LONG READ: What visual content works best when pitching to local news titles


Life was so simple as a press officer back in the olden days if you wanted coverage in a local paper. 

You rang them up, organised a time, they’d send a photographer and it would appear in the next edition. Bingo. Job done.

Now the world has changed. Staff photographers are a rarity, papers have become thinner and newspapers have become digital first news brands. 

So what do – let’s call them news titles – want now?

To find out I researched 28 weekly and daily regional news titles across the UK from Aberdeen to Belfast and Cardiff to Docklands. I looked at the print edition and what was posted to Facebook on a single day. Overall, there was 1,300 stories in print and 400 on Facebook.

Why? To better understand and to recommend in training what content works. Anyway, I’m fascinated by this stuff.

Here’s a flavour of the research. 

So, what visual content do local news titles now favour?

Come with me on a visual journey. I’ve split the findings into weekly titles and daily titles who are using quite different content. 

The traditional approach to news pictures

In the days of print, newspapers had their own teams of staff photographers who would cover the patch and produce local images in a house style. At the Express & Star in the Black Country the house style was ruthless. They must be upright, tight and bright. So, happy local faces. Faces so they would buy copies of the newspaper. 

Occasionally, there would be syndicated images from PA but submitted pictures hardly ever and never shoots taken by an amateur unless it was a likeness of a loved one collected from a  ‘death knock’. These macabre visits would be made by a duty reporter after a murder.

I found an old 2004 copy of the Express & Star and found that 73.8 per cent of shots were news pics and 15.3 per cent were submitted from the PA wire.

It would looklike this…

Fig 1. The Express & Star in August 2004

I was curious to see just how much things have changed.

Now, the repertoire of images used is far wider.

The news pic 

This is the classic of the newspaper. There is a full caption from left to right with real people and their names. It is the bread and butter.

The submitted pic 

This shot has been taken by a freelance photographer or maybe an amateur with a mobile phone. Or perhaps its an artists’ impression of a new development. Whatever the source, it came from outside the news room.

The library pic 

This shot comes from the title’s image library. It is generic. You want a shot of the Town Hall or a firefighter in South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue kit? Here it is. Need a shot of the site of the road where two cars collided? Go to Google Street View and take a credited screengrab.

The stock pic

This comes from a stock picture provider like istock. You want a picture of a football? Or a road closed sign? No problem. Here it is. This is more generic.

The full screen grab

Eddie Shah in 1986 pioneered the use of screen grabbing images from a TV screen to appear in print. Since then they have become a mainstay of news content. Did a guest on a chat show say something outrageous? There’s a screengrab to go with the words.

The meme

Internet culture makes it fine to have text on an image or just plain text on an image.

The front page

This curious addition to the visual repertoire feels like a throwback to when front pages were king. Here’s the front. You like it enough to buy it?

The poll

What’s your favourite picnic ingredient? What do you think of Harry and Meghan? Do you think Carlisle United will win the play-offs? ULEZ? Tell us in our poll.

The video 

The algorithm loves video. 

Weekly titles

Visual content in weekly titles: in print 

Fig 2. Images used by print weekly news titles

Here’s the first big hot take.

Content being used in print now is different to that of 20 years ago.

In print, pictures are dominated by submitted pictures with 80.2 per cent likely being sent into the editorial email. No wonder. Newsrooms have been stripped of photographers who could maybe produce a dozen pictures a day at full capacity. 

Library pictures came next on 15.3 per cent. These are the images of the town hall, the library and the beauty spot. They fill space but won’t encourage anyone to buy extra copies of the paper or order a print. 

Finally, classic news pics. At 4.3 per cent they have all but died out. These are the images with the a caption with a list of left to right names and likely taken in-house.

Visual content in weekly titles: online

Fig 3. Images used by print weekly news titles

Here’s where it gets fun. 

Content online is completely different to the content online from the same title.

Images used on Facebook to drive people towards a click are quite different to the print edition. The rule that may have dictated the size and style of an image have gone out of the window. What has replaced it is an eye catching image rather than an identifiable face. 
With newsrooms closing and being hollowed out the speed of getting a library image or stock image overtakes any editorial rule for people. No wonder, as people scroll a colourful image is more powerful.

So, the library picture – at 41.3 per cent – is the most common style of content with weekly titles online. The everyday shot of a landmark or firefighters is what weekly titles are after.

Following this is the submitted image on 29.8 per cent then the stock image on 12.3 per cent. The news pic trails behind on 7.0 per cent.

