Dan Slee

It’s the age old thing. We can tell a story we just struggle to tell OUR story. Like what it is exactly WE do says Manon Jones.

Are we just really bad at telling people what our job is? 

“So, what is it you do?” is usually a straightforward question to answer. That is, unless you work in Communications, apparently. 

Since upping sticks to Leeds two years ago, I’ve met lots of new people, so this gets asked a lot. But the more people ask, the more I notice their blank expressions, followed by a slightly confused “oh, ok… What does that mean then?”, or “so what do you actually do?” when I answer. 

*Deep breath* 

I’ve tried to use Marketing because it’s a term people seem to be more familiar with. Now they just think it’s social media ads or influencers. 

It’s easy to reel off a list of everything I “actually do”, there’s just so much to working in Communications that I can’t possibly cover it all without sounding like I want them to know I’m the busiest person on the planet. 

I’ll be starting a new role in public sector (transport) comms in November so, I’ve had to try and hone my pitch yet again. Especially for my grandmother’s benefit, who for years, has been telling tales to friends and family about what I do.

When working in the Welsh Parliament’s Corporate Comms team, she told people I took a bus around Wales to “tell people who their Assembly Member is. A bit like a preacher.” We did have a bus that we took to some local shows and events, like one of those travelling libraries. I didn’t drive it and I sincerely hope I didn’t preach. I’ve also heard people say I work for the BBC (I stepped in for a client to do one TV interview in Welsh to get them more coverage), I write for the local paper (Press Officer), and that I work in recruitment (ran a campaign to encourage more people to work in care). 

More recently she’s been telling people I work for the council, finding people council houses (PR Campaigns Manager in social housing).

Turning to Facebook, I asked how to help people “get Comms” and what’s the worst / best description Comms pros have heard someone use for their job, I was relieved to find I’m not just really bad at describing what I do. 

Responses ranged from “She tweets a lot” and “Oh yeah, switchboard and that” to “medical secretary (aka NHS Comms)” and “in charge of bins” (I’ll guess that this person works or has worked in local authority comms). 

What struck me is the complete lack of understanding or appreciation for our craft “So you spend all week doing the weekly newsletter?”, or “A family member once told me that they wished they had a job like mine where they could just go on Twitter and Facebook all day. I was a Comms Manager in social housing at the time.” If only!

We’re creatives, we’re experts on everything our multifaceted organisations do, we use data to drive campaigns, we manage crises, we change people’s habits through words and images, and sometimes, manage to change their lives for the better! But we’re forced to “dumb it down” so people understand what we do. 

I did find a few glimmers of hope from other Comms pros. One responder mentioned using the chess analogy; “A hell of a lot is, if you will, seeing the whole chessboard and trying to make sure someone doesn’t capture out king.” Anticipating your opponent’s moves and staying ahead of the game is certainly a big part of it. But how do I help my gran, who doesn’t play chess, get it right?

I’m not sure it will work, but here’s my take: “I communicate with the public and partners to let them know about changes to policies, and sometimes try to nudge people to change their behaviour, habits and opinions through messages they see on social, in the news, on advertising and other messages.”

Still not hitting the nail on the head, but beats “faffing about with press releases” doesn’t it?

Manon Jones is a PR campaigns manager in social housing.

You’d have to be Rip Van Winkle not to have spotted the gathering storm clouds over the British economy.

After two hard years of COVID-19 we’re facing a third hard year pushed by declining incomes and growing inflation.

More than 100 people joined the Public Sector Comms Headspace discussion to think through ways to communicate. This blog is a summary of the debate gathered under the Chatham House Rule. It covers the broad ideas without identifying individuals.

Huge thanks to my group admin colleague David Grindlay who took great notes that further jogged my memory.

What the landscape looks like

You are alone again together

When COVID-19 struck there was a sense of impending disaster and a collective will to help. Strong central messaging shone a light into the darkness and showed a way forward.

Right now, there’s a sense of impending disaster but without central direction. Communicators are alone together. But the public sector only has to look at the pandemic for lessons. There is a need to co-operate and collaborate with partners not by adding a logo but through action.

