Back in the olden days all a press officer had to do was a write a press release and book a photo call.
Boy, how things have changed and more to the point are changing rapidly.
How web 2.0 and web 3.0 will affect the communications unit – or press office in old money – is something that I’ve spent a great deal of time mulling over. Why? Because it’s my job.
I’m a senior press officer at Walsall Council. The job I walked into in 2005 is almost unrecognisable to the one I do now. Yes, it now includes, Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media – or web 2.0 if you are a bit of a geek. But it’s also open data and the challenges of web 3.0.
The nice people from Local Government Improvement and Delivery have asked me to lead a session at their Local by Social online conference on November 3 2010 at 3pm. Looking at the speaker line up it’s something of an honour. There’s plenty for people to get their teeth into on a whole range of subjects.
I’d very much like to hear what your thoughts are. Take part ion the session. Chip in. Listen. It’s all fine.
Firstly, here is a presentation designed as a starting point and to get the ball rolling…
Secondly, here are a few thoughts I blogged a month or two back. You can read the full version here.
In the days before the web the press office needs to:
Have basic journalism skills.
Know how the machinery of local government works.
Write a press release.
Work under speed to deadline.
Understand basic photography.
Understand sub-editing and page layouts.
For web 1.0 the press office also needed to:
Add and edit web content
For web 2.0 the press office also needs to:
Create podcasts
Create and add content to a Facebook page.
Create and add content to a Twitter stream.
Create and add content to Flickr.
Create and add content to a blog.
Monitor and keep abreast of news in all the form it takes from print to TV, radio and the blogosphere.
Develop relationships with bloggers.
Go where the conversation is whether that be online or in print.
Be ready to respond out-of-hours because the internet does not recognise a print deadline.
For web 3.0 the press office will also need to:
Create and edit geotagged data such as a Google map.
Create a data set.
Use an app and a mash-up.
Use basic html.
Blog to challenge the mis-interpretation of data.
But with web 3.0 upon us and the pace of change growing faster to stay relevant the comms team has to change.
Jerry Springer built a TV career by making people in dysfunctional relationships sit down and talk to each other.
With burly minders flanking the stage Billie-Jo and her ex-lover Seth from an Arkansas trailer park would set-to in front of a studio audience.
Gripping stuff it was too, but you had this feeling nothing would change.
Two parties in a sometimes strained relationship came together at Hyperlocal Govcamp West Midlands in Walsall.
The session ‘What does a good blogger – press officer relationship look like?’ saw bloggers sit down with press officers.
For some, it was the first time they’d ever spoke to the other side.
Like a parish pump Relate, there were sometimes a few choice words. But unlike the warring couples on TV there was a growing appreciation of the points of view.
It’s a session that has been extensively covered.
Local government officer Simon Gray, who is not from communications, blogged brilliantly about the session here. When he said neither side appeared with full credit, he’s right.
He’s also dead right in calling on both sides to cut the other some slack.
Paul Bradshaw writing a guest post for Podnosh made some excellent points in how local government should make information easier to access.
Mike Rawlins, of Talk About Local, who also contributes to Pits N Pots in Stoke-on-Trent has written an excellent post from his perspective on this and dead badgers and does, as Simon suggests, cut some slack.
Sasha Taylor has also blogged from the session from a police perspective.
Twelve months ago I wrote a blog post on how the blogger – press office relationship was a source of conflict.
The 10 points I wrote then I still stand by. The full post is here. The edited highlights are boiled down to this
FIVE THINGS A PRESS OFFICE CAN DO:
Treat them as journalists.
Put them on press release mailing lists.
Use blog comment boxes as a press officer.
Accept not everything bloggers write is going to be favourable. Complain politely – and constructively – if things are wrong.
Respect what bloggers do.
FIVE SUGGESTIONS FOR BLOGGERS:
If you have courage of your conviction put your name to what you do you’ll find your voice getting heard far better.
Don’t be afraid to check stories.
Respect press officers. They have a job to do too.
Be accurate. The same rules for newspapers apply to blogs.
Buy a copy of McNae’s Essential Law For Journalists to save your life and potentially your house.
But listening to the both sides talk at the session, there’s also a few things a bright press officer can do.
1. Create blog friendly content – A conventional press release is tailored for the print media. That’s not necessarily blog-friendly. A short film posted to YouTube or Vimeo is. A two minute film to explain with an interview the points made in the release would work.
