Holding the door open for bright people should be the aim of every organisation’s social media plan.
Because managing the message is dead. And because the corporate voice doesn’t work.
The social web includes places like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and every platform that allows for two way debate and discussion. The social web is about conversations, the human voice and a completely fresh approach.
One person once said the best way to approach this new landscape was to put aside everything that you’ve learned so far about how traditional communications works. That’s not all that far from the truth. First amongst these is to recognise that social media is deep down not that different to the telephone, the PC, email and the internet.
When every one of these was first introduced those in the workplace feared what it would do in the hands of staff. Gradually people realised that the more people had access the more positive they became. You’re unlikely – I hope – put all email activity into the hands of comms people. So why think about doing it for social media?
The best answer is for comms people to have responsibility for social media but to try and allow as many people as possible to use it. Preferably on the frontline as that’s where most of the stories are.
Here are ELEVEN golden rules for comms people:
As a comms person be a supportive gatekeeper. Be keen on the idea of people in service areas having the keys for social media. Sanity check and support.
Use the language of the platform. Dear Sir works as a letter. It doesn’t over the phone. Get to know which ever platform you are looking to use and follow it. Be relaxed. Be conversational.
Gently remind people that there’s a code of conduct. Shout and swear in a public email, on the phone or in a letter and there’s procedures. The same goes for online too. Gently remind but don’t labour it.
Be a human being. People respond better to a human being than they do to an institution. Let staff use social media in their own name if they are keen to.
Be transparent. Make it clear you are working for the organisation.
Be polite. Be respectful and be professional at all times.
Be connected. Let your social media be linked to offline communications but don’t let it restrain it. Have a comms plan and have social media within it, by all means.
It’s about conversation. Recognise you can’t control the conversation. You’ll feel better straight away.
Don’t let comms hog the sweetie jar. Let people in service areas use web tools. Let their enthusiasm and knowledge shine through. They’ll be more genuine than you’ll ever be.
Be a digital native. Learn how things work as yourself.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and innovate. It’s how the best ideas come about.
There was a brilliant update on Twitter the other day which hit the nail right on the head.
“The best social media,” it read “doesn’t happen in an office.”
That’s dead right.
For a long while now I’ve been arguing that communications people should share the sweets, relax a little and learn to let go. It’s by doing that they can really reap the rewards of good and trusted communications channels.
I’m not alone by any means in thinking this and it’s excellent to start seeing the rewards being reaped.
Here are some good examples of digital communications that caught my eye over the last few months.
What’s worth commenting on is that the majority of the good examples are not done directly by comms people. They’re done by people in the field telling their stories or they’re using content that first originated outside an office to tell a story.
Real time updates by people on the ground work brilliantly.
Back in 2008, digital innovation in the public sector – and third sector – was isolated. What this quick link collection now shows is that it’s mainstream and unstoppable.
Twitter
National Trust Dudmaston Hall, Shropshire – If only more organisations were like the National Trust. We’d all be eating better cake for one. They’re also getting good at digital communications. They’re equipping venues with social media accounts to give you updates and insights from the ground.
I’m quite partial to this stream from the Shropshire stately home which is near Bridgnorth and a personal family favourite. They talk to people and they update. More people are likely to sign-up for a venue rather than an organisation that looks after lots of venues although there is a space for that too. You can follow them on Twitter here.
Acton Scott Museum, Shropshire – An imaginative use of pictures makes this Twitter stream fly. How can you not see horse drawn ploughing and not want to go and visit? You can follow them on Twitter here.
National Trust Central Fells – Using the principle if you do good things tell people the @ntcentralfells Twitter do a good job of updating people on the work they do. Most of the time it’s witnessed by two walkers and some sheep. They updated progress on building a bridge in a remote spot of Easedale in with pictures of them at work and reaped the benefit of feedback from people stuck in offices. You can follow them on Twitter here.
Supt Keith Fraser – A Superintendant in Walsall who keeps people up to speed with events and crime in the town. Personable. Informative and willing to engage on the platform. You can follow him here.