You need to collaborate and listen

The answer through the pandemic was to work together with partners burt also the community. This means speaking to the community to understand the best ways to flag-up help and what to actually call that help.

Actually talk to the community to see what they think and then listen before you act.

Can you listen and counsel for others to listen?

You need to be careful what you call it

Warm banks? Yes, the media has used this phrase. But several speakers pointed out the danger in using this term. What image does it conjure? An empty community centre, refugees wrapped in rags huddled around a radiator and the sound of a ticking clock.

Instead, the idea was put forward to run events to encourage people to come that just happened to be in warm places. So, instead think activity first. Cinema Afternoons for older people, Play Days for families.

Can you not cause stigma?

You need to provide place to cook as well as be warm

Somewhere where you can microwave some food and charge your phone may be handy.

Can you do this?

You need to be talking of ‘we’ not ‘you’

Language matters. One person spoke of the conscious decision to steer away from the distancing ‘you’ to the more community-minded ‘we’. That makes sense.

Community led content needs to be shaped by the community but also to come from the community itself.

You need to acknowledge the problem, too.

Can you bridge the gap?

You need to be careful where you signpost

There’s help to be given. There’s already a network of places whose mission is to help flag-up tips and advice.

It makes more sense to signpost to the help that’s there with Citizens Advice, the Energy Saving Trust and even the respected Money Saving Expert for tips. There was some debate about crowdsourcing advice and issuing it with a legal disclaimer. I’m not sure that wouldn’t rebound.

Can you vouch for the advice?

You need to be careful where you communicate

The web is a clear way to communicate but a voice of reason pointed out that parts of the population who really needed help weren’t online.

A newspaper delivered to every home in these circumstances makes a lot of sense.

Have you missed anyone?

You need to be careful to know your audiences

The point was made that there’s a section of society who are already well plugged into support networks. They’ll be the easy to reach.

The harder to reach in this case will be the comparably well off with jobs who may find their incomes cut off at the knees. I often talk about in training the need to recogniser that you have a variety of audiences and the one and done comms campaign no longer works even if it ever did.

How best to reach them?

You need to connect with NHS and the council

Mental health advice is just one avenue to go down. There’ll be other health advice. There’s also the risk of more domestic violence.

Can you connect?

You need to be careful of the politics

COVID-19 saw the country largely come together against a common enemy of the virus.

This chapter of British life is much more divisive. A Conservative council may be looking for different terms than another party. This may cause problems if you’re linking to a group for advice who are also campaigning for a change of Government policy.

Can you navigate these waters?

You need to talk to payroll

Giving staff an option to have an advance on their salary may jeep the wolf from the door.

Can you do this?

You need to educate the frontline with new skills

Financial wellbeing courses for staff may be an asset as well as giving public-facing staff the skills to spot people in trouble and what they do.

Can you do this?

You need to see if your community can help each other

Toy banks, grow your own initiatives and other community places may help.

Do you have such places already?

You need to be braced for incoming snark

As the crisis deepens people may get tetchy and angry. Can you spare a thought for the social media team? And give them meaningful support?

Useful links

Swindon Council’s cost of living advice.

Braintree Council’s cost of living advice pages

Wigan Council’s cost of living advice pages

Colchester Council’s cost of living pages

Wakefield Council’s cost of living advice page

Useful Citizens Advice with links to bespoke advice for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Citizens Advice data dashboard
Money Saving Expert

Childline
Energy Saving Trust

Government benefits advice

Domestic violence advice

Trussell Trust

How to talk to students about the cost of living crisis by Jo Walters

Polling on the cost of living crisis August 2022

In conclusion

If you’ve worked in the public sector over the past few years you’ll have done some hard yards already. You may not see the benefit of what you are doing but it does happen. It seems like a mountain but while you may feel alone there are so many in the same boat.

One thing that shone through the discussion is a willingness to help but a realisation that there are more crosswinds with the cost of living crisis than were found in the pandemic.

But lessons learned in 2020 can help you in 2022, too. Work with people. Comms are part of the solution but they are not the solution alone.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the discussion.

