LICENCE FREED: What comms and PR can learn from how the BBC use TikTok

TikTok is surging in importance as a comms channel and a new study shows journalism as an unlikely hothouse for developing how to use it.

According to the UK Press Gazette data news brands have been experimenting with the platform and the clear trailblazer? The BBC.

It may feel counter-intuitive but it’s entirely in keeping with the corporation’s pioneering use of new technology.

The BBC leads the field in the survey with a 2,000 per cent increase in follower numbers in the eight months to January 2023.

Interestingly, the top 10 leading news TikTok embracers include a mix of traditional broadcasters and new media – such as LadBible, Huffpost, CNN and ITV News.

There’s no representation for UK local media companies such as Reach or LocalWorld in the top 30 list. Combined, such companies pack a fierce punch on Facebook and with their websites. A lack of resource, a focus on e-mail newsletters and the scattered nature of their audience may explain their position. 

But, still.

What can public sector comms people learn from this list?

A fair amount. 

What you can learn from the BBC on TikTok

National content is vertical as well as landscape

Firstly, people looking to pitch to national media now have the additional route of vertical video. With the BBC’s main account @bbc they have 3.8 million followers and 2,170 videos. Their main focus is to refocus and tease their iplayer content. However, @bbcnews has a news focus with almost 800,000 followers and 442 videos.

Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFobyYRm/

Not one channel but many

The BBC is a big organisation with lots of content. It’s quite right that it has a number of accounts as well as identifiable journalist accounts. This gives an additional route to the audience.

The BBC TikTok style book need offers tips

Often, people are nervous of TikTok for its dances, memes, trends and creativity. I get that. But there’s a very strong argument to embrace that approach to fully embrace the platform. South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue do this brilliantly.

But what BBC News does offer is storytelling that’s with more of a straight bat.

Here’s a few things you can learn.

  1. Branding

In training, I often talk about the need to park-up traditional branding approaches when dealing with social media. That’s true of TikTok too. But what BBC News have is a translucent BBC logo in the top left of the screen along with a translucent red strip down the side. Scrolling through their timeline, it’s immediately clear to the viewer that this is from the same place.

A logo jpg added in the edit before uploading to TikTok can do this for you. 

  1. No bongs

The BBC News content doesn’t start with BBC News Titles or theme tune. Nor should it. That works on terrestrial TV. It doesn’t work on social media where the scrolling subscriber is met with the same five or 10 seconds of intro they already saw twice that morning.

  1. A title

Each clip starts with a clear title with black text on a white background with red and black edging. You have a headline summary, literally.

This looks as though its been added in the edit well before the upload. You could alternatively add a cover in the TikTok editing tool itself. This is certainly helpful if you’re scrolling through old video. 

  1. A strong opening three seconds

The law of social video is to startly boldly with either eye catching footage or an eye catching quote from an interview. BBC News manage this quite happily. 

  1. Cutaways are king 

Cutaways or B-roll is the footage which helps paint a picture. It’s shots of the picket line or cars sounding their horns passing the picket line. Over this you can add a voiceover or text to tell the story.

Like this clip of Thor the walrus:

  1. And voiceovers are fine

Much of the BBC News TikTok content is fairly anonymously presented. There is content with a reporter asking the questions and reacting but for the most part there is no recognisable news anchor. Authority comes from the branding and the blue tick not the sight of the newsreader.

This is a good example for comms people not seeking the limelight.  

  1. About a minute or less

Timing is also key. BBC News don’t have space for lengthy content. The days of hour long interviews between Robin Day and Margaret Thatcher couldn’t be further away. About a minute is the length of most of their video.

  1. Understand the complex and tell with simplicity

This is not new. The journalist has always had to get their heads around the complicated and then explain the story clearly to their audience. It’s jargon free. This chimes with public sector comms’ need to do the same. 

9. Avoid copyright issues

I’ve written about this before, but having a standard account as an organisation is dangerous. You need a business account. This limits the sounds you can use but means those available to you are safe to use. BBC News do this, too.

In summary

So, in summary, there’s lots to learn from BBC News for public sector comms. It’s not the only approach open. But it is a good template to see how to cover news and sensitive topics when you need to avoid a trend.

