic.twitter.com/GYILQLeSBt— B&NES Council (@bathnes) November 23, 2017
So, on the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a certificate with five stars on it.
A daft but effective way of celebrating a top score on what can be an important yet routine piece of legislation. Good work Dan Cattanach.
Communications should not just be what a small group of people in the comms office does.
For West Midlands Police this is also how its officers behave when they meet the public.
This video clip of a busking police officer went viral when it was posted.
Opinion was mixed. ‘Shouldn’t he be out arresting burglars?’ was one view. But for me, an officer who is able to respond to people as a real person will build more bridges.
Here’s a thing. You find a stash of drugs and what do you do?
If you are Thamas Valley Police you ask tongue in your cheek for the owner to present themselves.
A jacket was recovered in Witney yesterday with a large quantity of drug money in the pocket. If you’d like it back please see PC 6382 Miles at Witney Police station. pic.twitter.com/1gcS8DUZLm
— TVP_WestOxon (@TVP_WestOxon) November 15, 2017
What does that tweet say? They’ve been cracking down on drugs and they employ human beings as officers. The tone and wit of the tweet makes it more likely to be shared.
Be more human.
We’ve all been there… what do you by the PR and comms person for Christmas? Or birthday? Or as a leaving present?
Here are a few ideas that could help solve your present buying dilemma. Secret Santa? Something substantial? There are a pile of ideas that could help you. A big shout to the members of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group for their input. Full credits at the bottom of the post.
STATIONERY: This meeting should have been an email pen. Buy it here.
BOOK: Tubesperation. Using the London Underground to come up with creative idea.
TECH GEAR: A handy tool to help you film or take pictures with your smartphone.
SOFT FURNISHINGS: Typewriter cushion. For helping you bang your head against in safety.
BOOK: Fucking Apostrophes book. For the grammar geek in your life.
Google cardboard. Have a look at what the future looks like.
HEALTH: Stress Paul. Your handy person to squash if you need to vent spleen.
BOOK: Anarchists in the Boadroom by Liam Barrington-Bush. For when you want to think creatively on how to connect and how to understand networks.
STATIONERY: Moleskine ruled notebook. For those creative ideas.
BOOK: Potty, Fartwell & Knob. True names that will take your mind off that comms plan or logo competition for children request.
STATIONERY: Creative post-it notes.
MUG: Grammar grumbles mugs. For the grammar nazi in your life. Buy it here.
CREATIVE: Artefact cards. Cards to help you comms plan and think creatively. Buy them here.
BOOK: Inside the Nudge Unit. An account of life in the unit that has changed how organisations look to engage with people.
TEA: Calm the fukc down tea. Herbal tea. Buy them here.
MUG: : First I drink the coffee then I do things. Buy it here.
BOOK: Think Small. A book to help you achieve goals.
BOOK: PR is Dead by Robert Phillips
OFFICE: Icon cable ties. Tidy up all those leads and cables.
BOOK: SEO for Dummies. Understand an often overlooked skill.
CARD GAME: Cards Against Humanity.
CALENDAR: Comms cartoon calendar by Helen Reynolds. Buy it here.
T-SHIRT: Being a Communications Manager is Easy. It’s like riding a bike. Only the bike is on fire and you’re in hell. Buy it here.
GAME: Shit Happens card game. Buy it here.
TECH GADGET: A smartphone projector. For when you want to watch the youtube clip with a bigger audience.
DRINK: Bombay Saphire Gin gift pack. Because people from the South Coast seem to quite like gin.
CAFFEINE: Stove-top espresso maker. Start your day with a jolt.
Big shout for ideas and inspiration to Eddie Coates-Madden, Sally Northeast, Vanessa Andrews, Penny Allison, Phil Hodgson, Hayley Douglas, Paul Compton, Jane Slavin, Sara Hamilton, Rachel King, Lisa Potter, Shevaughan Tolbutt, James Allen, Clare Parker, Nicole Crosby-McKenna, Louise Powney, Sian Williams, Emma Wild, Ruth Fry, Paul Coxon, Heather Heaton-Gallagher, Georgia Turner, Ian Mountford, David Bell, Vanessa Andrews, Jude Tidder and members of the Public Sector Headspace Facebook group.
Picture credit: David Mulder / Flickr
This is beautiful.
A dying patient asks to see the sea a final time and an ambulance driver takes a small detour.
Anyone who has lost a loved one can feel this.
Anyone who is human can see this as pure gold. Not as a piece of comms but as a gesture to make a dying wish complete.