2. Add pics as a matter of course – Even if it’s a stock pic. Mike Rawlins of Talk About Local made the point that there is a demand for images. They’re going to source a pic from Google images anyway. Why not provide a good one?
3. Judge when to respond – the excellent Michael Grimes of the Citizenship Foundation re-purposed the US military’s flowchart of engagement with bloggers. It’s good advice when to engage and when to ignore the internet troll.
4. Build relationships – In print media you know you’ll get a better story about countryside placing it with a reporter who is passionate about green issues. So why not do it online too?
6. Learn about open data. It’s not a geek topic anymore. It’s come into the mainstream and bloggers are at the forefront. Local data advisor and hyperlocal blogger Will Perrin has pointed out that press officers will need excel skills. Why? Because you’ll need to interrogate data sets just as you’ll need to leaf through council minutes.
Creative commons credits:
No papers today – Katmere http://www.flickr.com/photos/katmere/51065495/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Antique clippings – D Sharon Pruitt http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/4799271086/
It should be a quiz question: ‘Who is the biggest football team in the world on Facebook?’
You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a major power of world football like Barcelona, Manchester United or Stoke City.
Here’s the surprise answer: Galatasaray.
Galatasaray? They’re a Turkish team formed in 1905. They’ve never won the European Cup but have a passionate army of supporters.
A third of all Turks support the team in a country that is the fourth largest on Facebook. That’s not even counting the huge world wide diaspora of Turks.
In 1993, Galatasaray supporters in a firey stadium of noise, flags, chants and flares met Manchester United with the banner: ‘Welcome To Hell!‘
In September 2010, 16 months after they set-up a Facebook page they had 4.5 million followers.
There’s a great blog in The Independent on how they did it. You can read the original here.
But whats this got to do with local government?
Because a Turkish football team and its fans have come across some universal truths that can work for other areas.
Here are four killer quotes from one of the club’s online team Ebubekir Kaplan that sum up the success….
INFORMATION: “They trust in us to give them information directly we respect their need and desire to know things directly from the club.”
SOCIAL: “Turkish people want to be socialable via Facebook and we’re using the right tools to reach them.”
FANS:“Players come and go, managers come and go, club officials come and go, but fans are constant. They’re the most important people.”
LISTEN:“We have to listen to supporters under all circumstances. So the main value is an outlet for the fans, and for communication with the fans.”
Okay, so maybe people aren’t quite as passionate on the face of it about local government as a football team.
But people DO form a passionate bond with places and that’s where the lessons start to come into play.
People may love their park, love their favourite bit of countryside or maybe their library.
Maybe they’re passionate about a venue or a museum or more to the point an exhibition at the museum.
Would activity on Facebook before and during help capture memories on an exhibition on coal mining in the Black Country, for example?
EDIT: From Istanbul on Twitter @kaanozkan_ wishes to point out that Galatasaray won the UEFA Cup beating Arsenal in 2000. Disliking Arsenal as I do – but not all their supporters – I’m happy to point that fact out : )
Creative Commons:
Curoninja: Fan Cop http://www.flickr.com/photos/curoninja/777611157/in/faves-danieldslee/#
Just 12 months on and he’s out of date. Or rather, he needs rebooting slightly.
If web 1.0 was the equivalent of pinning up a digital public notice with web 2.0 we started to learn how to listen.
With web 3.0 we’ll be learning a whole new set of skills. The role of open data will be central to journalism and hand in hand as a consequence with PR. I wrote an idiots guide to it here a few months back and boy, I’m still learning.
With the open data revolution gathering pace reporters must now also be at home navigating a data store as they are on the Town Hall press benches. Press officers must do likewise.
Why? Because the avalanche of public information that will be released has the potential to sweep all before it and drown the unprepared.
Mathew Ingram, the communities editor of The Globe and Mail in Toronto, famously has said “the golden age of computer assisted reporting is at hand.”
Open Data logo
Data journalism is a phrase that will become as familiar in journalism colleges as Teeline shorthand and exam favourite The Oxdown Gazette. What is data journalism? It’s the use of apps and mash-ups to mine for news amongst released data. Isn’t that for geeks? No. Where once a council committee report would bear fruit the data set is the new news source.
Open data brings transparency and openness.
Think of it as FOI turbo charged and you’re not even close.
Hyperlocal bloggers who are at home on the web are light years ahead in the interpretation of open data compared to print journalists.
Some journalism courses understand this. The excellent Birmingham City University gets it in spades.