A reporter who was retiring after 47 years was looking back on his career where he successfully dodged technology.

On being told ‘Mike1958’ was not a safe password he was asked for one with seven characters.

“Okay,” he replied. ““Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy…”

The IT person threw down his headphones and stormed off.

I laughed, of course, because I knew the character. He’d invited me for a week of work experience when I was at journalism training college and his word had secured me my first junior reporter’s job. It led to 12 years working in news rooms and almost a decade of answering the phones to them.

Mike was an old school journalist who could turn a phrase and tell a story.

But technology and newspapers are not new.

I thought of Mike when I opened a whitepaper from a company called United Robots which looked at best practice in robot-written content.

How robots can change news

“This is not about replacing reporters,” it read, “It’s about complementing the quality journalism they do with all the community information that local residents expect.”

Sure, I thought.

The document went through how house sales locally could be automated into stories along with sport write-ups, traffic incidents and company annual reports.

The document pointed to Swedish and Dutch newspapers who were following this tactic along with A US publication The Rink Live that has cornered the market for school and college ice hockey reports in North Dakota.

Of course, the former journalist in me is affronted by this digitisation just as much as a production line welder would have been at news a robot was taking his job.

But it turns out the march of the robots in the UK is not new.

My old newspaper, the Express & Star, was one of eight to have signed-up with Press Association’s robot writing service three years ago. Sadly, the project’s website Robots and Data and Reporters was last updated two years ago and Google is pretty quiet about the success of the project.

So, ironically, there’s nothing to say how well this has gone.

How are robot news reporters impacting on comms team?

As the reporter in me balks, the communicator in me is intrigued.

The public sector is sat on an unimaginable mountain of data. An army of armchair analysts was expected when the coalition government steered a course to publish screeds of that information as open data.

This meant that it could be re-used by machines with code writtebn by humans. A CSV file is readable but a pdf is not.

I don’t think that armchair analysis has really happened.

And if I was to ask a comms team how they’d been impacted by robots, I’d get blank looks and maybe quite right too.

How could anyone quote the number of press enquiries that didn’t happen, for example?

Bright people like Kerry Sheehan and Stephen Waddington have worked to raise the issue through CIPR’s AI in PR project. The group published Andrew Bruce Smith’s brief pre-pandemic whitepaper on the Impact of AI in Media and PR.

In it, he wrote:

The role of the modern public relation practitioner is more akin to that of a commercial

pilot. In today’s automated environment, on average, the pilot of a Boeing 777 commercial jet has actual control of the plane, flying it manually, for only seven minutes of every flight.

This does not mean the pilot is unimportant, and very few of us would be comfortable getting on a plane that did not have a human pilot to take over when and as necessary.

In a similar way, we still need human input to the public relations process, particularly

in media relations, and we still need human intervention where necessary. The CIPR

estimated in a paper by Jean Valin called Humans Still Needed that machines would

be capable of undertaking up to 40 per cent of the tasks routinely undertaken by a practitioner by 2023.

It poses the question of what other data could be published by the public sector?

Could the sector use the tools that journalists are working with?

Or work with them?

What stories could they tell?

I just googled the phrase ‘Who is your audience?’ and got just over a million links.

It is the most important question a communicator can ask in 2022.

What, even more than ‘what’s your TikTok strategy? Or ‘Is your chief exec blogging?’

It’s much more important and I’d be prepared to say that it’ll be the most important question to ask next year and, you know what? in 10 years time, too.

Why? Because if you know who your audience is you’ll then be able to advise which channels to use and how to create the content. You can know this through research.

Success is creating the right content for the right audience be that a poster, a Facebook ad or an email.

Success is not creating the same content for everyone and thinking you’ve succeeded.

The days of mass pigeonhole distribution are long gone.

There’s no doubt that the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the transfer of power to her son would be a challenge.

The last time a Monarch died, it was 70 years ago and old men and women who can recall it have retired years ago.

Operation London Bridge was the plan for how the Government was to react. A careful choreography of appearance and announcement.

“The Queen is dead. Long live the King.”