Swedish Tourist Board – It’s rather marvellous is this. Technically, it’s run by the Swedish Tourist Board but this isn’t a collation of picture book shots and platitudes. They give the @sweden Twitter to a new Swede every week. More than 20,000 people follow it. You can follow them here.
I know this writer! Qaisar Mahmood askes what it means to be Swedish. The answer he gets: ”Blond and reserved”. svd.se/nyheter/idagsi…
Walsall Council Countryside Officers – I’m a bit biased in that I know Morgan Bowers the countryside ranger but I absolutely love what she has done with social media. A digital native she uses her iphone to update Twitter with what she is doing, what newt survey results are and pictures of the sky over Barr Beacon. This is brilliant. You can follow her on Twitter here. Her manager Kevin Clements has also picked up the baton on Twitter with regular updates. You can follow him here and it’s good to see the burden shared.
Walsall Council Environmental Health Officer David Matthews – Britain’s first tweeting environmental health officer David Matthews was a big part in why Walsall 24 worked as an event. He was able to spot snippets of interest that he passed through for others to tweet. Afterwards, he didn’t need much persuasion to take up an account in his own name. The @ehodavid was puts out the normal updates and warnings but with added humour. Much of the frontline updates is anonymised. Pictures taken of dreadful takeaways need a health warning to look at during lunchtime. You can follow him here.
9 cases of Campylobacter food poisoning last week Symptoms include diarrhoea/vomiting/stomach/pains+cramps+fever FAQ? tinyurl.com/boeanm2
Pc Rich Stanley blog – Walsall has a stong claim to be a digital outpost. One of the big reasons for this is the way West Midlands Police have picked up the baton – or should that be truncheon? – and embraced social media. Pc Rich Stanley uses Twitter well but also blogs excellently on various day-to-day aspects of the job. Here he talks about policing the Aston Villa v Chelse football game.
Walsall Council Social Care – People in social care do a brilliant job. They’re good at saving lives. Literally. But all too often they don’t do a good jo of telling their story. As a sector they shelter behind big stone walls and hope a high profile case like Baby P NEVER happens to them. Tina Faulkner and Becky Robinson are comms people who both understand old and new media and have blogged stories from the frontline. You can read them here.
Audioboo
Walsall Leather Museum Audioboo – Francesca Cox eyes lit up when she heard of Audioboo. A couple of days later she posted this chat with a demonstrator about her first day at work. What the clip does is open up all sorts of possibilities with oral history and when embedded on another website brings a different aspect to this. [gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http%3A%2F%2Faudioboo.fm%2Fboos%2F721044-first-day-at-work.mp3%3Fsource%3Dwordpress&mp3Author=Leathermuseum&mp3LinkURL=http%3A%2F%2Faudioboo.fm%2Fboos%2F721044-first-day-at-work&mp3Time=11.02am+21+Mar+2012&mp3Title=First+day+at+work” width=”400″ height=”160″ allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]
Pinterest
US Army – Like geeks with an interest in sub-machine guns the people behind the US Army social media presence are blending both interests well. Pinterest is a way to collect pictures in the one place. If pictures tell 1,000 words this collection speaks a great deal on what messages the military would like to get across. It’s split into themes. You can find it here.
Facebook
Can We Make Walsall A More Creative Place? – Walsal Council’s regeneration scrutiny committee wanted to look at the creative industries. We launched a Facebook page to begin to connect. Fifty people have liked it so far to allow the start of feedback. Face-to-face meetings are now planned. You can like it here.
NASA Facebook timeline – One of the many things I really love about this page is the way NASA have embraced timeline. Scroll back to 1965 and you can look at content they’ve updated from that year featuring the first NASA spacewalk. For any organisation with a long history this approach is a must. You can like it here.
Northycote Park and Country Park on Facebook – Wolverhampton Council’s parks team do a really good job of innovating using social media. They’ve been experimenting with creating Facebook pages for venues. This is Northycote Park and Country Park and has 200 likes a few weeks after it was launched. It has pictures of new born lambs and updates on events. You can like it here.
