Category Archives: Facebook

ACTION REACTION: Here’s a flow-chart to help a comms team combat a wave of online hate 

Here’s a question. If social media is generating more hate and abuse than ever what can public sector comms people do about it?

It’s an issue that goes right to the heart of communicating.

Three quarters of people get news online. 

If the public sector can’t navigate these stormy waters safely we are all in trouble.

In this post I’ll go through some tips and strategies that a responsible organisation needs to take into account.

Is online hate a problem?

Yes, it is a problem. A straw poll of members of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group showed 83 per cent seeing an increase in abuse and racism over the last three months.

This has an impact.

In the last CIPR mental health audit, 91 per cent of members experienced some kind of mental health issue in the previous 12-months. Opening up a laptop and seeing hate may have been a factor for some of those. 

Indeed, you don’t have to travel far to see this. 

A quick search for London Mayor Sadiq Khan on X while writing this showed four pieces of disinformation in the ten latest tweets. But beyond that the figures aren’t great. In the UK, 97 percent of complaints to X about Muslim abuse have not been followed up, according to the Center for Counting Digital Hate. The same body also found evidence of anti-semitism in a related study. 

Sky News’ inve

So what can you do?

Not post? Anecdotally, I’m also hearing of organisations not posting about certain issues like Black History Month or Pride to avoid the risk of abuse.

While I can sympathise with this, this is allowing people on the margins to dictate what you can and can’t talk about. That can’t be a strategy.

Leave the platform? While I can sympathise with organisations who have left X the aftermath of the Liverpool trophy parade showed the importance of maintaining a presence on the platform. I’ve blogged before how Merseyside Police used X to share updates aimed at undermining far right disinformation. Their tweets were amplified by every major news outlet in the UK drowning out the bad actors. Dial back but don’t check out would be a sensible strategy there.

Time a post? I first came across the idea of posting at certain times of day when I was researching elected members and Twitter as it was then called. ‘Don’t expect sensible debate after 9pm on a Friday,’ one elected member said. That stuck with me. So, if its controversial, posting something mid-morning to side-step some of this. You are also likely to be online to monitor comments.

Have a plan? This is where the Army adage of fail to prepare and prepare to fail comes in.

So what can you do?

Have a plan to combat abuse online

Here are some pointers.

You are obliged to have a plan. The Health and Safety Executive requires that you have a plan to protect staff from violence in the workplace. Abuse is classed as exactly that. Violence in the workplace. You need to have a set of standards for workplace behahiour. This is where the house rules come in.

But don’t tolerate abuse. I have banged on about the need for social media house rules more than anything else. This does two things. What you’ll do for residents with social media and in return setting a standard of behaviour. Have within those house rules that you won’t tolerate abuse, racism, homophobia, anti-semitism and other objectionable ways to behave.

Criticism of policy is fine… listen to it. It’s fine for people not to be very happy with that planning application, those NHS waiting lists, that crime or the coverage of that fire station. This is democracy. Your social media should be the canary in the mine for issues. Every place I’ve ever worked has made three types of decision, broadly. Good decisions, good decisions poorly explained and bad decisions. It’s your job to report back a flavour of that feedback.

But block those who won’t stick to the rules. If you go to your local shop and you abuse members of staff, the company and other shoppers you’d expect to be barred and the police be called if you persist. This should also happen online. Take a screen shot of the offending evidence and make a note of the person who has been blocked and why. They can still contact your organisation through the phone, by post, email and face-to-face. Your staff deserve to be protected.

Get prepared when there’s an issue. Remembrance Sunday, Easter, Christmas, Black History Month, Pride, Hanukkah and other religious festivals can bring the worst offenders out. So, come up with some bullet points on how to handle these comments. Abuse? Block. But there’s also other ways.

Push back to educate . Tell the cynic why you are posting about Black History Month and maybe the important role people with an Afro-Caribbean background have played in your community. Often, other users of your site will thank you. But try and avoid a ‘he said, she said’ running argument.

Switch off comments. On some issues people like the Mayor of London’s office just switch off comments. On those hot topic issues this is a sensible idea.

Don’t say it’s getting to you. All this does is encourage people. I’ve seen some great campaigns while using London Underground to ask people not to abuse staff. Blowing a gasket at a delay at London Euston is totally different to a co-ordinated campaign run by racists.

A rough graphic

Here’s a rough graphic based on this blogpost.

What have I missed out?

Do let me know in the comments.

Creative commons credit: Edelmaus Banksy Munchen.

ENGAGE SUCCESS: Effective content on Facebook that doesn’t have a link

We know without doubt that links posted from Facebook page are severely penalised.