The age-old announcement of change in United Kingdom & Northern Ireland has its roots in avoiding a vacuum in the Medieval transfer of power. But in a 21st century country wired for minute-by-minute news the shock of the change powers through like electricity to bring a detailed communications plan alive.

This week, I asked the members of the Public Sector Comms Headspace to share what surprised them in the first five days of the 10-day Operation London Bridge plan.

What surprised

“Surprised – The lack of space to be part of the news unfolding. No time to watch, or reflect, or notice my own feelings – as well as aware that if I did I wouldn’t be able to do the job. I feel like I missed an important moment in our history.” – Sara Hamilton.

“Surprised we’ve not had more abuse and trouble from republicans – they turn up in large numbers online whenever there’s a Royal visit to decry us but they’ve respected this and don’t seem to be causing problems.” – Kirsty Craig

“The amount of work that is needed to do nothing. As a planner for one of the biggest Government departments it took us 10 hours on Friday just to check everything was paused, postponed or cancelled.” – Paul Fearn

“How many meetings you need to have about flag protocol.” – Sarah Foster

“There is a honeymoon period with residents before the haters tell you you’re doing everything wrong and are an embarrassment again. Enjoy that period.” – Kate Pratt

“Surprised that all the people who were complaining when they thought they wouldn’t get a Bank Holiday are now the same people complaining that making the day of the funeral a Bank Holiday will cost the country and businesses too much.” – Angela Hamilton

What went well

“Overall, it feels like the implementation of London Bridge plans went well.” – Sian Williams

“What can be achieved relatively smoothly when you have a fully prepared and rehearsed plan.” – Will Lodge

“Overall though it seems to have gone very smoothly and like others I think it reinforces the value of a good, well practised plan.” – Rosie Ryves-Webb

 “I’ve now done three bridges. I can see that lessons have definitely been learned.” – Clare Parker

“I think I would note the value of the comms team in being the eyes and ears of the wider ‘London Bridge’ team on Thursday as the news was coming out of Balmoral.” – Kirsty Groundwater

“My most memorable moment is being told that on being instructed to fly the flag at half mast, those despatched to do so found there was no flag on the pole to put at half mast so they just put the ropes at half mast.” – Andie Jordan

“That no matter how much you plan and practice things will never go 100 per cent to plan and you will always need to think on your feet, stay calm under pressure and adapt.” – Andrea Newman

“We’ll always have an answer for: ‘So, what were you doing when The Queen died?'” – Sharon Dunbar

“Really difficult to pitch it as there seems to be a huge spectrum of emotions and feeling about it all.” – Nykkie Burell 

“I’m surprised and perhaps fearful about how much of what we do can be classed as non-essential, and therefore shelved. I thought everything we did was and is essential. If it isn’t, why do it?” – Brendan McGrath

In the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death the heroes of the week are Windsor & Maidenhead Council.

With Windsor Castle on their patch I can only imagine the stress, the coffee, the hours and the graft.

With one of the biggest news stories of the decade step forward one resident.

Yes, it’s a bin complaint.

Sure, life also goes on.

But if you’re on your 6th Americano of the morning the temptation in the comms team to respond from the hip must have been overwhelming.

Bravo for keeping grace under fire.

Vertical or portrait shaped videos have quietly become a huge part of the media landscape.

The driver has been TikTok who have built a billion users faster than any other digital platform with 15 million of them in the UK. That figure is rising.

Young people don’t search Google, they search TikTok.

Meta’s response has been to turn Instagram from a photo website to a video sharing one where portrait video rules. Users have baulked but the direction of travel is set.

Reels has also come to Facebook.

So, in short, if Instagram, beloved of under 35s or Facebook, the key to over 35s is part of your strategy then Reels needs to be, too. With 20 per cent of Instagram users’ time being taken up with Reels this makes sense. 

Reels and TikTok are not the same

While they’re both vertical, the two products are markedly different.

For starters, if you’re in the public sector your users will be different. Users of your Facebook page where you can post Reels are likely to be women aged 35 to 55. So, make content with them in mind. Your Instagram where Reels can also go may be slightly different. So examine your insights to make content with them in mind, too. 