The screen grab on 3.6 per cent, meme on 2.6 per cent, front page facsimile on 1.8 per cent, poll on 0.8 and video on 0.8 complete the picture. 

Daily titles

 Visual content in daily titles: in print  

Fig 4. Images used by print daily news titles


Library pictures account for almost half of images in print with submitted pics a quarter and news pictures a fifth. There are three times more news pictures in daily titles than in weekly.

This is totally transformed from the newspaper of 20 years ago. 

Visual content in daily titles: online 

Fig 5. images used by daily news titles online

Library pictures win out for dailies online taking up a third of content posted to Facebook with submitted one in five narrowly beating stock images.

Screen grabs provide a noticeable trend with 8.7 per cent with TV and celebrity dominating these images

Video is more of an imprint on daily titles with 5.8 per cent standard social media video and less than one per cent for Reels and for live video.

Conclusions

Review what you do. If you’re still basing the content you send on how things used to be you’re missing a trick.

Add a picture when you send out words. This could be a stock picture you have permission to use or a library picture that you’ve generated yourself. Just add a picture and send it via a a file transfer link like wetransfer or drop box. The reporter will tell you what format they would most like.  

Photo calls are over. News photographers barely exist. Don’t think about booking a photocall with the local title because they’re not there to answer the phone let alone come. 

Submitted images are powerful. But this does provide a gap that can be filled with a submitted image. Having a freelance photography budget is a wise idea for news stories you are looking to get covered. The brief needs to be a news pic but also as many library pics as you can get your hands on.

Video. Providing video is also a sensible idea which can help you get coverage and help the reporter to fill space online. The amount of video being used by local titles is surprisingly low given that half of all time spent on Facebook is spent watching. 

Methodology 

I looked at a news title’s print edition for a given day and the corresponding Facebook page’s output.

Included in the research are the print and online versions of daily newspapers Belfast Telegraph, Express & Star, Evening Mail, Manchester Evening News, Dorset Echo, Glasgow Herald, Aberdeen Press & Journal, Western Mail, Evening Standard, Newcastle Chronicle, Sunderland Echo, Norwich Evening News, Oxford Mail and Yorkshire Post.

Weekly titles include the print and web versions of The Derbyshire Times, Whitehaven News, Tamworth Herald, New Milton Advertiser & Lymington News, Essex Chronicle, Northumberland Gazette, West Highland Free Press, Milngavie & Bearsdon Herald, Ulster Gazette & Armagh Standard, Brecon & Radnor Express, Kidderminster Shuttle, Knutsford Guardian, Tenbury Wells Advertiser, Docklands & East London Advertiser, Bridlington Free Press and Essex Echo.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed a print edition for the study.

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META CRITIC: Key writing from the early days of Threads

There’s been a lot said about the new Meta app Threads.

I’ve read a stack of it and here are the key points for you here.

There’s a TLDR summary and a key quote and a link. 

TLDR: Threads is aiming to be less confrontational than Twitter

“Had Meta launched this app in 2019 it seems safe to say everyone would have rolled their eyes. Its big new feature is… logging on with Instagram? Come on… When the competition is an app where ’cisgender’ is considered a slur Threads has an easy time standing out as an oasis of calm and civility.”
Platformer Meta Unspools Threads

TLDR: Threads can be a proper Twitter challenger because it’s linked to Instagram which is already huge 

“There have been challengers to the bird app in the past 12 months. Mastodon, Bluesky, Post are just a few. But the big advantage Threads has is that it is pushing invites to all of it’s 2bn+ active users on Instagram. And Meta have made it super easy to port over existing followers from Instagram, which has created the level of virality we have witnessed in the past 24hrs.”
Simon Baillie, LinkedIn: The 1st 24 hours on Meta’s Threads

TLDR: There’s lots of hype, lets see how it is in six months

“I have a tinge of the excitement I felt in 2012 when instagram launched, because it just seems to make sense, it works, it’s intuitive, sign up took seconds, and because we are instantly connected with all our existing friends and user base, so we a ready-made network, that’s already conversing.”
Dave Burt, LinkedIn Threads… a Master Stroke?