So where does this leave the press officer?
The fashionable thing to say is the press officer as gatekeeper will be redundant by web 2.0 and buried by web 3.0. For me, that’s hooey.
But the old-style press officer who has served time as a hack and can only write a press release is a dead man walking.
What is needed to keep pace with the information arms race are new skills.
The ability to work with or create a mash-up will become as important as having a notebook or a sharp pencil.
Will the press officer for web 3.0 be an allrounder? Definitely. Will they have to have the command of every skill? No. But the team he belongs to sure as hell collectively will have.
At the risk of sounding in years to come as a BBC Tomorows’ World clip, here is how the web 3.0 communications team needs to look:
In the days before the web the press office needs to:
Have basic journalism skills.
Know how the machinery of local government works.
Write a press release.
Work under speed to deadline.
Understand basic photography.
Understand sub-editing and page layouts.
For web 1.0 the press office also needed to:
Add and edit web content
For web 2.0 the press office also needs to:
Create podcasts
Create and add content to a Facebook page.
Create and add content to a Twitter stream.
Create and add content to Flickr.
Create and add content to a blog.
Monitor and keep abreast of news in all the form it takes from print to TV, radio and the blogosphere.
Develop relationships with bloggers.
Go where the conversation is whether that be online or in print.
Be ready to respond out-of-hours because the internet does not recognise a print deadline.
For web 3.0 the press office will also need to:
Create and edit geotagged data such as a Google map.
Create a data set.
Use an app and a mash-up.
Use basic html.
Blog to challenge the mis-interpretation of data.
But with web 3.0 upon us and the pace of change growing faster to stay relevant the comms team has to change.
“We are the news supertanker,” an editor who shall remain nameless recently said. “And these bloggers will be swept aside.”
It’s not a view of hyperlocal sites shared by Marc Reeves who quit as Birmingham Post editor last November.
After more than 20 years in print journalism he moved firmly to digital launching the West Midlands version of thebusinessdesk.com – a site laser targeted at busy business people.
Sitting in Urban Coffee in the heart of Brum’s financial district he cuts a relaxed figure suited but tieless with a healthy tan.
Without the weight of a print works to keep warm and a 200 year old pension fund to service? No wonder he is relaxed.
To the National Union of Journalists Marc in the past has been a figure of suspicion. To the digital community an inspiration.
He’s here at a Jeecamp fringe event to talk to hyperlocal bloggers and students about his experience with his new start-up.
There are only a handful of news people who really understand the new digital landscape. Jeff Jarvis is one. So is the Bristol Editor. Marc Reeves is another.
This event Marc is talking at could just be an exercise of grousing at how journalism is going to the dogs. It doesn’t pan out that way.
Marc carefully explains the thinking behind the site. There’s a few surprises. And some lessons that can be learned by the local government, hyperlocals looking to monetise what they do.
Business people are busy people. They’re at their desk early planning their day. A targeted email with 15 relevant news headlines is sent before 9am. The email links back to the website.
MORAL: They’d looked into their audience. Who it was and how they could best be communicated with. Then they tailored it. They DIDN’T build it Field of Dreams style and hope they’d come.
How do they know what stories are popular?
Google analytics help tell the journalist what stories are popular and which are not. Extra time and effort is then spent on ones which are popular.
MORAL: Don’t work blind. Listen to see what is popular.
Where does content come from?
Refreshingly, it’s fresh copy. Stories emerge from networking, talking to contacts as well as through standard press releases and announcements. They started as a two man team and have increased to six in the West Midlands. With similar sites in Yorkshire and the North West as well as the West Midlands they have a turn-over of around £1 milion. That’s a serious figure.
MORAL: Well written content updated daily can work. Traditional journalism CAN work.
What about paywalls?
What are paywalls? They are barriers to content you need a subscription to get past. They won’t work, Marc says. But they’ll work beautifully to push traffic towards sites like The Business Desk. They won’t work for hyperlocals.
MORAL: Information is free on the web. Think of other ways to be self-sustaining.
So how does the thing pay for itself?
Site advertising pays but increasingly events do too. Niche events that 40 people will pay money for insights on work, for example. They also become ways to built the online community offline too.
MORAL: Don’t look at one way to generate funds.
What about the site traffic?
Unlike newspapers, Marc was hugely free with insights into his site traffic. There’s about 1,200 visitors every day with 2.5 to three page impressions per visit.