COMPUTER WORLD: What AI tools like ChatGPT mean for PR and communications

Bear with me, I’m going to open gently with a story before I move to the central point because I think the central point is almost too large to grasp.

When I worked in local government there was a man in charge of committee clerks. He was a grey haired man, always approachable and always helpful. He made sure committee meetings ran smoothly and in accordance with the laws and constitution. He was a deep well of information and anecdote.

I remember being in his office one day and he pointed at the grey filing cabinet in the corner of the room.

“Back in the day,” he said. “That’s where all the archives were stored. Every set of agenda papers, every minute, every decision. It was all there. There used to be a queue of people asking to check things and we’d have someone who would check things for them.”

His tone darkened.

“Then the internet came along and someone in their infinite wisdom decided that was better.”

At first, I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

As the gatekeeper of that information he was an important man. He still was important. But something told me he missed being that gatekeeping librarian. For the first 20 years of his career he was the internet as far as constitutional matters were concerned.

The internet meant that anyone could do it when previously just one could. There was many winners and one loser.

Something is going on with Chat GPT

I don’t think I’m overselling it to say that something is happening right now that is truly revolutionary and I’m not sure if we’ve got our heads around it.

In late 2022, the Microsoft-backed AI chatbot ChatGPT was released. It plugs into 20 years of internet knowledge to produce solutions to tasks given it. Google finds you the links to help you piece together the solution eventually. ChatGPT finds the solution and gives you it with a bow tied around it.

I’m coming to the main point.

If you have earned your living from the knowledge economy your job is about to be turned upside down.

What you’ve spent years working and studying for can be replicated in seconds by ChatGPT.

As an experiment, I gave it a few tasks.

I used it to create a tenancy agreement under the law of England & Wales that favoured the tenant here.

A Dad’s Army scene that involves Captain Mainwaring, Sgt Wilson and a Tech Bro from Shoreditch looking to move to Warmington-on-Sea here. 

I also asked it to write a communications strategy for a charity that looks to communicate with young people and to set out the channels here.

Other people have used it for far greater tasks.

Like writing a Seinfeld script, a tool for debugging code, design meal plans, as a rival for Google search, writing a piano piece in the style of Mozart, writing verse in the style of Shakespeare on climate destruction or a poem about electrons written in iambic pentameter.

Looking at what I asked it to write it looks as though it’s about 75 per cent there.

It looks as though it was written by a human and it makes sense.

The thing is, AI looks to improve itself constantly. These are the baby steps. Far more powerful tools are expected in the next few years.

What ChatGPT and AI tools mean

There is a school of thought that says that we are moving overnight from being information creators to information curators.

The most extreme of predictions are that potentially everyone who has a career in the knowledge economy can be replaced. Why pay for five £40,000-a-year professionals, the argument goes, when two using AI can do the job?

AI companies that have written about the industry insist that AI is not to be feared. They’re here to help, they say, not replace. There’s part of me that’s not so sure they even believe that themselves.  

Many schools and Universities who have started to wake up to the threat have moved to ban ChatGPT from work submitted here and here. This prompts the idea of an arms race between AI essay writers like ChatGPT and software that can detect AI writing. Internet Q&A site Slack Overflow have also banned ChatGPT for providing answers that are not reliable.

What does ChatGPT and AI tools mean for comms and PR?

On the face of it a tool like ChatGPT is a threat. It can produce what you do to an increasingly good standard. That’s dangerous, surely? Well, partly, yes and partly no.

If we step aside from the shock of seeing the outline of a comms plan being produced by a robot we need to ask ourselves the question ‘then what?’.

A comms plan on its own is an attachment that sits on a hard drive. On its own, it won’t produce and post content. Right now, that will need some human involvement. Sure, ChatGPT could help to produce the rough content but right now it still needs shaping and scheduling. 

What’s coming out of an AI tool is not 100 per cent fool proof. So, there’s still need for humans.

Right now, tools such as ChatGPT can be a help to the day-to-day. It’ll be fascinating to see where they take is in two, five and ten years. 

HELLO 2023: Public sector comms predictions for 2023

The greatest danger of turbulence, wrote Peter Drucker is not the turbulence is to act with yesterday’s logic.