The worst thing you can do as a communicator in 2022 is make one-size-fits-all content and treat your channel like a mailshot where everyone gets the Pizza leaflet. Unlike a 12″ cheese and tomato, content is not universal.

Aside from audience, the tools for editing on both have some marked changes. Whatever you do, don’t download from TikTok and post as a Reels. While you’ve been able to get away with it the algorithm is now marking down content with logos burned in. In other words, TikTok logos.

Embarrassingly, the most popular content on Facebook in the early months of 2022 has been TikTok videos. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce two things. One, people will watch upright video. Two, Facebook will shoehorn its audience to its own upright video, thank you very much.

One big difference is on TikTok remix culture, taking a video and adding your own spin by using the sound or a response, is key. On Reels it’s not right now.

Tips for Reels

Happily, Meta have published a guide for producing Reels ads which cuts to the heart of what works as video omn the platform. Unfortunately, its not on public release but it has been posted to the internet.

I’ve read it so you don’t have to. 

Make it vertical, stupid.

This feels like an obvious thing to say but with the platform being still relatively new it’s a handy reminder and a guide to stop chucking your landscape onto Reels – or TikTok – without thinking.

Watch the safe zone

Leave the top 12 per cent and the bottom 20 per cent. So, don’t be posting words onto these sections as you’ll clash with the text of the post that Reels will add.

Add sound

This is a real game changer. In conventional social video, 70 per cent of video gets watched without sound. Reels demand your attention and users are more happy to listen to what they are watching. After all, its a video platform first. An incredible 80 per cent of Reels viewers watch WITH sound turning things right on its head.

So, music plays a really big part. So does your voiceover or your piece to camera.

Add people who speak the language

The feedback from Meta is that people like people on Reels. Speak the language of your audience. Thai is a chance to use the Edelman Trust Barometer insight that people respond to people like themselves. So a new parent in a video will land with new parents far better than nobody in the video.

Add visuals

Make the video visually appealing with transitions to regular edits. The Reels editing tool can add effects. Right now they’re far more limited than TikTok’s native app Let’s see if that changes. 

Add emotion

This is a clear request from Reels. If you watch enough portrait video that’s unsurprising. People respond to emotion and that can be, they say, happiness, interest or amazement.

Add a voiceover

Adding a voice is recommended, Meta says. This is a real chance to add local colour. The strong Black Country accent can land well with a local audience. 

Add a hook in the first five seconds

In common with TikTok the first five seconds they say are critical. I’d go further and say the first three secomnds. Make a visual grab for attention but also add a hook. What’s the reason for watching the clip? What can draw you in? The example they give is ‘Three ways to style your product.’ That may feel a tad spammy but its worth experimenting with.   

Add bite size text

This is a handy tip and reflects a technique that news companies often use for social media packages. Here, they often tell the story in text on the screen cutting to soundbites to illustrate a point. Story telling drives the content rather than the interview.

Conclusion

As the platform develops so will Reels and other short video platforms. Right now taking part asnd experimenting is the right thing to do. Don’t wait. Do. Experiment in your own time on your own account first, as with anything new. That builds confidence to tackle the corporate account.

The tips in this post are not prescriptive. They give some pointers for you to start your journey.

I deliver ESSENTIAL PORTRAIT VIDEO FOR TIKTOK & REELS workshops online. This can help give you the basics to help your video making journey. For more information and to secure a place click here.

If it’s a choice between words and action then action wins every time.

I’m not a Monarchist. The idea that you get your parents’ job is ridiculous if you’re a binman let alone Head of State. The institution is an 11th century anomaly.

That said, a woman dying was a mother, grandmother and great grandmother too and I’ve known the bleak sadness of grief.

But reflecting, two images of Queen Elizabeth II stand out. 

The first is Elizabeth shaking hands with Martin McGuiness. She lost an uncle to the organisation he belonged to. He would say he lost people, too. Shaking his hand wasn’t a physical act. It was an act of reconciliation.

It said: ‘if I can, so can you.’

The second image is alone in church during COVID grieving her husband. By doing so, she observed the rules that 160,000 other families observed. She could have side-stepped these rules but didn’t. 