The data tells us this over and over.

Just recently, I was asked for some examples of what good content looked like on Facebook that didn’t have links. So, here they are.

Firstly, a reminder of the kind of content that works well on the platform.

But why is engagement such an important thing? Because facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg has correctedly identified the link between engagement and spending more time on his platform. You can ‘like’ a post because you feel something is broadly positive. It’s helpful, maybe. Or you express support.

Or, maybe you don’t ‘like’ but you want to give your opinion on the team’s tactics or the litter in the park when you took your children. Either way, engagement means you are spending more time on the platform.

There are many ways we can post alternative content rather than a link.

A carousel of images

Firstly, a carousel of images. This is the most engaged with content in the public sector content study. It also performs well in other studies here, here and here.

In this Tamworth Council post new cherry trees have been planted. Rather than try and drive people off to a website the council tells the story on the platform itself. Text explains the biodiversity benefits and the 150 years of Anglo Japanese relations.

The images are a stunning set of pictures which showcase the colours.

Or, here’s Lichfield District Council’s spread of pictures to show the progress in building the new leisure centre. This shows progress visually without having to add a link.

In addition, the carousel approach works well with the softer non-call to action content. Social media is supposed to be social, after all. Manchester CityCouncil have adapted the tactic of making friends with Instagram users. They spot nice pictures of Manchester taken by Manchester people and they use they with their permission for a round-up of images.

In this example, there’s a number of pics taken across the city showing the place up in a good light.

It also quotes user @thisisourmanchester:

“I love how this city wears its past with pride. It doesn’t hide the grit—it embraces it, blending heritage and modernity in a way few places can. Look closer and you’ll see history in the textures, emotion in the light, and character in the corners.”

Here’s the images:

Reels video

Of course, you’ve also got Reels video being strongly rewarded by the Facebook algorithm. It’s also a very effective way of communicating without having to add a link.

Here, Southwark Council featured an interview with a lady who remembers VE Day when she was a child.

Given that half of all time spent on Facebook is spent watching video then video needs to be a part of your Facebook strategy just as much as nice biscuits work well with a cup of tea.

Putting the link in the comment

So, what about the times when you absolutely have to put a link in?

Well, there’s two ways to tackle this. Firstly, by putting the link in the comments.

Here, Wirral Council have a consultation exercise to promote. They put the detail in the text and have an image but they also point to the link in the comments for more.

You can find this approach ten a penny across news sites who are actually quite keen to get people to click. Their approach is absolutely to tease and intrigue the reader to click the link.

Again, here with Moray Council’s piece of consultation. A nice pic, some text and link in the comments.

Another way of adding a link would be by using Facebook’s events functionality.

Here, Dudley Council’s event for the Classic Retro Car Show has a link to a page where you can buy a ticket. This sits comfortably within the information architecture of the events pages.

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I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS, ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER, ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.

Creative commons credit: Migrant workers in East Germany, 1985 by Hayo von Reyer.

KEY CHANGES: Major tweaks on Facebook and Messenger and what they mean for public sector comms

Hands up if you’ve found it harder to get value out of your Facebook page unless you get your corporate credit card out to boost a post.

Got your hand up? Congratulations, you’re in exactly the same boat as everyone who has a Facebook page.

It’s been a long time since posting to a Facebook page alone has meant you reach a decent sized audience. Facebook has made it harder for you from penalising posts from a page with links to limiting the amount of timeline made up of Facebook page content.

Meta have said this throttling of Facebook pages is them listening to users who are more keen on content from friends and family. They have a point. But being a cynic, I’d say this is made deliberately harder to persuade you to crack open that corporate credit card to boost a post.

However, there’s still ways you can get the most out of Facebook and they’ve just announced some key changes that if used wisely can be very much to your advantage.

These measures have been freshly announced by Meta are being tested in the US and will be expanded to the UK in the coming months. Some of the coverage has been around how this is being made to make it more appealing to younger people. I think there’s plenty there to reach over 30s who are a rich audience for public sector people.

Key change: The launch of the Facebook local tab 

This, Facebook says, will gather together local information in one place by bringing together Reels, marketplace, groups and events.

So, the theory is that this will pull together a summary of things for your area. Quite how big the area in question will be hasn’t been clarified but the selection will be through the algorithm.

This is what it will look like…

The local element of this can play strongly to a public sector page but you’ll have to be clever. This won’t pull content directly from your page’s posts.But it will pull things from your events.