TLDR: With Meta behind it there’s a fair chance that Threads will work

“Almost every influencer, whether they like it or not, or whether they want Threads to succeed or fail, will be hopping on Threads just in case it does succeed,” he said.”There is potentially a small advantage or a large advantage to being an early adopter of Threads – you certainly will have less people in the Threads ecosystem, so maybe you can get more followers quicker or something like that.”
BBC News  Instagram’s Threads: ‘Almost every influencer will be hopping on it’

TLDR: Twitter is now so awful Threads now has a chance

“They’ve definitely got a fighting chance if all of their protections for communities and individuals are firmly in place,” says Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Australia. “If Threads can displace Twitter’s current toxicity, it may well steal Musk’s crown.”
Wired How Threads Could Kill Twitter

TLDR: If you think Threads will be a discord-free Nirvana think again
“Instagram and now Threads are obsessively designed to shuffle normal users together with brands, encouraging commercial activity at every turn. And while the lofty notion of a virtual public square or town hall is evoked often by social media execs to further the agenda of the day, public squares aren’t just the domain of trade and commerce. Historically, they’re also the heart of culture and a place for political discourse — itself a pesky and unavoidable side effect of existing within a society.”
Techcrunch Meta’s vision for Threads is more mega-mall than public square

TLDR: Threads will navigate towards entertainment not news
“The Facebook and Instagram owner also has been actively embracing an algorithmic approach to serving up content, which gives it greater control over the type of fare that does well as it tries to steer more toward entertainment and away from news.”
Reuters Meta’s ‘friendly’ Threads collides with unfriendly internet

TLDR: Just because it’s new doesn’t mean its good 
“There is an adjustment period as a culture confronts and psychologically adapts to new media and technology, and it’s longer than we realise. This last 24 hours of staring at my phone asking “what am I doing this for?” has me thinking that for all the sassy talk about “digital natives” and the “extremely online”, we are still so in awe of what the internet can do we outsize our deference to it – the way we once dipped our heads before thunder, believing the rumbles came from Thor.”
The Guardian: The launch of Meta’s Threads proves yet again we are too much in awe of the internet

TLDR: Washington knows that Twitter is screwed but is keeping a watching brief on Threads.
“Although Threads has caught the attention of the White House, it’s not clear yet if the West Wing views it as a worthwhile investment. It takes time and resources to set up new official social media accounts and build the same followings that the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse Twitter handles currently have.”
Politico To thread or not to thread

LONG READ: What the public sector needs to know about the new Meta app Threads

“You’re joking,” Brenda from Bristol may remark at the launch of new Meta app Threads. “Another one?”

Yes, another one. Welcome to the permanent change of technology as it evolves and races away from us all. We will look back and laugh at how we monumental we thought this was.

As Robert Philips said in ‘Trust Me PR is dead’ ‘Embrace chaos.’

So, Threads. I thought I’d get my head round it to update my training slides and blog something too. 

It is a freestanding platform but what gives it a leg-up is that people can plug into their Instagram account to follow their Instagram chums over on Threads. This immediately puts the turbo chargers onto your follower numbers. It also makes Threads pull ahead from competitors of the race to replace Twitter.  

It’s a Meta product which raises ethical concerns for some people and it’s not being introduced in the EU because of unresolved privacy issues.

Here’s what it looks like…

The operational basics

Threads is owned by Meta and is designed to go after Twitter’s space in the landscape. But it is not Twitter.

Posts can be 500 characters long.

Instagram blue verified tickets are passported across to Threads. 

You can follow people and people can follow you. 

An update is known as a ‘thread’.

You can quote a thread and retweet, sorry, repost it. 

It is designed to be more text driven but there is the ability to post five minute long video as well as images. You can also post links.

In some ways it feels like an old school messageboard. You post a thread. You can add to the thread with more posts. Or people can add their own thread, too. But the different is it is more open.

You can repost a thread in the same way that you can retweet something.

There is an offensive words filter on as default. You can create your own custom words and phrases that you don’t want to see.

At the moment the feed is ‘lightly curated’ but the option will be introduced for a chronological feed like old school Twitter was.

The rules of engagement are Instagram’s rules of engagement. 

One big difference to Twitter 

On Threads hashtags don’t work and when you search you can only search for names. This means that it is less about big wide spaces and more about narrow niches. 

For example, on Twitter search for ‘Brexit’ and you’ll find a chunk of the conversations with the word in. You’ll also find hashtags with the word in. You’ll find Twitter accounts. This leads you to some quite vocal back and forth.  

Search the same word on Threads and you’ll find accounts with that word in and that’s it. Sure, you can go and follow them and the people they’re friends with. But its more of an effort where with Twitter it was easy. 

The hashtag functionality has been highlighted as something that may follow. 