Monmouthshire Council Youth Service on Facebook – Hel Reynolds has flagged up this page. A youth worker updates it. Not a comms person. This means that it has a tone that suits the people it is aimed at and doesn’t come over as trendy uncle Monmouth breakdancing at a wedding. You can like it here.
Flickr
US government’s EPA Documerica project on Flickr – In the early 1970s the Documerica project sent photographers to capture environmental issues across the country. They captured car jams, low flying planes, people meeting up in public spaces and other things. They’ve posted many of the images onto Flickr and they’re a time capsule of how the US was. You can see them here. To update them they have a blog to encourage a 2012 version here and a Flickr group here.
Torfaen Council on Flickr – Here’s a council that is posting images to Flickr routinely. They show a good range of images that residents can see. You can see them here.
Covering meetings
WV11 on PACT meetings – The wv11 blog have worked with West Midlands Police to cover public meetings – known as PACT meetings – to allow residents to pose questions and see what is happening in their patch. It’s great work and shows how you can connect to people who want to be civic minded but struggle to reach meetings. You can read a blog of a meeting here and a storify here.
Birmingham City Council – Comms officer Geoff Coleman has done some excellent work with live streaming council meetings. It opens up democracy and promotes transparency. It’s netted 10,000 views. You can read about it here.
Crowd sourcing
Birmingham City Council’s election plans – This year plans to be a big year in Birmingham. There’s a chance of a change of administration and there will be great attention on the council and most importantly, how they communicate the changes in real time. What better way than crowd source what people want? You can read it here.
YouTube
Caerphilly Council – Digital video clips are easy to consume but notoriously difficult to do effectively. Many have tried in local government but few have been as effective as Caerphilly Council with their nationally sigificant use of YouTube clips. One clip both pokes gentle fun at themselves and features a sheep with social media logos roaming the borough. It makes you smile. It keeps you informed. It’s fleecey brilliance.
There’s a famous quote about the value of something being doubled if it’s shared.
That’s something that runs through Helpful Technology’s excellent Digital Engagement Guide like a golden thread.
It’s basically a rather wonderful collection of practical guides, strategies and case studies that are a treasure trove of ideas. Best of all these are ideas based in battle-hardened reality.
Steph Gray, who built it, deserves immense credit for putting it together. Based in the South East, a former head of digital communications at BIS he has done a lot of good work across Central Government. For my part, I was rather honoured to add a smidge of local government content along with Al Smith of Greenfinch and a man who I rate terrifically highly.
But digital engagement? How does that affect comms people? Isn’t that a bit of a touchy-feely way of saying consultation? Frankly, as web 2.0 develops boundaries are being blurred ever more often and the strict distinction between many job titles is starting to look obsolete. Besides, if you are looking to use social media as a comms channel it just won’t work unless it’s a listening channel too. For the press officer used to firing out press releases into the ether that’s a big change. But an exciting one.
Here are five belters from the Digital Engagement Guide
Department for International Development Bloggers – This shows how many authors to a single blog can work for an organisation. With stories from around the globe this works because it is written by individuals about human problems.
The US Army Social Media Guide– Few large organisations do social media as well as the US Army. Millions follow their Marines Facebook page alone. But how do they do it? Aren’t there security risks? This link to the guide itself sets out how new channels are used successfully. If the US military can use social media why can’t your organisation?
BBC English Regions Social Media Guidelines – You can almost substitute the word ‘BBC’ with ‘local government’ and it’s a good foundation for how officers should use digital channels. This is excellent. Always post different content to Facebook than to Twitter. Don’t use txtspk. You’ll find yourself nodding like one of those dogs in the back of cars.
New York City Council’s Customer Use Policy– Much gets written on how officers should use social media. There’s not too much about how customers should use it. These public guidelines from New York are an excellent starting point.