The events button is often overlooked by page admin. I can see why. You’re time poor and just asked to chuck stuff out but then clever admin can create an event on the Facebook page. This will be a particular advantage to say, museums, town centre events, open days, fire station car washes or live streams for things like Q&As or how to guides.

Events are now a secret weapon for you. 

Facebook group content is also pulled into the local tab. So, your Facebook group strategy is further rewarded. Yes, I know that there are a lot of Facebook groups and no, you don’t have to connect with all of them but this is where people are and this may be a way that your content can be surfaced on the local tab. 

Key changes to events

So, we’ve already seen that events have become quite powerful tools as they can be picked up by the Facebook events tab. On top of that, Facebook announced even more reasons to put more of your time into them.

You’ll now be able to send event invites via text message and to your Instagram followers. The logistics of this haven’t been made clear but this new step looks like a useful one to explore.

This is on top of the existing ability of users to add Facebook events to their day-to-day calendars be that Outlook, Google or wherever.

Key changes to video

The new video tab will pull together Reels and oyster video in one place on Facebook. 

Again, this is a further reason to take your video content more seriously. This should be mainstream rather than an occasional nice to have. 

This is how that will look…

Key change to Facebook groups 

Facebook groups get a further tweak. The platform will introduce AI tools to help users look for answers to regular questions.

There’s nothing there directly for public sector people but it does underline that taking part in discussions and answering questions can be useful.

Key change: launch of Messenger communities

It looks like Meta are looking to repeat the trick that they’ve already done with WhatsApp.

Basically, WhatsApp communities has allowed people to create a space where people in an organisation or campaign can come together for announcements as well as smaller sub-groups under the same umbrella. This is probably more for the American market which is a lot more fonder of Messenger than they are WhatsApp.

I hope this list helps you think of what your comms needs to look like in 2025.

Training I deliver:

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FACEBOOK TIP: No really… stop posting links to Facebook

There’s a moment when I’m delivering training that I tell people they’ll like the first part but they’ll hate the second.

The first part is talking about what makes people share with examples that show emotion and story telling. It’s joyous and people enjoy it.

Then comes the second part when I go through the algorithms and show how much all the platforms really hate links and will actively penalise you if you post links. Hey, it’s a real mood killer. People shuffle uncomfortably.  There’s almost a thought bubble hovering over people’s heads with the words ‘but that’s what we do.’

Yet for all the uncomfortable feelings its important to know this.

A few months back, I blogged how Facebook data that showed that the percentage of people’s timelines that are made up with posts from a page with a link was now 0.0 per cent.

The numbers are simply compelling.

Data shows link traffic from Facebook to news sites has collapsed

Those are the numbers from Facebook itself. The numbers from publishers themselves are also bleak. Data from Chartbeat publisher by the UK Press Gazette show that referrals are a quarter of what they were in 2018.

In basic terms, there’s been a 75 per cent fall in people navigating away from Facebook to news sites.

That’s a huge number.

Yes, news sites are feeling extra pain after Facebook has fallen out of love with news. But public sector people shouldn’t just hurry past and think this has got nothing to do with them.

Why?

Because if you are STILL posting links on Facebook then this has got everything to do with you. Facebook have told you that this is a bad idea. Now publishers are showing you that they weren’t messing about.

In the UK Press Gazette article they also point to Reach plc sites such as Birmingham Live and Manchester Evening News being heavily penalised by Facebook.

So, if this is happening in the UK, too.

What this means for public sector comms

Firstly, this means a period of intense innovation in news sites. It’s reached a point of change or die and it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

A new generation of subscription email first sites have been attracting attention if not yet swathes of readers, for example.

But there are lessons to draw closer to home.

Stop posting links.

No, really. Really stop posting links. 

The phrase ‘drive traffic to the website’ is as obsolete as ‘answers on a postcard.’

There are ways to change your strategy. Tell the story on the platform itself so people don’t click away. Or if you absolutely have to have a link put it in the comments. Or support the post with a Facebook ad. 

Or use a different channel.

I deliver ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER training to help public sector comms people navigate the changing landscape.

GROUP RULES: The danger of the toxic politically-run Facebook group

Here’s one thing to be wary of with your Facebook group strategy… rancid groups run by political parties

I’ve long been flagging up Facebook groups as being important corners of the internet for public sector people. 

The data is strong. Two thirds of the population use Facebook and two thirds of them are a member of at least one Facebook group.

Their effectiveness is also clear. As newsrooms have shrunk the Parish pump of their neighbourhood group has more than filled this role with news, gossip and recommendations. But it can also slip into a much darker place, too. 