And yes, unlike Twitter you can read more than 600 tweets in a day. 

The platform is designed to allow you to take your followers with you lock stock and barrel if you fancy flouncing. 

There will be no ads until a billion users join Threads, Meta say. 

What will be rewarded

Instagram head Anton Mosseri has been active in the first few days of Threads by explaining the platform and spelling out how they’d like to see it used. 

The things you need to know, in his words, are: 

  • “Threads is designed for public conversations.”
  • “It’s less about text versus photos and videos and more about what public conversations you want to have. Do you want to engage in more of a back and forth Threads makes sense. If not, great probably more Instagram.”
  • “We’re hoping this can be an open and friendly platform for conversations. The best thing you can do if you want that too is to be kind.”

What the public sector need to know 

This is not Twitter. It’s a tank on Elon Musk’s lawn but at this stage it does slightly different things. 

This is not an emergency planning breaking news tool. Meta have been clear to distance themselves from the practice of news. Journalists are on and some titles but you have to search for them by name rather than bump into them on particular news topics.

This has not yet reached the tipping point for the public. There’s no doubt that 70 million users in the first 24-hours is impressive but the platform has not settled in yet and there’s no published detail of UK user numbers. 

This has tools to cut down on snark. There’s a pre-installed list of banned swear words and you can add your own key words, too. This may be handy for the harassed public sector social media admin. You can also limit who can reply to a thread, too. But don’t make the world smell of fresh paint. If you are stopping reasonable feedback people aren’t stupid. They’ll see. 

This is worth taking out a profile on to stop cyber squatting. It’s early days and four days after launch there are 44 UK councils including Braintree, Oxfordshire, Torbay, Aberdeenshire, Telford & Wrekin and Liverpool.  For fire and rescue there’s 10 including London, West Midlands, Devon & Somerset, Humberside, Surrey and South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue. For NHS there’s 46 including NHS South West, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Trust and Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust.  

There is a discussion about privacy and ethics but this isn’t a place for the public sector. I may have a particular view on this but as a press officer I dealt with media queries from The Sun and the Daily Mail. These wouldn’t be publications I’d buy. That doesn’t matter. As a press officer, my job was to deal with debate wherever the debate was taking place. It didn’t matter if that was a national newspaper or the weekly newspaper letters page. That debate is for others. 

To help people how to use Threads and other social channels more effectively book onto ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER.

GO NOW: A footballer’s farewell video that works and one that doesn’t

One of the powerful things about video is how it can shine a light on the authentic.

If you really mean something it comes over and if you don’t that impression is painted too.

Here are two videos that paint this picture well.

Video 1: Ruben Neves

The first is Wolves player Ruben Neves who is recording a farewell video after signing for a Saudi Arabian club. He’s clearly emotional.

It’s the video of someone who really feels it.

Wolves are not my team. Far from it. As a Stoke City fan growing up in Stafford they were the enemy and still are. But I get the emotion in the voice. You don’t have to like football to get it.

As a supporter, I know that he’s cemented a place in his club’s folklore in what he did on the pitch and the way he left. That’s a rare thing.

Deconstructed

As a piece of filmmaking, it’s well put together. The opening shot is an identifying shot of the empty chair that works in tandem with the text ‘A message from…’. We cut to the emotional shot almost as a teaser. We cut back to the beginning of the statement. We know what’s coming and the video doesn’t disappoint.

There’s also cutaways to the good times such as a goal he scores. The strength of a cutaway is that you see it and you hear it. It’s doubly reinforced as well as being visually interesting.

It’s also on the Wolves club account so the club have also endorsed this message.

Video 2: Mason Mount

Compare this now to Mason Mount who controversially moved from Chelsea to Manchester United. It’s a video on his own instagram. There’s less polish. There must be sincerity there but it doesn’t come through.

As one person comments, it has the look of a hostage video.

It would also be wrong to try and force emotion. Fake tears are fake.

Maybe that’s because someone is not as comfortable in front of the camera and that’s okay. If that’s the case don’t put them in front of the camera.

When Neves left Wolves it feels like the end of a chapter and he’s going somewhere far away. When Mount leaves Chelsea to bitter rivals it feels like a betrayal to many fans.

A written statement would have been better.

LONG READ: Yes, Threads is worth a look but no, it won’t be a like-for-like Twitter replacement 

There’s been talk of a Twitter replacement for so long now it feels like an over-spun line from a tired parent. 

Just keep waiting, it’ll soon be here. Not long now.