This is from a base of 4,282 and 2,400 email subscribers. Small numbers? Maybe. But this is a start-up. And remember, the Birmingham Post used to sell around 10,000 a week.
MORAL: Build a community around a niche.
Email? Isn’t that boring?
It generates 90 per cent of site traffic. That’s big figures. I’ll say that again. It generates 90 per cent of site traffic. That’s not boring. It’s brilliant. It’s not something unique to thebusinessdesk.com. The IDeA Communities of Practice site does something with a daily email update.
MORAL: E-mail is the overlooked communication tool of web 2.0. As late 90s as it is you can reach big numbers through it. It also acts as a tap on the shoulder to remind you that site you signed up to is there.
So, what’s to learn?
I’m convinced there are lessons here, not just for news websites but for web users in general and yes, that does mean the public sector.
1. Think basic. Email may not be sexy. But people use it. In large numbers. Get an email subscription going. Don’t be afraid to be web1.0.
2. Think sustainable (content). Think about how the site will last. Make sure there’s a team not one overworked individual.
3. Think sustainable (finance). Think through how it can last and if not be a not-for-profit at least be a not-for-loss.
4. Research. Put some thought into your audience. Think who you are writing for. Think how and when they’d like content delivered. Be niche.
5. Wear different hats. Be a journalist. Be a marketeer. Be an advertising sales person.
If William Wordsworth was alive today he’d be using Twitter.
Not the old stick-in-the-mud he became but the young man fired by revolution.
Why? Because he celebrated the English countryside through the media of the day.
How we think of the landscape was shaped by Wordsworth. Before him, mountains were frightful places. After? Beautiful. And Willie cashed in with an 1810 Guide to the Lakes that was the iphone app of its day.
Exploring how our countryside team could use social media made me trawl through some examples.
Whoever said places work can really well on social media were bang on. That’s especially true of parks and countryside. So how is social media being used by to promote the countryside? There’s some really good ideas in patches out there but nothing fundamentally game changing that makes you sit up and write verse. That says to me that there is plenty of potential.
Photography should be at the heart of what the public sector does with countryside and parks. Why? Because a picture tells a 1,000 words. Because they can bring a splash of green into someone’s front room or phone at one click. Criminally, many sites should be promoting the countryside relegate images to a postage stamp picture.
Here are 10 interesting uses:
1. The British Countryside Flickr group has more than 4,000 members and some amazing images. It’s a place where enthusiastic amateur photographers can share pictures and ideas.
2. Peak District National Park chief executive Jim Dixon leads from the front. He blogs about his job at www.jimdixon.wordpress.com and tweets through @peakchief. It’s a good mix of retweeting interesting content and puts a human face on an organisation.
3. Foursquare, Walsall Council added a landmark in a park as a location. The Pit Head sculpture in Walsall Wood was added to encourage people to visit and check-in. You can also make good use of ‘tips’ by adding advice.
4. On Twitter, @uknationalparks represents 15 UK national parks run a traditional Twitter feed with press releases, RTs and some conversation. With 2,000 followers it’s on 145 lists.
5. But you don’t have to be in a national park to do a goods job. In Wolverhampton, @wolvesparkies have a brilliantly engagingly conversational Twitter stream. There is passion, wit and information that make most councils seem the RSS press release machine that they are.
6. National Trust have an excellent Facebookprofile. You may get the impression that members are 65 and own a Land Rover. That doesn’t come across here. They observe one of the golden rules of social media. Use the language of the platform. It’s laid back and it’ll tell you when events are planned.
Yorkshire Dales by Chantrybee
7. Even more relaxed is the quite new I Love Lake District National Park is quite brilliant. It allows RSS, it blogs and it really encourages interaction. Heck, they even encourage people to post to the wall so they can move shots into albums.
8. On YouTube, West Sussex County Council have a slick short film on tree wardens that deserves more than 45 views in five months. Or does this show how much take up there is on YouTube?
9. The rather wonderful parksandgardens.ac.uk is an ambitious online tool for images of 6,500 parks and gardens and the people who created and worked in them. @janetedavis flagged this up. It’s a project she worked on and she should be proud of it. There’s a school zone to to connect to young people too and is populated by google map addresses and photographs. Really and truly, council parks and countryside pages should look like this but mostly don’t.
10. Less a government project, or even social media Cumbria Live TV celebrate the landscape they work in utterly brilliantly. Slick and powerful broadcast quality three minute films do more than most to capture the jaw dropping awe of the fells. They self-host some brilliant films on a changing site. Check them out here.