Here are the 11th set of predictions for public sector communications that starts yet again with a quote that sums up the year ahead. 

Turbulence. If you think its been windy, strap yourself in for 2023. It’s going to blow a gale. 

There is little ahead but turbulence. The way to approach the gale is very much like coping with seasick. Focus on the horizon with a level head. Don’t be too worried by the detail.

2012 comms

One persistent thought kept emerging as I was drawing up these predictions. The danger is to act with yesterday’s logic. In summary, this is to run a comms team as though it is still 2012. Having Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and media relations isn’t enough. Nor is posting a link to a news story on your website to Facebook and Twitter. This is now as effective as hoping people will pick up the print edition of the evening paper and turn to page eight.  

New thinking needs to be done not just to catch up with 2023 but to move into the future.  

I’ve put what I got right and wrong in the 2022 predictions at the bottom of the post.

PREDICTIONS FOR 2023

Turbulence with channels accelerates

We are at a crossroads with digital communications where the old hegemony of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is disintegrating. How they are used in 2023 is different to 2012. Being up to date with algorithmic shifts is an important part of the comms team. Make time for it. It’ll save time in the long term. Other channels rise. 

Permacrisis turbulence

Public sector comms is a reflection of the ambition, drive, trust and stability of the public sector as a whole. The UK economy has suffered because of its own poor political decisions. Liz Truss’s mini-budget is just one of these. Trust and stability are in short measure with strikes, power cuts, disruption and economic turbulence. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, all this will mean that pressure for independence creates further pressure on to-do lists. 

Your organisation may fall over and it’s not your fault

No matter where you are in the public sector there’s a chance that your organisation may run out of money or run out of staff and collapse. This will happen more often in 2023. You working an 80-hour week every week for 52-weeks won’t change this.  

Easing away from the Town Square 

The traditional social media model was the Town Square where everyone could see each other’s opinions. Abuse has made this model toxic. The public sector, like news, will continue to back away from this in 2023. 

Email lists will be more important

Email lists which are not beholden to the whims of Elon Musk or algorithm changes will become more important. 

Fractured channels

As the traditional hegemony of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube diminishes, the public sector needs to learn to be fleet of foot to identify sub-channels used by clusters of their audience and tailor individual messages to individual audiences. For example, the Quarry Bank Facebook group or the internal staff WhatsApp community, for example. The loud hailer of reaching mass audience will be less important.

SEO is back, baby

With the Town Square loud hailer no longer working so well SEO will become more important to connect to make a voice heard. SEO will be important not just on platforms such as Google but search on Instagram and TikTok. Google are also experimenting with search within video itself. This builds on an emerging trend.

The drift of staff to the private sector increases

The public sector is no longer a career for life. It is stressful, subject to abuse and poorly paid. Pay rises continue to lag behind inflation. The exit ramp from the public sector is a better paid career in the private sector in PR… or even stacking shelves. Those familiar with the talent drain from journalism in the last 20 years will find this scenario familiar. Long term this will lead to a talent drain. 

Viva the generalist

Those left behind in public sector comms must be a jack of all trades from media relations to comms planning to content creation to video editing. The silver lining is that this range of battle-learned skills will make them attractive to the private sector. New skills are needed not just as a once-in-five-years investment but constantly. Invest in your staff. 

There will be a two speed AI learning curve

AI has begun to make inroads into the popular conscience with public sector PR. In 2023, the bow wave will experiment with plugging AI into some areas of content creation. As budgets shrink the need for this will increase. In 2023, there will be examples of comms teams being reshaped to deploy AI by the end of the year. That’s one side of the learning curve. On the other side, teams will lag behind.  

Burn out is in danger of being institutionalised

The need for better strategic management is often not being met by the existing management skill set. Burn out as people try to fill the gaps and service expectations to run a comms team like its still 2012 will lead to staff suffering.

TikTok: more mainstream

There is little risk in this prediction. But TikTok will continue to seek an older audience.  

TikTok: the end of organic reach

TikTok has been flying and hoovering up audience. However, these are the salad days. Make the most of them because organic reach will start to curb in the same way that Facebook Zero curbed it.

Mastodon won’t be a Twitter rival

Those people looking at Mastodon as a chance to recreate old Twitter will be disappointed. It will be a network for the tech savvy but won’t become mainstream in the next 12-months.