From just round the next corner, it feels as though it’s finally here.

First, Twitter put a cap on the amount of content people could see and announced plans to put the useful Tweetdeck tool behind a paywall.

Second, Meta announced their long awaited Twitter rival they’re calling Threads.

Surely, Threads is the answer, right?

If you’re hoping for this as an outcome, it won’t. But it won’t be good news for Twitter.

Here’s why.

What Threads will be 

News is sketchy but the low down has been that will look a lot like Twitter, or should I say, old Twitter, and it’ll be linked to Instagram. 

It’ll also be free, Meta say, and there will be no limit on posts that can be read. Because it hooks into an existing channel there’s no need to start on the bottom rung with zero followers. That’s going to be a powerful incentive to organisations that have spent time building an existing following.  

In addition, the benefit of this is that people can escape the undiluted craziness of the Elon Musk era with a platform that’s not safe to use, is rolling back on safety measures and in short has become something of a weird pub fight. 

Stephen Fry was broadly correct in 2016 when he called Twitter ‘a secret bathing pool in a magical glade that had become stagnant.’ 

Threads isn’t the silver bullet

Is Threads worth looking at? Absolutely. 

The tempting thing is to hope that Threads will be an easy like-for-like swap. All of your Twitter followers will magically reappear on Instagram. Bingo. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

It didn’t happen with Mastodon, TruthSocial or BlueSky. Even with the advantage of being connected to Instagram I don’t think it’ll happen here to the same extent. It replicates an existing network rather than builds a whole new one. 

For the UK, this means that the prime Threads via Instagram audience is potentially under 30.

Ofcom data shows 91 per cent of 13 to 24-year-olds use Instagram and 82 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds. Almost two thirds of 35 to 44-year-olds use the platform, too.

Every single age demographic has Instagram used more than Twitter in all age groups except over 65s.

On the face of it, it’s a smart move to relocate those text-based messages to the ‘Gram. But hold on a second. Go and look at your Instagram insights. That’s your actual audience.

In practice, if you look at your corporate Instagram insights you may see a different group of people staring back at you. What that won’t be is a reflection of the whole of the audience that you’re looking to serve. 

An aside on the changing nature of Twitter

Here’s one unscientific example of the changing nature of Twitter from my own experience. In 2009, England played Australia in the 1st Test of the Ashes. Their last two batsmen Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar had to survive 88 balls to scrape a draw at Cardiff. I followed the bulk of that on Twitter from the passenger seat of the family car with my wife driving and five-year-old son in the back.

Following on Twitter meant I could see every ball, the joy of the English reaction and the despair from Down Under.  

On Sunday, I also followed an Ashes Test. This time I did it on the BBC Sport app without thinking the decision through. Why? Because that was the place I headed too without thinking knowing it would give me the best experience. It was only on reflection that it wasn’t Twitter.

Everyone who has loved Twitter on any level will have a different experience.  

What the demise of Twitter and the launch of Threads means for emergencies

There’s no doubt Twitter has been a powerful tool to use in an emergency. 

When an incident happened, people headed to Twitter and saw the relevant organisation providing real time updates. 

The riots of 2011 shaped so much of the last 15-years for public sector Twitter. The Government of the day, you may recall, wanted to haul Facebook, Twitter and RIM the makers of the BlackBerry in for a grilling. They also wanted to ban Twitter and Facebook in an emergency. Saner voices prevailed when it emerged putting your own content there as a trusted voice was the route.

In truth, posting to Twitter in an emergency was the last important reason for having a public sector Twitter account. With the limit on tweets and the stripping of blue ticks from organisations that last reason has been eroded. 

Will Threads be a route to communicate in an emergency? Maybe. But I don’t think it’s a like-for-like and it shouldn’t be the only route.

How to communicate in an emergency post-Twitter

The route to communicate in an emergency is already with us. There is already a complex ecosystem of platforms, tools and channels. In the UK, as a population we tend to use five or six platforms. And there’s email.

For me the communicating in an emergency is creating sharable date-stamped content on a range of different platforms. Why date-stamped? Because the algorithms may not show the update for several days by which time the incident has moved on. Showing that the update is 10am on June 3 2023 builds in obsolescence.

The answer may be to post the same message to the corporate Facebook page, a WhatsApp community channel, Threads, email and he website. Yes, this is more work. 