What makes this that bit more special is that it moved from being an anecdote at the water cooler to a perfectly weighted piece of communications that works beautifully. It works because it is not contrived and not staged.
It reminds me, funnily enough, of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. They were determined to shed their post-Hillsborough disaster bunker mentality by a new approach. It was simply ‘do the right thing’.
As the post says, sometimes you don’t need drugs to do a good job just empathy.
Be more human.
Look, I know I’ve been shouting about video for some time now.
But when I see a video as quietly determined as this one from Sefton Council my heart sings.
It’s a good approach. Women are recorded saying a short message and then are edited so the argument comes from all and from one at the same time.
It is short, it is recognisably a Sefton Council communication and the mono and music make it.
What’s great about it from an organisation’s perspective is that they have the accents of Sefton. Their voice is identifiable to people. They will be recognisable to people who work in the organisation too. They’ll pass them in the corridor.
At Sefton we have a vision. Join our campaign to #OrangeTheWorld and end violence against women & girls. #VAWG #MySefton pic.twitter.com/z43538bU4X
— Sefton Council (@seftoncouncil) November 22, 2017
Disclaimer: I helped deliver an in-house workshop at Sefton Council on how to shoot video. But this was all their idea. They took the basic skills and have done great things with them.
Is bullying a brand thing? On the face of it, no. But if 30 per cent of children feel bullied that’s a fair chunk of Burger King’s audience.
Credit to them then that they made a YouTube clip that tackles bullying and asks passers-by just to watch out for kids who are having a difficult time.
It’s remarkably effective. There’s a twist too. You can see it here:
Large organisations can be human when they open themselves up to talk about human emotion.
A day a year local government shouts about what it does.
I raise my hat to everyone who took part in the day and created content.
Seven years ago, this was purely a Twitter thing when it started as #walsall24. Over the years the Local Government Association has got involved to support it.
But now that Twitter is the 4th most popular social platform should it just be Twitter? I’m not so sure. If it is true to its aim of reaching people to tell the story of what local government does it needs to find the best platform. Probably, this is an array of platforms.
An additional worry in a discussion on the Public Sector Facebook group is that people struggle to create the time to make #ourday really work. But anecdotally, this does work as internal comms. It also works to encourage service areas to share their stories.
Nick Grimshaw has 1.3 million followers. He is from Oldham. The winner of their name-a-gritter competition was ‘Nick Grit-shaw’. So, as an Oldham boy made good he shared it with his followers attracting 30,000 likes.
Why is this good? This isn’t the council talking about what they do, it’s a Radio One DJ. That’s far cooler.
keeping your streets ice-free…. “Nick Grit-Shaw” I’ve made it 😂👋🏼
A post shared by nicholasgrimshaw (@nicholasgrimshaw) on
There used to be a cartoon strip called You Are the Ref where you were given a scenario and had to choose the correct outcome. Doncaster Council used Twitter to create a similar scenario only being faced with the challenge a council officer would face. It gave a taste of the difficulty council staff face.
Let’s get started.
— #OurDay in Doncaster | Story 1 (@DoncasterTales1) November 20, 2017
Why is this good? It’s not saying ‘here’s what we do.’ It asks: ‘what would you do?’
There are 1,200 services that local government does. It’s hard to cover them all. But a video of just over a minute covers much of the ground. Well done Bath & North East Somerset Council.
A snapshot of just some of the ways we help to keep your community running.@LGAcomms #OurDay #YourBathnes pic.twitter.com/IuyJacP7V3
— B&NES Council (@bathnes) November 21, 2017
Why is this good? It uses video so autoplays in your timeline. It covers a range of things in a short space of time.
The most popular Facebook update wasn’t a council service as such but a lost dog. Of course it was. It was never going to be an engineer filling in a pothole, was it? You can see it here.
One of the benefits of #ourday is putting faces to names and to be able to tell people what they do, as this Derbyshire Dales Council tweet shows.
Busy day ahead for these 3 from our Clean & Green Team. Mick is our central litter bin emptier, while Andrew & Steve are preparing to help with the clearance of autumn leaves #ourday pic.twitter.com/SZ1iZwehB8
— Derbyshire Dales DC (@derbyshiredales) November 21, 2017
Why is this good? Because it tells you who those familiar faces are and what they do.
South Cambridgeshire has many attractive places and guided walks encourage older people to step out. Here the council used Twitter’s live streaming app Periscope for a council worker to talk about what the scheme is.
A clip-on mic helps to improve the sound.
Why is this good? Because it is getting out of an office and experimenting with technology.