Working with creators

This will become more important in 2023. If someone local to you is doing TikTok or Instagram really well, working with them will be more of a sensible idea. 

LinkedIn becomes helpful daily 

The platform once described as ‘like Facebook for accountants’ will really come into its own as the professional Twitter alternative. 

Predictions for 2022 I didn’t get right

I didn’t see three Prime Ministers in three months.

The online harms bill and GDPR Lite didn’t materialise. 

VR and AR didn’t make huge inroads.

Predictions for 2022 I got right

Looking back here’s what I got right…

2022 was be a hard year. 

People did walk off the job burnt out.

Political authority did dip – most notably with 10 Downing Street. 

Brexit did make things harder.

Comms teams did struggle to recruit and retain staff.

Political decision making was broadly poorer.

Diversity continued to get worse. 

The AI gap grew.

TikTok came of age.  

Organic Facebook reach did continue to deteriorate.

Video did increase – particularly vertical. 

Nextdoor did get bigger. 

One size fits all comms did get less effective. 

There was algorithmic upheaval. 

There you go. What did I miss?

TRUST FALLS: Nurses remain the most trusted while trust in UK politicians bombs

Ladies and gentlemen, trust in politicians has gone through the floor.

In the Ipsos MORI Veracity index 2022, trust in political figures generally has now dipped to 12 per cent.

For local councillors, it’s a healthier 38 per cent but even that is a six per cent fall.

Nurses still top the list with 89 per cent while doctors have slipped to third place. Engineers are now the second most trusted profession.

Why does this matter?

Because who public sector comms people include in their content has a big say on whether or not the message will be believed.

The Ipsos MORI figures for 2022 is important insight that allows you to choose and justify the choice of who should be quoted or featured.

The full data is here.

GUEST POST: From the Sky Sports tone to the authentic voice: What non-league football taught me about communications

I’ve known Max Hall for 30 years. First as a reporter and then as a colleague in local government communications. He’s a born storyteller with an obsessive passion for non-league football. Despite being born in England he self-identifies as Welsh because their less glamorous national team strikes more of a chord. I asked him to blog about what non-league football has taught him about communications.

I misread the brief at first. I thought it was “communication”, singular. I was going to regale you with the time I single-handedly brought down a Football Association charge on the club I support after threatening to do something unmentionable to a certain referee’s balti. Or there was the time Mark Bellingham, policeman and father of England ace Jude, threatened to have me arrested for yelling what I thought Lye Town’s players should do to one of his overly-physical teammates.

P’raps it’s best I stick to the lessons non-league football has given me about communications. Plural.

Sky Sports and the changing language of sport reporting

My generation of trainee newspaper reporter was never taught much about “tone” and “voice”. Being concise, accurate and disinterested was all that mattered, but when you spend a quarter of a century in any line of work, you can’t help but notice the changes in your industry.

When I was promoted to my dream job in the summer of 1998 – sports editor of the Stourbridge News, Halesowen News and Dudley News print titles – aping Sky Sports was the thing. Men’s non-league football clubs (and it was only men that mattered then, I’m ashamed to say) didn’t play one another, they “clashed”. The most inept of them, playing in front of 36 fans separated from the field by a bitterly exposed running track at places like Sandwell Borough FC, “fought” “basement battles” every week. Those chasing the silverware of league titles and cherished pots such as the Polymac Packaging Services League Cup were, by contrast, constantly disputing “top-of-the-table” affairs.

It got to the point where I found myself using at least two clichés in every sentence as I interviewed managers by asking them exactly the same round of questions every week. Occasionally it would creep into conversation with real people, leaving me sounding like Alan Partridge whenever football came up at the pub.

It wasn’t real, it was PR and spin and make-believe but then this was the late 90s and early 2000s so, you know, just take a look at the wider world of politics and communications and you’ll get the context.

The low pay of print journalism forced us all away at some point and it was only after a stint working in the real world that I noticed the change in tone and voice that was occurring. Somewhere in the 2010s, journalism became less hard, fast, fact-driven and became more conversational. Blogging had begun to affect the industry and national newspaper journalists were emerging as brands. It made journalism easier to digest and more entertaining, for all the dangers it potentially carried.