What communicating in 2023 is resolutely not is trying to drive traffic to a website. Platforms penalise links. To reach people, you need to put the text of the update onto each platform rather than link back to the website. By all means update your website too. Just don’t think that people will navigate to it from Facebook, Twitter or Threads for that matter.    

Can you invest time in building an email list for people in an area prone to flooding? Of course you can but it’ll take time. Email is an important channel.  

Journalists and Twitter

Journos have loved Twitter for years. Its influence far outwerighs its audience largely because journalists were there for the breaking news. Not only that but the decision makers could make an announcement in 140 characters without having the fuss of organising a press conference. Or answer questions.

There may be alternative ways to message reporters day-to-day and Threads could be a useful place to point journos to in an emergency.

Twitter won’t disappear overnight 

Before Facebook there was MySpace. In 2008, it was the largest show in town and pulling in huge numbers. A series of wrong turns led it into decline. It still exists as a platform but its been a good decade since it was big enough for Ofcom to count it as a channel in the UK.  

Twitter will do the same. It’ll decline. It’ll find new direction. It may even have new leadership. History tells us that once decline sets in that’s it. It’s all a question of time.

You absolutely need to make a social media review

What about the other days of the year when you are looking to reach people with a shopping list of tailored messages? 

The answer has to be look to run a social media review on yourself to freshen up your position. I’ve blogged about this before. Much social media architecture was developed in 2010. Time has moved on. Those people have left.

Have a fresh look. 

The simple Janet and John of a social media review is to look at your audience, your current channels, UK data around who is using what in 2023 and you’ll start to see the patterns emerge.  

Bottom line… educate the client

The line I come back to again and again is to educate the client. This is the chief executive, the middle manager, the person you work with to communicate. If you’re having trouble keeping pace spare a thought for them.

MESSAGE SENT: Innovation using the WhatsApp community tool

Here’s some innovation with WhatsApp you may want to take a look at.

Norwich Evening News have launched a WhatsApp community channel for news headlines.

You can sign-up here.

Here’s some screen shots to give you a flavour…

So, far, they’ve gone for three morning headlines, three at lunchtime and three at around 5pm. All with links.

In 2019, the FT got booted off WhatsApp for offering a link a day. This is a departure from previous WhatsApp use.

A WhatsApp community is a tool that allows people to bring people togather and broadcast to them. Only the admin can send a message and you can’t see who else is in the group or their phone number. Walk on, GDPR. Nothing for you to see here.

There is a 5,000 member limit which is significantly larger than the 250 or so limit if you have a WhatsApp for Business account. You can also create 10 groups.

I’ve blogged before why WhatsApp has the potential to be a really powerful tool.

It’s a hugely important channel that’s starting to be a real proposition for communicators.

ZOO SOCIAL: Edinbugh Zoo’s challenge to online snark is beautiful to see

“The thing is,” one social media admin told me recently, “So much of social media feels like an absolute sewer.”

They would, of course, be right. It’s why the blog about social media house rules recently got a alot of attention. You can read it here but in short, have some rules so you can draw a line in the sand on what’s acceptable.

If you draw that line you are better able to take action.

One of things open to you is to block abusive comments and another is to challenge the inaccurate.

So, hats off Edinburgh Zoo for their Edinburgh Pride tweet and their challenge of opinions.

I’m not sure what it is about Pride but it seems to really trigger some people. The idea that we have to celebrate LGBT+ seems troubling to some. The majority see the idea behind Pride. BBC Newsround has an explainer here.

Indeed, the abuse that sometimes follows shows the need for Pride is very much alive.

The Edinburgh Zoo Twitter attracted abuse but also people getting the wrong end of the stick.

Like Barry.

Edinburgh Zoo challenge the viewpoint beautifully. The reply isn’t personal. It sticks to the facts.

Here’s another example.

I’ve used examples that are open to challenge rather than abusive comments.

Or this.

Of course, there were supportive comments, too.

Like this…

And this…

The Edinburgh Zoo social channels don’t have a public set of social media house rules but I’m guessing that they operated using a framework. It’s also possible that the outlines of comments would have been pre-agreed. I’m guessing, of course, but knowing that Pride can attract some specific views they’ve got prtepared.

Overall, this is such good work.

Bravo.

LONG READ: Local news is moving to email and here’s what public sector comms needs to know 

Newspapers are on the move again and that’s something significant.

The new destination for newspapers – or to be more accurate news titles – is email.

News brands are compiling opt-in newsletters to capture readers in their inbox. 