Gangway collapse at HMS Belfast – Ben Proctor from the likeaword consultancy is brilliant at crisis comms. He’s also really good at piecing together case studies. In this one he shows how official Twitter accounts working together build a picture and fill the information vacuum that takes place when something goes wrong.
For the past three years I’ve believed in the powerfully simple idea of ‘do and share.’
It’s amazing how if you do share good learning end up learning far more yourself in the long run.
It’s something that underpins this blog and powers some amazingly creative people in local government.
It’s also the ethos behind a project called Comms2point0 which I helped co-found. It’s somewhere online that comms people in and around the public sector can make sense of the changing landscape with case studies, resources and ideas. We created it because there wasn’t somewhere dedicated for comms and pr people working in the public sector that did that.
There’s a comms2point0 website where people can blog about an idea or a campaign they’ve tried. You can read it here.
There’s also a Twitter stream that posts six links every workday morning we think comms people may find helpful. They’re delivered on a plate by around 8am. You can follow it here.
I say I helped co-found Comms2point0 but in reality the drive for this has come from the excellent Darren Caveney who I’m fortunate to work with at Walsall Council where he he is head of comms. Darren and his press office manager Kim Neville have created an ethos where good ideas can be tried out and so much of the credit for the good work I’ve done should be reflected for them. Like the look of Comms2point0? That’s Darren that is and his wife Carol Caveney. They built it. They also went for the retro creative commons pictures that illustrate the site. You can find many of them on Flickr as part of the Documerica project. That’s here.
What works on Comms2point0? It doesn’t have to be just cool social media stuff. What’s really good is when it’s a mix of digital and non-digital. That’s when it gets really interesting. It’s how to get an idea or a message through to the iphone user, the newspaper reader and the Facebook enthusiast all at the same time is what really fires my imagination.
Who is it for? Mainly for public relations, communications people and marketing types who are looking to learn. Nobody has it all cracked. But with the old certainties dliding away, budgets disappearing the landscape is changing. Fail to evolve and learn and you are heading for irrelevance.
More than that, it’s for people who are looking to understand the new landscape. No matter what job they do.
Not everyone wants the time and effort to blog. But you’d be amazed at how unphased comms people are at writing 400 words to order on something they’ve done.
Five months on and we’ve reached 2,000 unique visitors a month and we’ve gone past 850 followers on Twitter. We’re a bit proud of that.
We’ve also chipped in with Nick Hill of Public Sector Forums to stage a rather nifty conference in Birmingham where a lorry load of bright ideas were taken away by 60 people – myself included – about Facebook. We put the resources here. Take a look if you didn’t go. We’re off to Glasgow soon too.
All this we’re quietly ever so proud of. Especially as it’s all been done outside of work time sometimes first thing in the morning with a piece of toast in one hand or last thing once the children are in bed and I’ve got Kraftwerk playing on the headphones.
Here are five blogs randomly selected you may like:
Five Comms2point0 belters
Social media and the council mag– in an era of slashed budgets the council magazine is often first to go. Critics would have you believe they are full of spin. The reality is more prosaic. It’s the bin times and the changes to the leisure centre that people don’t always get to hear about. Either because the newspaper isn’t that interested in council good news or because people stopped buying them a long time ago. Northumberland County Council’s Ross Wigham shared this post. I like the fact that there are good things happening in places far away from unconferences too.
Birds in the nest – Walsall Council’s Darren Caveney wrote this and I love it. It’s a mix of personal and professional and gives advice on how to cope with the changing landscape. Learn new things. Do new things. Shout about them too. Everyone working in comms should read this. Or local government.
Twitter… the next industrial revolution – There are things the public and private sector can learn from people. In this post Danks Cockbain PR’s Russ Cockbain tells of how he helped put Black Country manufacturers onto Twitter and how one secured £500,000 of publicity on the back of connections made via Twitter. Thems big numbers. It made me more happy than I can tell you that this case study was cited at UK Govcamp in London. “If Black Country metal benders can do it, what are we waiting for?”
It started with a tweet – There’s some really interesting things taking shape at Cornwall Council. Matt Bond talks about how they are trying digital tacks but are bringing their elected members along with them.