Clicks and the changing tone of online news

I dropped back into my old Black Country football patch whenever I had the opportunity because another change was taking place. The dominance of online journalism has driven a rabid pursuit of clicks, with the result the Stourbridge News was only focused on the biggest men’s football club: Stourbridge aka The Glassboys, who did themselves no harm in that respect with their perennial FA Cup heroics. The side-effect of sports pages filled with Stourbridge FC and, bizarrely, Worcester Rugby Club – who play 20 miles away – was that my club, The Lye, never got a mention.

That gave me my in as a, largely unpaid, occasional reporter. I thought I’d try my hand at this new style of sports reporting. I wrote about how dreadful a 0-0 draw is at this level, highlighting the sheer slapstick comedy that can be witnessed at level 10 of the national game. It was liberating: the honesty, the sense of humour, conveying the camaraderie of the straggling band of familiar faces in the stands who spend most of their time thinking: “Oh God! Why do I bother?”

It wasn’t all successful, mind. At one point, a Lye manager rang me up after reading my thoughts on a particularly awful encounter and accused me of “taking the piss”, of wanting the club to fail. My attempt to explain the shifting sands of tone and voice in reporting and communications fell on deaf ears, which was not altogether surprising.

The rise of the authentic voice

So where are we now? The raw, honest yet often tongue-in-cheek blog-style approach has gone, replaced by a desperate scramble for authenticity. Make of that what you will. Maybe we have Trump to thank. More likely, perhaps, is that rather than face the inequality present in today’s society – and the resulting lack of genuinely diverse voices – newsrooms, PRs, brands and what-have-you instead try to find a quicker, cheaper route to sound more “real”. In football, that manifests as hearing supporters’ voices. You might struggle to find any fans on a bad night at Blackheath Electrodrives so I’m not sure how this is achieved in non-league but a recent enquiry I made about a football writing role laid bare to me the latest approach in the industry.

Now, not to be too much Billy Big Bollocks about it but I’ve written about football at every level of the ladder in the West Midlands and in Berlin, I’ve worked my way through the top six levels in Italy, where I live these days, and I’ve been to the ground to watch a game on five of FIFA’s six continents. I’ve been Manchester United correspondent for the North Wales Daily Post, vying for half-time chicken nuggets with David Platt, and I’ve stood against a rope on the sideline at Inkberrow FC. All of which made it something of a surprise when the person advertising for reporters to cover various men’s Premier League teams told me I was unsuitable because I wasn’t actually a supporter of Wolves or Nottingham Forest or whoever. The question of exactly who football supporters are in 2022 is a whole ’nother blog in itself, of course.

That search for authenticity is the paradox of non-league football, and perhaps of branding and wider communications. I don’t think you can craft authentic; you just have to find it. Trying to graft authenticity and real-world identity onto the world of the Champions League, billionaire sovereign wealth fund owners, mega-millionaire footballers with armies of branding consultants and the like is an exercise in futility. A simple, five-minute search online will reveal a wellspring of footballing authenticity nearby, in most cases within walking distance of your front door.

Your own authentic football path

Try it. Make a Saturday afternoon available and walk down to your nearest non-league football club. Tell the person bagging up the match balls during the warm-up, or perhaps a member of the bar staff in the clubhouse that you’ve come down for the first time because you want to see what FC XXXXXXX is all about. And just see what happens.

Max Hall is a former local, regional and national news journalist who now pays for the bills by editing copy about solar panels. Black Country-born, he lives in northern Italy and has identified as Welsh for almost 30 years. He has represented his adopted country on the international Blood Bowl stage. If you enjoyed this post, have a read of Heathens, his novel-cum-memoir about growing up in the Black Country at the turn of the century. It can be read online, for free, here.

TIME TOK: The best length for a TikTok video and predictions for 2023

A couple of years ago I watched the top TikTok videos to work out the ideal length… as 2023 is about to start I’ve done it.

Back in 2020 when I carried out the research the optimum length was a trim 16 seconds.

Going through the UK numbers again… it’s 36.3 seconds.

That’s a longer run for the popular clips as listed by TikTok UK.

Optimum lengths of top 10 UK TikTok clips in 2022

While the overall best lengths has increased, four of the top 10 are still in the 10 to 20 second sweet spot.