Why so? It’s all about delivery mechanisms. For 200 years the newspaper was printed and delivered to the paper shop with sellers shouting their wares in the street. As a student in Newcastle in the early 1990s I’d pass two billboarded newsagents and three street sellers all trying to flog me the Chronicle.

I was surprised on a  recent visit to see them gone – along with the gas lighters two for a pound men.  

Navigating away from social media 

In 2023, newspapers are firmly navigating away from social media. They’re stung by being exposed by the whims of the algorithm shifting their audience. On top of that, Facebook and newspapers have really fallen out of love with each other. Their cut through is falling and news titles are looking for a new way to get attention. 

Reach plc who dominate the audience charts for local news in the UK are pushing newsletters big style. I first noticed this more than 12-months ago when the Stoke Sentinel pushed an email newsletter coverage for my team Stoke City.

My Stoke emails drop into my inbox daily and sometimes more than that when news breaks. As a supporter, that’s fine by me. Anything that avoids making a deeply painful visit to the website direct has to be good.  

Not just email but email first

Interestingly, the UK Press Gazette reported earlier this year that Reach plc was experimenting with serving email subscribers faster than the website or social media. They trialled this in Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire late last year. Earlier this year Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Hampshire followed.  

That’s a really interesting shift. 

The numbers back email 

On closer examination, this is a strategy that’s being adopted across the UK and not just by Reach plc. 

The numbers support email as a communications channel. In the UK, Statista data shows around 75 per cent using email and a clear majority of over 65s have this as an option. 

A quick trawl shows daily titles quicker to adopt the approach than weekly who are also adopting the approach. 

A sample of daily regional titles and email newsletters 

Birmingham Live (Reach) 13 news, 12 sport and 24 general = 49 emails

Walesonline (Reach) 16 news, 11 sport and 24 general = 51 emails

Sunderland Echo (National World) 1 news, 1 sport and 22 general = 24 emails

Aberdeen Press & Journal (DC Thomson) 0 emails

London Standard (Lebvedev) 1 email

Edinburgh Evening News (National World) 2 news, 2 sport, 22 general = 26 emails

Devon Live (Reach plc) 5 news, 6 sport 21 general = 32 emails

Belfast Telegraph (Mediahuis)  3 news, 1 sport, 1 general = 5 emails

Stoke-on-Trent Live (Reach plc) 2 news, 9 sport 22 general = 33 emails

Yorkshire Post (National World) 5 news, 0 sport, 20 general = 25 emails

A sample of daily regional titles and email newsletters 

Keswick Reminder (Barrnon Media) 0 emails

New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times (NMN&M) 1 email

Down Recorder (Down Recorder) 0 emails

Surrey & Epsom Comet (Newsquest) 3 news 1 sport 1 general = 5 emails

Beccles and Bungay Journal (Newsquest) 2 news = 2 emails

Kentish Express (KM Group) 0 emails

Kilmarnock Standard (Reach plc) 4 news, 3 sport, 25 general = 32 **

John O’ Groat Journal (Highland News and Media) 1 news = 1 email

Driffield & Wolds Weekly (H&S Publishing) 0 emails

** Daily Record website

The kind of content works for email

Social media and news has been about video, live video and stock images. What seems to work for email newsletters is strong clickable sub-headings and strong fresh pictures. This makes sense. Use the same image over and over and people will think this is old news. 

And breaking news. What’s new? 

That’s reassuringly familiar. 

What this means for public sector comms

Well, for starters an awareness that the world continues to change.

Sign-up for your local ones to take a look yourself. You can often find a link on the news website. 

For content? Not many of the email newsletters I’ve browsed through are about local politics. So, local government people shouldn’t be too surprised if their new chief exec headshot doesn’t get much take-up. 

It would be a tip to get to know what newsletters operate in your area. Have a chat to the reporter to see who compiles them, what they’re after and when would be a good time to send the stuff. 

Also, if this tactic is working for news titles then this reinforces the effectiveness for email. But not just general email. Something quite specific. So, living in the Black Country I can opt for Black Country news from Reach plc’s Birmingham Live. That way I can screen out the Birmingham stuff that I generally don’t care about.

This also reinforces the idea that the deadline is once a day for a daily paper and once a week for a weekly. It is a rolling thing.    

It also means that the ability to create and test subject lines would be an asset to someone looking to have a long career.

Your response may be to curse loudly and say you’ve got enough email. But as again, you’re not the audience, are you?

SURVEY RESULTS: Overworked, understaffed and working with print less. That’s the public sector in 2023

So, what does the new post-pandemic landscape look like for public sector people?