Feeling the love for infographics– Gillian Hudson is someone I came across first at the Home Office. She’s a bit talented. She’s now with the 10 Downing Street press team and in this post she talked through how she used infographics as part of a wider campaign. It’s really good stuff.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to create a Facebook page. It’s a lot harder to do it effectively.
As a platform used by almost 900 million people the question is not ‘how’ government and local government uses it but ‘if.’ There are some cracking examples of how to use Facebook outnumbered by scores of absolute stinkers.
As the session wore on it looked pretty fundamental. Think timeline is just the chance to stick a big letterbox picture on top of your page? Think again.
Here’s some collected learning gathered at the event and some extra.
Thinking about it afterwards, I can’t help but think that what’s needed for an effective Facebook page – timeline or not – is:
Good content to connect to people.
Shouting about it online.
Shouting about it offline (which is actually the most important than shouting online).
The getting started: ‘We need a Facebook page’
It’s almost as common a thing to hear as a comment on the weather. It’s what people want. But ask a simple question: do you really need a Facebook page?
Ask if people will monitor every day and are prepared to respond. If they’re not, don’t bother. If they’ve never used Facebook before don’t start with a page. You’ll fail. Start by creating your own profile and then using it for a month or two to work out how it all works. If you are none of the above you are better off chipping in to the corporate page or someone else’s page.
What does good content look like?
A couple of posts a day or three at most so as not to drown people with noise. Make it engaging. Post pictures. Stage polls. Link to YouTube. Think beyond the ‘I’m linking to the press release.’ Make it fun. Make it timely. Make it informative.
With Facebook timeline, what’s the same…?
Facebook pages are still the platform for using Facebook as local government. You get loads of stats as an admin you won’t if you don’t have a page. With timeline you can still add posts, add pictures, links, video and create polls. You still have to have your own profile in order to create a page and become an admin. It also doesn’t change the frequency of how often to add content. More than two or three times a day and it starts to get a bit noisy and people will switch off and yes, you do need to add text in a way that works on Facebook.
Don’t be stuffy and formal.
Be sociable.
But we all know that, don’t we?
Ally Hook’s Coventry page is a good place to look to for ideas. It’s something I’ve blogged about before here.
What’s different with timeline compared to the old pages?
There’s a stack of extra features I’d either not noticed with the old page or have been slipped on with the new timeline approach. Here’s a quick run through of some of them.
Admin
When you first navigate to your home page as admin you’ll see the under the dashboard part of the page right at the top. Helpfully, there’s a natty chart which tells you the reach of the page and how many are talking about it. In other words, how many have posted a comment or liked.
You can have a cover pic
It’s the letterbox shaped image that’s right on top of the page. Facebook are keen for this to be not predominantly text so a nice shot of your borough, city, parish or county will do just fine. Or if its a service maybe it’s a shot of them doing something. But change it every now and then.
For me, this is where good links with Flickr members somes in handy. With their permission use a shot and link back to their page.
Dawn O’Brien for Wolverhampton Parks has used this rather wonderful shot of one of their parks, for example.
You can still have a profile pic
It’s just not the main emphasis of the page anymore. But try and keep it interesting. Use Ally Hook from Coventry City Council’s time honoured tack of not using a logo. They’re not terribly social things are logos.
There’s a funny info bar just under the cover pic
It’s a handy place to see how you are doing with likes as well as a place to search for pictures. That’s a bit tidier.
You can create and add content to a historic timeline
One person at the Birmingham event pointed to Manchester United‘s Facebook page as a trailblazing way to use a historic timeline. They were formed a long time ago and this particular bit of functionality means you can add old, historic content from years ago. It’s actually really good. Click on 1977 and you can see a shot of two members of the FA Cup winning team. Clearly, as a Stoke City supporter they remain a plastic club with fans who live in Surrey but I can live with this screenshot as it has a picture of Stoke legend Jimmy Greenhoff on.
I was talking through this change to Francesca from Walsall Leather Museum.