There’s good and bad Facebook groups. Good can be the community-spirited Brownhills Bob with 50,000 members, five admins and a willingness to share police missing persons appeals alongside a request for a decent plumber. 

But there is also the unpleasant.

There was a 5,000-strong Facebook group in West Bromwich where every post attacked the council. Daily Mail headlines were shared to attack the council. Anyone in favour of the council were shouted down.

Oddly, the admins of the group didn’t appear to be from West Bromwich.

Even more strangely, people in other parts of the country I went to they spoke about community Facebook groups with violent language and a clear political agenda. Posts in these spaces could run from opinion to outright abuse. 

What was clear was that there was a strategy to spread hate and disinformation in specific locations.   

So, it was no surprise to read a Guardian story alleged some Facebook groups in London were being run by paid Conservative Party activists and had comments that threatened to kill the Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that those activists themselves broke the law or that other political parties may have supporters who had taken it upon themselves to foster hate. 

But what this absolutely does do is highlight the issue of hostile Facebook groups and what to do.

Advice

The first problem is that the local government communications person is politically restricted. They can communicate the policy of the council but they certainly can’t jump into the trenches and conduct hand-to-hand combat. 

Before the internet, the advice was to challenge misinformation wherever it was be that the newspaper letters page, the radio phone-in or the council committee. There is certainly something in this. 

However, there reaches a point where threats and abuse make the environment unsafe.

Besides, people in those spaces are unlikely to listen to a balanced perspective. Academic research points to bubbles where existing views are reinforced and counter views are shouted down. This is not good for democracy.

So, what do you do?

Well, for the first part it’s knowing that there are corners of Facebook where you just need to navigate past.

Don’t use a fake profile to see what’s going in. Don’t use your own profile. There’s a strong chance it’ll end in tears.  

The example of the West Bromwich group was that Facebook itself took the group down. That’ll be from people reporting it. 

If the issue is threats against named individuals then its report it to the police. The Center for Countering Online Hate has got a particularly good download ‘Don’t Feed the Trolls’ for helping an individual if they are in the thick of getting trolled. It’s worth keeping a copy handy just in case. 

There’s also a balancing act that you need to strike when engaging with something. The Streisand Effect talks about the time when the filmstar took legal action to ban a tourist map that marked the homes of the stars that had her location. The result? People detoured to look at this location she didn’t want us to see. 

CHANGE #1: You may not need your own Facebook profile to be an admin soon

It’s a punch up almost as old as time… and it looks as though it may change.

Basically, Facebook have always insisted on you having one profile and one profile only.

This means they’re able to see who is admin of what to help cut down on abuse, fake content and general unpleasantness.

How this has played out is that people in the team you want to assign as admins have had to use their own Facebook profile to be added as admins.

This has been a bone of contention for many years for a minority public sector comms people.

“We don’t want to use our own profiles,” the argument runs, “because we want to keep a barrier between work and home. Or we hate Facebook. Or we think someone really will somehow click through to our holiday photos.”

My advice has always been really simple.

If you want to be admin use your own profile. If you won’t use your own profile you can’t be an admin. It’s as simple as that.

Don’t whatever you do make a fake one or have a shared fake on.

You’re at serious risk of being spotted by Facebook and the profile deleted without warning and with itm access to a page.

But wait…

Things may be about to change

According to CNet, there’s the whiff of change in the air with Facebook profiles.

Facebook Is Testing a Way to Add Multiple Profiles to an Account

The social network says users will be able to add up to five profiles to their Facebook account.

Now Facebook is testing a way for users to create up to five profiles linked to one account. Facebook said that switching between the profiles will require only two taps. 

The experiment shows how the site has been trying to evolve beyond just a place to share updates with family 

Now, whether this is something Facebook follow through is as much of a guess as anything.

But it definitely is worth keeping a weather eye on as this could change how people become page admins. It may also change how public sector people engage with Facebook groups.

Whatever you do, don’t jump the gun. Don’t go changing off and making fake profiles that aren’t you at all.

Wait and see what Facebook have to say. Many ideas get trailed and not all get taken-up.

GROUP WORDS: Here’s a post to keep you up to speed on tweaks to Facebook groups

A quick shout if you’re looking to connect with Facebook groups as there’s going to be some tweaks.

Don’t worry, they’re not bad ones. They’re just tidying up around the edges and changing the terms.

Facebook is the largest UK social media platform and since groups are really hot right now this is something communicators need to know. it’s something I’ve blogged about before.

The names are changing

Secret, closed and public are going and are replaced with new terms. Secret groups are groups that have been set up, closed and can’t be found in a routine Facebook search. You join by invitation. Closed groups can be found but unless you’re a member you can’t see the content. Public groups are exactly that.