What the UK’s most popular video clip can teach

In the UK, the most popular TikTok with 270 million views was posted by a farrier.

That’s someone who replaces horseshoes. The 95-second clip simply shows how a skilled craftsman can remove a horseshoe then treat the horses’ hoof.

You can see it here:

The workmanship is astonishing and your eye is help by the speed and skill of the workman.

There are no TikTok dances or even music in the video.

What does that show?

That if the subject matter is compelling and visual a clip without an edit can work really well.

What are the trends for 2023?

Helpfully, TikTok have published a good round-up about what they see taking shape with three key predictions.

Entertainment

“For brands, the most effective messages on TikTok are uplifting, funny and personalized, or entertaining their audiences. Brands can build on this entertainment value by using editing techniques like syncing sounds to transitions or adding text overlays – which are effective at keeping viewers’ attention.”

Joyful

“Creating TikTok content that helps people carve out joy for themselves – or even provides joy through humor, relaxation and relatable points of view – could be the difference for brands in 2023.”

Niche

“TikTok communities are a cut above the rest because they’re specific – and that’s what helps them thrive at scale. Sharing hyper-niche interests helps people bond with each other. From there, they broaden each other’s horizons.

“TikTok is not a town hall meeting. It’s a collection of tiny clubs where people can find new ideas on how to explore their passions and live their lives.”

You can find outmore about ESSENTIAL PORTRAIT VIDEO FOR TIKTOK & REELS workshops here.

GUEST POST: ‘I did not realise how integral communications are to the council’s activities’

Very often, people start their career on work experience. MA student Catherine Howe gives this perspective of her time spent with Liverpool City Council where she had an insight into local government communications.

My work placement with Liverpool City Council has been such a positive experience.

As a political science MA student, I think that local democracy should be accessible to young people who are keen to get involved in the politics of where they live. I’ve been really impressed that LCC has taken me on and given me a full, unedited look into the kind of work that the council is involved in.

This is my fourth year living in Liverpool now, and I’ve found it so exciting to be able to work with the authority that has made this city my favourite one in the UK. Not only has this been a great first adventure into the public sector, and I also feel like my general employability has grown too. I’ve come away from my placement feeling very inspired to follow a career in local government.

What councils face

Working for the council has shown me an array of challenges that local government faces during these strange times; indeed, I started here only two days before the budget proposals were announced, during a cost-of-living crisis, after a global pandemic…

Most importantly, however, I’ve taken away a new appreciation for the power of local democracy. Through working with the Comms team, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting council employees from all different services, as well as councillors from all sides of the political spectrum. I’ve witnessed some fiery debates at the Town Hall, and learnt that despite party divisions, each councillor shares an unfaltering commitment to their constituents.

Internal comms

Working in internal comms has been an entirely new experience for me too, and it’s opened up the opportunity to peak in at the vital work staff groups do for the council. I’ve really enjoyed engaging with the faith and disability staff networks to help raise the profile of Disability History Month and advertise the opening of the new prayer room.

I love writing, which is lucky because I can barely count to ten (seriously). Working in external comms has been a great test of my impartial writing skills. No matter your personal opinion on a particular set of policies or initiatives, your job is to communicate messages to the public in a clear, fair and accurate way. I’m so used to writing university essays that argue the toss over politics, so it’s been nice to have a break from that and instead to produce content for the Lord Mayor’s and social posts for the city’s Christmas events. A highlight of my time with the Comms team was visiting the Festival Gardens project and getting ‘papped’ in a hard hat and hi-vis.

Integral

It was a great privilege to be introduced to the Comms team at the council. I did not realise how integral communications are to the council’s activities. I’ve met the fantastic people behind the press releases that often end up becoming articles in The Echo, or features on Radio Merseyside; the people who bring vibrancy to the city through cheerful graphic design; and the people who make sure local democracy is as transparent and accessible as possible on social media.

As far as the wider council goes, my perception will be changed forever; we’re in really challenging times, and politics is never a straight-forward affair, but with the calibre of people I’ve met during my time here, I’ve come away feeling hopeful and excited for my future in Liverpool.

Catherine How is an MA Political Science student.