All of a sudden her eyes lit up. “Wow,” she said. “We can add old pictures to the timeline.” She’s right. You can. The possibilities for museums and galleries are pretty endless.
Even for a council page you can add historic images that build a bit of pride. You can do this by posting an update and then in the top right hand corner clicking on ‘edit.’
You can select a date that best suits it. Like 1972 for Stoke City winning the League Cup, for example.
What the edit page button can do
You can let people add content to your page whether that’s a post or video.
Many councils, especially during Purdah, are a bit nervous about letting people do this. Especially when they are not monitored around the clock. Allowing it builds an audience but it’s a judgement call. There’s also the moderation block list. That’s not really something I’d noticed before but you can add terms you are not happy with.
I’d use it sparingly and not to stiffle debate.
It’s also probably worth adding the swearing filter.
For a few days there was a setting to pre-approve all content. That’s now disappeared and a good thing too.
This star post thing
On the top right hand of each timeline post is the star icon. Click that and your post gets larger and is seen by everyone who navigates to your page. Obviously choose the best ones for that.
The pinning a post thing
In the top right hand of each timeline post is an edit button. Click that and you’ll see the option to pin. That sends the post to the top and something that will remain at the top until its unpinned. Save that for the really important ones.
Insights are your new best friend
If Facebook have gone to the trouble of providing you with a pile of stats for free the least you can do is use them. Let people know. Sing from the rooftops. Include them in reports. Tell people what you are doing. Don’t think that everyone will notice.
Don’t forget to use Facebook as a page
It’s something I’ve blogged about before but needs repeating. You can find out how to do it here. Your page is a very small allotment in a country the size of France. Use the principle of go to where the audience is so add and comment on larger pages.
Facebook adverts From the Birmingham session there are few cases of big numbers coming from ads. However, Shropshire Council have used it for specific job ads with some results. A blend of shouting offline and good content to interest if people do drop by would seem to be the answer to building useful Facebook numbers.
A successful Facebook page makes lots and lots of noise offline
It’s amazing how it’s easy to fall into the trap it is of only thinking Facebook to shout about your page. Actually, that’s one part of it. Look at how others do it.
1. Put your a link on the bottom of emails. Tens of thousands of emails get sent every week. They’re mini billboards.
2. Tell people about your page via the corporate franking machine. Tens of thousands of items of post go out every week. They’re mini billboards too.
3. Put your Facebook page on any print you produce. Leaflets, flyers and guides.
4. Put posters up at venues with QR codes linking straight to the page. I’m not convinced QR codes are mainstream but I am convinced its worth a try.
5. Tell your staff about a page – and open up your social media policy to allow them to look. As Helen Reynolds suggests here and Darren Caveney here.
6. Don’t stop shouting about your Facebook page face-to-face. If people enjoy a visit to a museum tell them they can keep up on Facebook.
7. Use your school children. Encourage schools to send something home to tell their parents about the Facebook page.
8. Create a special event for Facebook people. For events and workshops create something special only for the very special people who will like your very special page. Like a craft table at a family event. Maybe use eventbrite to manage tickets.
9. Stage on offline competition. Get people to enter via Facebook. That’s just what Pepsi are doing with a ring pull competition. Send a text (25p) or add to the Pepsi Facebook page after you like it (FREE.)
“Oh, so it wasn’t actually local government that won a prize for Social Media Surgeries?
“That’s a shame isn’t it?”
That’s more or less what someone from a local government organisation said to me. They weren’t really listening and it got me thinking.
What’s a social media surgery? It’s volunteers with digital know how being put together in a room with voluntary groups and charities who would like to know.
It’s about giving a voice to groups who really need a voice.
It’s an idea that emerged three or four years ago from the vibrant community of Birmingham bloggers.
Nick Booth of Podnosh has turned that idea into something truly remarkable that has outgrown the West Midlands (disclaimer: I just think Nick is great.)
I’ve helped out at a handful social media surgeries. Not as many as I would have liked. But enough to know why people do it and enough to be applauding wildly those who truly deserve the award.