EIGHT things you CAN do aside from write bad poetry about daffodils and shepherds called Michael…
1. A Facebook fan page to celebrate a park or open space. Call it I love Barr Beacon. Yes, the Friends group can use it as a meeting place. But naming it after the place not the organisation leaves the door open to the public too.
2. Give a countryside ranger a Twitter account. Use @hotelalpha9 as an inspiration. Let them update a few times a day with what they’ve been up to. Post mobile phone pictures too.
3. Despite a dearth of amateur good examples there’s potential in short films to promote countryside. You only have to point a camera at something photogenic for people to come over all Lake Poet.
Flowers by Vilseskogen
4. Start a Flickr group to celebrate your patch of countryside. Walsall has 1,000 acres of parks and countryside with amazing views and vistas.
5. Start a blog. WordPress takes minutes to set-up and after messing around only a short time to master. Tell people what you are up to. Whack up a few images. Lovely. For no cost.
6. Make your countryside and parks pages a bit more web 2.0. Use mapping to set out a location. Use Flickr images – with permission – to showcase the place.
7. Add your parks and countryside to a geo-location site such as Foursquare. If the future of social media is location, location, location then venues, landmarks and places will score big.
8. Text. With more mobile phones in the UK than people sometimes the humble text message can be overlooked as part of the package of ways to connect with people. Most councils are also text enabled. Create info boards around a park or countryside with numbers to text to recieve info on what they can see. Change it for the seasons to make best use.
Picture credits:
Newlands Valley, Lake District, UK: Dan Slee.
Wordsworth: Creative commons courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.
“Citizen journalists,” the sneer goes, “Whatever next? Citizen surgeons?”
It’s a glib, throwaway, catch-all comment designed to dismiss social media sites which spread news without the aid of shorthand, a spiralbound notepad and an NUJ card.
The argument goes that like a surgeon’s scalpel only someone trained can handle news properly.
But with the quiet opening up of the BBC College of Journalism website another brick in the ever shaky argument comes toppling down.
The website http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/ has been run internally for the corporation for three years. It is a treasure trove of skills refined from more than 60 years of award winning peerless journalism.
To survive a 21st century journalist must blog, podcast, film, edit and interview and write.
In the era of multi-skilling the press officer will also do well to take a look at the array of skills the site offers coaching in. There is plenty there for them.
But where the BBC training site’s hidden strength really lies is in the trasure trove of skills it offers to the hyperlocal blogger.
Recently, there has been a fierce debate in the UK digital community about defamation and media law. The Talk About Local project to encourage hyperlocals has started to debate it. Bloggers such as The Lichfield Blog’s Philip John have come up with some hyperlocal friendly resources.
But what the BBC site offers is a more extensive, professional insight into what will and won’t get you into trouble.
I’m tempted to call the opening up of the BBC training site as their greatest contribution to digital since the BBC Acorn computer pushed home computing out of the science fiction pages into the spare room in 1981.
This website starts to put quality journalism within the grasp of anyone who can operate both a WordPress site and the BBC’s training pages.
For a qualified journalist looking to embrace change this is a welcome resource.
To the press officer it is a reference point. But also another signal that the 21st century landscape is changing.
To a blogger it should be bookmarked and memorised.
SEVEN TOP TIPS FROM THE BBC THAT COULD PROVE USEFUL IN SOCIAL MEDIA….
1. A guide to defamation These tips will be especially useful to bloggers. But also with the ever changing media landscape handy for press officers and journalists a long time out of NCTJ college.
2. Contempt of court You don’t have to be in the dock to get on the wrong side of a court of law. The rights and restrictions that govern news – and yes, blogs – are complex and can be devastating if you get it wrong.
3. Using submitted content A great insight into how the BBC uses it. For hyperlocals where photography may rely heavily on submitted pics this could be of use.
4. Original journalism There are news rooms across the country drained of experience and talent that could benefit from this. High standards are never a bad thing.
5. Bloggers and the law A contribution from Birmingham City University leacturer Paul Bradshaw – @paulbradshaw on Twitter. Nice to know the BBC are listening to someone like Paul who has a foot in the blogosphere as well as journalism.
6. Making short news films With YouTube in the driving seat high production values are not needed. But a few tips that could transfer into making something watchable can’t be a bad idea.
7. Filming interviews A few minutes with a Flip video and you’ll know it’s a tricky business balancing the questioning with the filming.