Have things improved? Or has the clock turned back to the time before hands, face and space?

In a survey with my chum Sadie at e-shot we asked the question and I’ve been fascinated to sift through the answers.

You can get a copy of the results as a download here.

In summary, COVID may have calmed but the world has moved on. We have got more digital and less print. COVID saw teams work around the clock to produce results. But as the panic has subsided that work ethic is now demanded for many as the new normal. That’s hard. 

What’s also clear is that there is no one universal experience. What’s one person’s lived experience is not always someone else’s life.

Here’s some other findings. 

The biggest problem? A lack of time

It doesn’t surprise me 93 per cent of people in the survey said that a lack of time was a problem. Austerity cut teams. Technology ramped up the demand. COVID made people burn out.

A lack of budget came in second with a lack of staff close behind. Fourth came unrealistic expectations. AI and the evolution of tools scored zero on the list. I wonder how long that lasts for.  

The long tail of COVID recedes

Three years after it first broke across the world the biggest pandemic for a century has had an impact. But as things return to normal the impact recedes with almost two thirds saying COVID has had a bit of an impact with a quarter saying it hasn’t had an impact. Just over one in ten say it’s had a dramatic impact. 

COVID accelerated the shift away from print

Lockdown put a foot on the peddle in the move away from from print. “The pandemic enabled us to find new ways of reaching our audiences,” as one said. E-newsletters were introduced for the first time. 

Unrealistic expectations

Good communications looks effortless. No wonder people think we just sprinkle fairy dust. COVID ramped up deadlines and the danger is that people think work round the clock emergency is now the norm.

The survey said 58 per cent face this problem. 

Stress

Public relations is already one of the most stressed professions. For the public sector, COVID made that worse and as that eased we walked straight into political turbulence. We’re not over that. 

The survey said 65 per said agreed or strongly agreed that stress was a problem.

Evaluation

Three quarters sometimes evaluate, a fifth always do while a brave five per cent never do. 

No surprises that evaluation is an issue. Like fixing the roof, it’s the guilty secret of public sector communications. We knows it needs to be done but there’s rarely enough time because the ‘to do’ list keeps growing. That’s understandable. But dangerous.

Email tops the list of most effective channels 

And the winner is… email.

Followed by Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

No surprises email and Facebook are so important. Email tops the list as the Cinderella channel quietly pulling in the numbers. It’s been a long time since Facebook was hip. Like old slippers they’re comfy and effective rather than cool.

What is surprising is LinkedIn is third. Many places have an unloved corporate page and for me this signals time to put more spadework inti that corner of the allotment. 

Trends are not all positive 

Frustration at being overworked and understaffed shines through as a trend.

There’s a lot of frustration and unhappiness that’s filtering through and showing itself as abuse and snark online.

Digital communications continues to be more important and enlightened organisations are even developing two way conversations. Print is falling away. But there’s also the sense of an urban and rural split. Cities are embracing TikTok. Rural areas are reluctant.

Look more deeply, the underlying impact of COVID is not positive. The impact of Barnard Castle and the partygate may have driven a wedge between Government and the public that may be a problem. Trust in Government has been damaged, one respondent said. 

 “If we ever had to try and persuade people to lockdown again I do not think we would get a good response or take up of advice,” one said.

Fake news has been detected more often by people.

That’s the survey. How are you?

RED BALL: What Bazball can teach communications

Something remarkable has been happening in cricket just lately.

If that sentence is enough to make you scroll on, hold on.

As an illustratuion, if this was football Gareth Southgate’s team would take to the field with the goalkeeper as striker in a 2-7-1 formation with Harry Kane as centre half.

Then they’d revert to something else.

England are playing Australia in The Ashes. They are following a new philosophy dubbed ‘Bazball’ after their coach Brendan McCullen.

In short, it is to do things differently and by doing so sew doubt in the opposition. Commentators have observed that the prime reasn for this is to sew chaos.

Australian batsman Usman Khawaja was at the crease and had scored a century. Bazball saw the England skipper Ben Stokes arrange six cricketers in a line.

While the batsman was wiondering why the hell this was happening he got clean bowled.

On the first day of Day 4, England batsman Joe Root confounded tradition by playing a reverse sweep from the first ball. This never happens. The expectation is to be cagey and play defensive.

The response in the Test Match Special commentary box was shock.

What’s the lesson?

Don’t do the routine.

Try something unexpected.

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