Is it sad local government didnt win this?
Not at all. Because this isn’t a local government idea. It’s a community one.
But it also got me thinking about local government’s role.
A lot of the early volunteers come from local government. Birmingham City Council’s Digital Birmingham arm recognised it’s worth quite early on and helped get volunteers, for example.
At the last Walsall Social Media surgeries, which is one of more than 80 registered, the majority of surgeons happened to be from local government too.
That’s more a yardstick of there being decent people at councils rather than some strategic thing.
But social media surgeries, from what I see, are built on far more than volunteers from local government and I wouldn’t want to overstate their role.
Social media is transforming council communications. Gritting updates now come via Twitter. Libraries have Facebook pages.
But local government is founded in Victorian Britain and can still act like it at times. Even the best Twitter stream unplugged into officers who don’t want to listen will ultimately fail.
Just recently, I’ve helped start a Facebook page to help regeneration officers understand how they can make Walsall a town where creative people will live and work.
It won’t change the world, but I’m gobsmacked at how if you plug into networks and listen they’ll crackle with electricity and they’ll tell you things. I’m a bit excited at how its playing out.
Just recently I spent a really inspiring hour or so at Shropshire Council with Nigel Bishop, Jon King and others. Part of what they are doing is looking at how to embed social media in every corner of the council and at every step of the way. Not just as the end stuck on as a megaphone to tell people. Jon writes about it here. In short, they’re after better listening as well as communicating. That’s quietly brilliant.
So, what can local government really get out of what’s built at social media surgeries?
A few days ago I had something of a Eureka moment.
We were looking at how a leisure centre could best use Facebook. In the room with me was a colleague and the centre manager himself.
“Maybe we should just have the one Facebook page for leisure centres right across the borough.”
Hmmm. That didn’t feel right.
“Or how about one for a leisure centre?”
Better. Much better. But that still didn’t quite feel totally there. We spoke about the centre user and what they may want.
“So, what if someone loved zumba and didn’t want to be bothered with gym opening times?”
We searched for zumba and Walsall on Facebook. That’s the borough we were in. Just to see what is there.
We found an zumba instructor and a rather magnificent 1,400 people liking her page.
Wow.
Suddenly, it became quite clear.
Would a zumba enthusiast be more likely to sign-up for zumba updates? Or zumba floating in amongst gym, badminton, squash, swimming, weight lifting and judo?
Or to ask another question, when you look for information on a council website, would you want it straight away or would you want to have to go through six other services before you got the lollipop?
That’s a simple question. You want the one.
So, maybe, what we need is not just one big Facebook page. Or even an oligarchy of pages based on services. What we need are lots of little ones for each class, group or community.
Look at New York City. They have 5,000 people liking their City Council Facebook page and a similar number on Twitter. But they have 400,000 following @metmuseum as well as 1,300 liking an AIDS initiative.
Or look at the Scottish Island of Orkney. On Twitter 2,000 follow the council, 4,000 like their library, 400 the story telling festival and 80 sign-up for the jobs feed. So in other words, twice as many like things the council does rather than the council itself.
Look even at Walsall Council. 4,000 like the council Twitter while 800 sign up for @walsallwildlife a countryside ranger’s tweets about bats, birds and wildlife and 160 getting environmental health updates.
So, it’s not about having one medium size official presence jealously guarded by a comms person.
It’s actually about having scores of engaged little ones that together add up to a better connected, better informed population.
The Public Sector Forum and Comms2point0 Facebook for the Public Sector takes place on March 14 at Birmingham City Football Club. You can find out more here and do come over and say hello.
Okay, so here’s an idea. You record a quick interview or a snippet of a festival and then you post it online.
Nothing revolutionary and I’m sure people have been doing it for years but for a few weeks I’ve been experimenting with Audioboo.
What’s Audioboo? It’s a way of posting online short recording clips of interviews, sounds, noise or perhaps even with permission live music.
You can download it for free through the app store or via the Android market and all you need is a smartphone or an iphone.