Now the change will be…

No doubt using the word ‘private’ emphasises the drive towards privacy that Facebook are trying to promote. The full announcement is here.

But even private groups can be policed

One interesting line from the announcement is a reminder that certain rights holders will be able to have access to closed groups. That would appear to say that Sony BMG music can look to see if knock-off Madonna DVDs are being knocked-out in a for sale group.

It also means that you shouldn’t be featuring Beatles tracks in your content thinking that John and George are dead and Paul and Ringo are busy. The algorithm will get you. Intellectual Property is quite closely policed.

One for trading standards and police?

This does pose the question about trading standards and law enforcement. Will they be able to have access? It would be interesting to see how they can keep a weather eye on the myriad of buy and sell groups that have sprung up.

I help run workshops to help you use Facebook better with groups, pages and advertising. You can find out more here or drop me a line dan@danslee.co.uk.

 

NEW SOCIAL VIDEO: What are the optimum video lengths for social media in 2019? UPDATED

 

I’ve mapped optimum video lengths for a few years now and the landscape is often moving across that time.

Earlier in 2019, it was the shift from Facebook to steer people towards three minute videos from the previous optimum of 15 seconds.

Now, looking at it fresh there has been a further tilt. Filling the 15-second void is the Chinese-owned video network TikTok. I’ll blog a quick explainer on how public sector people can approach TikToc as a platform.

Video in the UK remains a key part of a comms strategy

Globally, video consumption over the internet is expected to rise by 13 per cent over the next five years, according to PWC.

With 87 per cent of UK adults using the internet daily or almost daily, according to the ONS internet use is baked in to what we do. It’s no surprise that on a smartphone or a tablet is where a lot of video is going to be consumed.

According to Ofcom, 18 to 34-year-olds are watching more than an hour of YouTube on its own.

But as with everything, video is part of a raft of channels that can be used to the 21st century communicator. The best comms is the right content in the right place at the right time.

Research platform-by-platform

YOUTUBE: The maximum length of 15 minutes can be increased to 12 hours through a straight forward verification step.  Optimum length is much shorter

INSTAGRAM: Maximum length was increased from 15 seconds to 60 seconds with research via Newswhip suggesting a much shorter length. 

TWITTER: Maximum length of 140 seconds is comfortably within Hubspot’s suggested 45 seconds.

SNAPCHAT: Maximum length is a mere 10 seconds but Hootsuite suggest five seconds is the sweet spot.

PERISCOPE: A maximum length and the sky is the limit but there is little research on what the optimum length of a live broadcast is. The average length of top 12 videos on liveomg.com is 18 minutenew video lengths 2019s.

FACEBOOK: Facebook has shifted the algorithm from 15 seconds as optimum length to three minutes.

TIKTOC: This video platform has been storming it in 2019 and the default length is 15 seconds with a maximum of 60 seconds.

FACEBOOK LIVE: Can run for 240 minutes but 19 minutes is best say Buzzsumo.

LINKEDIN is the new kid on the block with native uploaded video. Five minutes is the most you can upload and there is research that the best length is 30 seconds.

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ACCOUNT DELETE: A simple-to-follow business case for you not to use fake Facebook accounts

A few days ago I was asked for a business case to show why you shouldn’t use ‘work’ accounts to log into your corporate page.

By ‘work’ accounts I mean those accounts that have been set up back in the day to access Facebook.

You know the kind of thing.

First name: Oxdown Second name: Comms.

Or maybe First name: Dan Second name: Work.

Facebook has a really simple name for these clever accounts. it calls them ‘fake’.

Why?

Because Facebook’s Terms of Service say that you’re allowed one account and that has to be the real you. Anything else is fake. I’ve blogged about this before but here are two links to point at sceptics.

Fake accounts are against Facebook’s rules

If your account isn’t the real you you’re breaking the Terms of Service and you may log on one day and find that it has been deleted without warning. I’ve heard several accounts of teams losing access to pages through this route.

Facebook’s half a billion deleted accounts

As a yardstick of how serious is at this deleting fake accounts caper lets look at their actions.

Data from the company reveal that it deleted almost 600 million accounts in the first quarter of 2019 alone.

So in other words, no, you shouldn’t and yes, they will.

No, you won’t be inundated with alerts

One regular justification for having fake accounts to log in with is because people don’t like the idea of getting notifications from pages in their downtime away from work. I get that. You can disable notifications on the page. Job done.

If that still doesn’t float your boat the answer is don’t be a page admin.

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