GIFT LIST: Present ideas for PR and comms people

It’s time to buy a present… but what to buy the PR or comms person in your life?

No need to worry, here’s a QVC of a blog post with moreb than 60 present ideas many crowdsourced by the good people of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group.

Scroll down through the books and work stuff to the less serious Malcolm Tucker throw or West Wing mug.

Dig in.

Learning

BOOKS

A content creation tips book. Everybody Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content. See it here.

The Economist Style Guide. See it here.

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. See it here.

Tossary of Terms. Pictures and descriptions that pin down pointless modern phenomena. See it here.

Remix by Laurence Lessig. See it here.

Panic As Man Burns Crumpets by Roger Lytollis. See it here.

Buzzing Communities by Richard Millington. See it here.

Thick Of It Missing DOSAC files. See it here.

Work stuff

PENCILS

Modern Toss’ inspirational pencils are the real thing. Start the day with a HB ‘Don’t Give Up Till You Reach Lunchtime.’ See it here. [Parental advisory].

NOTEBOOK

The New York Times commissioned these reporter’s notebooks for their journos in the 1970s. They’ve been re-issued. See them here.

Meetings That Could Have Been Emails notebooks. Passive aggress that shizz. See it here.

A leather journal. See it here.

A Times I was Right and Nobody Listened: Blank Lined Journal Notebook. See it here.

A digital re-usable Rocket notebook. See it here.

Scared Sh**less & Doing It Anyway notebookcard. 24 pages. See it here. [Parental advisory].

A Frida Kahlo desktop desk tidy. See it here.

DESKTOP

This desktop Mood Calendar can change your mood. See it here.

Coffee mug warmer. Top keep it at a warm level. See it here.

Make your own deskplate. That’s the thing where your name or title is. See it here.

STICKER

Public Relations : Because Someone Has to Make you Look Good Sticker. Nothing says what you’re about like this daily mantra sticker. See it here.

PLANNER

Work from home day planner. So you WFH with style and elan. See it here.

TECHNOLOGY

An emergency tech recovery kit. See it here.

An aluminium laptop stand. See it here.

Household

TEA TOWEL

Malcolm Tucker’s law dictates that if that person can mess up then that person will mess up at the worst possible time. Reflect on this as you dry your dishes with this tea towel. See it here. [Parental advisory].

A George Orwell tea towel. See it here.

CADDY

An armchair caddy that loops over the arm and is a place to put your mug of tea and remote controls. See it here.

THROW

A Malcolm Tucker throw. See it here.

MUGS

West Wing mug. ‘Lead like Jed’. See it here.

PR Consultant Evil Genius mug. For when you need a brew and plotting. See it here.

PR but not a magician. Remind yourself with this simple message. See it here.

At least get me some coffee before you start this. Wise words. See it here.

An I’m Not Responsible For My Face When You Talk mug. See it here.

COFFEE

I first started buying fresh coffee beans from the Algerian Coffee Stores in London about 20 years ago,. I especially like this house blend. See it here.

Or the Baytown Coffee Company’s Boggle Hole blend. See it here.

COASTERS

Women Who Changed the World coasters. See it here.

JIGSAW

A 220-litre composter jigsaw. See it here.

A top British brands jigsaw. See it here.

BLUE PLAQUE

A personalised blue plaque. See it here.

Stress relief

INTERVENTION

Rescue Remedy is useful in times of stress. My mum used to swear by it. See it here.

BALL

A squeegy stress ball with assorted mottos like Take A Deep Breath. See it here.

CARE PACKAGE

Buy a buddybox from blurtitout so you can send a care package. See it here.

CARDS

Stress relief cards. A 52-deck list of reducing tension. See it here.

TV & film

BOX SET

Mad Men box set. All three seasons. See it here.

The Thick of It box set. All of them. See it here.

Fashion

BADGE

A f**k that s**t badge. See it here. [Parental advisory].

An It’s Bin Day t-shirt. See it here.

An Even On My Worst Day I’m F**king Awesome badge. See it here. [Parental advisory].

Pedant badge of honour. See it here.

HAT

A woolly hat with built-in headtorch and speakers. See it here.

The ebay tin hat search is a treasure trove of pre-loved military tin hats. See it here.