There are other platforms out there and SoundCloud has its followers too.
The dabbling I’ve done is centred around photocalls I’ve attended where some parties have been gathered together. With them all in one place it’s made sense to whip out the phone and make a quick recording. In less than five minutes you can have something posted to the web.
At a cold photocall with a few minutes to spare I made an Audioboo, posted it to the Walsall Council Facebook and Twitter and by the time it took to get back to the office there was an email: “One of the neighbours has listened to your recording and thinks this is a great project.” Beginners luck maybe, but it did get me thinking.
For some time I’ve been thinking about how to generate content for different places. This is another string to the bow of the comms person.
Add metadata (that’s things like the words ‘Walsall’, ‘regeneration’, ‘new homes bonus’, ‘housing’ if it’s a New Homes Bonus scheme done by the regeneration directorate in Walsall.)
I’m sure there’s more possibilities but here’s three that struck me:
1. Broadcast journalist content. Nick Booth from Podnosh many years back spoke of creating clips along with a press release that could be downloaded by broadcast journalists. That’s a step in that direction.
2. Adding Audioboo links to press releases when they’re e-mailed out. Add a straight forward link.
3. Embedding Audioboo links to news stories or web pages. As a way to brighten up web content.
We’re told local government should be more like the private sector.
If that means charging £20,000 to make a change to a Government website then I’d rather not, thanks.
This week the gov.uk website, built in-house by geeks using open source (ie free) software was launched.
I’m not a webbie but even I can see the value in being able to make changes and tweaks suggested by people and there’s a great piece on it here on the Cabinet Office digital blog.
In an entirely different scale and in an entirely different corner of the digital allotment there was a public versus private issue in local government I stumbled across.
A private company is approaching councils offering to take over grit alerts.
That’s an area I do know something about as Walsall Council, I’m proud to say, was amongst the pioneers of the Twitter Gritter model along with places like Derbyshire County Council and Kirklees Council. Our engineers looked at us a bit funny at first, heard us out, trialled it and now are big advocates for it. It’s cost us £0 in three years but we’ve connected scores of times with people.
What’s Twitter Gritter?
It’s real time alerts keeping people up to speed on what their council is doing to treat the roads.
If we go out at 2am to treat the roads and only two shift workers and a drunk see what we’re doing isn’t it a good idea to tell people?
It’s also talking back to answer questions and pass on serious problems like a burst water main that’s turning to sheet ice.
I’m not against the idea of the private sector. Far from it. I’ve spent a big chunk of my career there and there are plenty of freelancers and organisations whose time would enrich the organisations they help. You’ll know them by the track record they have. Others in the private sector? They’re poor bandwagon jumpers, to be fair.
What I see in the public sector with events like UK Govcamp, Localgovcamp and other events are people willing to share and develop ideas to make the world a better place.
That simply wouldn’t and isn’t happening in so much of the private sector.
What does the private sector Twitter Gritter look like?
You can read the text I’ve posted to a Google Doc here. I’ve taken out the name of the company to spare their blushes. Nothing against people looking to make a profit out of something, per se. But when someone you don’t know asks you to hand over the keys to your Twitter account so they can do a poorer job and charge you for it then forgive me for being underwhelmed.
Why is it bad?
I’m tempted to just leave it to Mike Rawlins’s 140 character reaction.
@danslee is this serious? Has someone actually proposed this to you?
But here are FOUR cut and pastable reasons and can be shared with gritting engineers to help them avoid making the wrong decision.
1. If it means handing over access then don’t. You wouldn’t do that with your email. Don’t do it here either.
2. If it’s broadcasting then don’t. The social web works best when it’s two way. People can ask questions and report problems. Run simply and sensibly that’s possible. Talk to your council’s social media person. They’ll tell you. Don’t if it doesn’t.
3. If it’s not their area of expertise then don’t. It looks what it is. Something developed by people who don’t know how the social web works. You wouldn’t let non-engineers loose on an engineering project. Don’t do the same here.