T-SHIRT

A Big Girl Pants t-shirt. See it here.

Jenner Seeing Off Anti-Vaxxers Unisex t-shirt. See it here.

PR manager t-shirt. See it here.

From The Thick of It Terri’s Clockwork Orange T-Shirt. See it here.

OVEN GLOVES

A pair of Desmond Tutu oven gloves. See it here.

GAMBLING

There’s a Christmas gift as a scratchcard webpage. See it here.

CHILDREN

A Nappy and wipes pouch organiser with washable wipes and bandana bib. See it here.

PETS

A handmade doggy blanket. See it here.

Thank you to Megan Sian, Phil Hodgson, Sarah Wilcox, Jo Shelbourne-Stockton, Leanne Hughes, Mags Rivett, Clare Maddison, Heather Pearton, Kate Leach, David Sawyer, Carolyne Mitchell, Melanue Kynaston, Ruth Darling Quilley, Rebekah Duffin and Stephanie Whitehurst.

Picture credit: mattbeee

POWERED UP: Here’s the questions to ask for effective power cut comms

Last time widespread power cuts swept the UK in thwe 1970s Slade were at number one and news came from a paper shop and John Craven on the telly.

Fifty years on this is a bit more of a challenge and once again we’re in new territory.

The good people of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group ran through the issue at the suggestion of the excellent Sara Hamilton. 

What became clear is that there are few answers but a lot of questions to ask.

Here some of them are…

The power cuts themselves

  • Where do the cuts take place and how long for?
  • Will there be advanced notice?  
  • What standard winter reassurance messages do you already have? 
  • What do the energy providers say about if cuts will take place?
  • What happens if the power cuts cut through local authority areas?
  • What is UK Government saying about the cuts?
  • What is devolved government saying if you like in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland? 

Comms team staffing issues

  • What happens if some – but not all – staff in an area where there’s a power cut?
  • Where will staff go – if anywhere – when there’s a power cut? 
  • Will there be enough staff to monitor and respond to social media especially if the website goes down?
  • Will staff have to make-up any time list to the power cuts?
  • Are you prepared for an avalanche of questions and abuse on the socials?

Organisational operational issues

  • Are you plugged into the Local Resilience Forum or equivalent?
  • Are there business continuity plans in your organisation which set out the impact of power cuts? 
  • What will be open and closed? 
  • What will your staff be told? 
  • If the mobile network falls over or is part of the cuts how will the management team and you communicate with each other and do you have a printed list of phone numbers? 

Comms team operational issues

  • What happens if your passwords, lines to take, journalist contact details and internal phone numbers are on a hard drive that won’t work in a power cut? Can you print them off in advance? 
  • If WiFi goes down across the area can you make plans in advance to switch to the mooted national SMS messaging that’s more robust?
  • What if WiFi and 4G goes down so that you can’t access WhatsApp or social media? 
  • What community networks already exist that you can plug into in advance?  
  • Will the website go down in a power cut?
  • Will there be enough staff to monitor social media especially if the website goes down?
  • If the website goes down are you prepared for a huge flood of questions on Facebook or other channels? As well as abuse? 
  • What will residents be told? 
  • Will email providers like Govdelivery still work? 
  • Have you got power banks to help power the mobile phones of the team?
  • Will laptops be fully charged in advance?
  • Will the mobile phone network be taken down or be flooded in a power cut?
  • Has everyone got a grab bag with charged laptop, powerbank, torches, food and bottled water? 
  • Will the national SMS messaging service work?

Thanks to Sara and everyone who contributed.

SOCIAL MEDIA REVIEW: A useful tool for population data

Here’s a useful tool to help you with your social media review… 2021 census data.

The helpful people at the Office of National Statistics have produced a tool for England & Wales for you to drill into data for a local authority area.

Not only that but you can also drill into smaller sub areas of wards.

You can find the link here.

This is important because it gives an indication of the ethnic diversity of the area you are looking at.

Areas with wider diversity means you can have more of a challenge in reaching your audiences. It’s also helpful to have the data that shows you the size of the task.

I’ve blogged separately here on the task of running a social media review.

Census data in Scotland is being collected separately and the collection and publication is fraught with some difficulty. Census data in Northern Ireland is published separately.