It said: ‘if I can, so can you.

Both are profound moments of leadership. 

Sometimes, its not the framing of the words in the Facebook post or the edit of the viral video that makes all the difference but the actions of leaders.

As a communicator that impresses me.

Of all the useful things to emerge from a pilot session of my new workshop on making video for TikTok and Reels was speed.

By speed I mean the speed of TikTok threw a few people.

At first, it feels fast and the edits within each clip are fast, too.

If Facebook is your chosen platform it can feel dizzyingly fast at first.

We’re getting used to faster delivery. YouTube say more people are watching video faster.

As a user, I can scroll quicker through TikTok than I can navigate through YouTube. At first, that’s disarming.

One tip to understand TikTok as a new user

Download it and spend some time with it. Within a day or so the algorithm is working out the stuff you like from what you watch and what you don’t. Very quickly you’ll start to get onto the wavelength.

Academic Kimberley Hall, associate professor at Wofford College, has come up with an intriguing theory. 

“TikTok changes the relationship between user and content because there is less control. You are moving through this stream and letting it wash over you. It changes the relationship between the user and content because they’re in some ways in less control. They’re being carried along by this stream of content by others. 

“Operating behind that is the algorithm that’s deciding what content to present to them. On the surface, it feels like a live performance. You’re there to enjoy and participate rather than control and orchestrate yourself.”

The feeling of being passive takes a few moments to get used to.

The advice I was given when I heard about Twitter is 2008 was to join and create an account in your own name. Spend some time with it and make some mistakes under your own name.

That advice is timeless for any new channel, TikTok included.

With Twitter, yolu have to go looking for your interests.

With TikTok they’ll pretty much come to you so watch and like the things you like the look of and scroll past those that don’t catch your fancy.

Okay, I tried not to use the planning quote cliche but in the end I couldn’t find a better one, so…

‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’

Benjamin Franklin

It was this that I thought of reflecting on the impending doom of the fuel crunch.

If we do nothing, then millions will default on their bills, people will starve and freeze to death. For the second time in two years society risks falling over.

See more

Holy cow. The folks who predicted the October price cap within 50 quid accuracy now saying price cap will be 5386 in January and 6616 in April. Ofgem boss urging caution on all future estimates but bloody hell…

— Simon Jack (@BBCSimonJack) August 26, 2022

It made me think about the impact of the impending winter on public sector comms.

We can start with people worried about paying their own bills and maybe be more reluctant to work from home. If it costs £7 to travel and £10 to work from home for the day then the sums don’t work.

We already hear of nurses using food banks, firefighters also using the emergency food ration as well as civil servants. It’s no longer shocking news that food banks exist in modern Britain.

So, what things do we have to plan for?

Well, there’s a series of things some that will effect every sector and others that are sector specific.

Police, local government, NHS and fire

Here’s things everyone needs to think about.

1. Theft and petty crime is likely to rise.
2. The risk of civil disorder.
3. Staff being the victim of crime.
4. Buildings being the victim of crime.
5. The organisation not being able to heat all buildings.
6. The organisation not being able to pay staff.
7. Mental health deteriorates amongst staff.
8. Retaining and recruiting staff.
9. Working from home when it becomes unaffordable.

Talking to people, two years ago there was enough in reserve for people to face the impending problem.

Some of these people went above and beyond in the pandemic now face in the inflation spiral effective pay cuts and the sack.

With 161,000 dead, burnout, tiredness, exhaustion, austerity and quiet quitting there isn’t the bank of adrenaline to fall back on.

Cracks exposed by bad management at all levels have opened up over the last two years and with a labour shortage it’s possible to take the gamble of walking off the job one month, take a rest and go back to work when you’re good and ready.

Social media staff facing more online abuse

Across the public sector, around a third saw online abuse weekly and 10 per cent saw racist abuse in the same period. This takes a toll. Spread the burden with a rota that shares access. Adopt a collaborative approach.

Fire and rescue

1. Communicating about the risk of using candles.
2. Communicating about the risk of stealing gas and electricity.
3. Dangerous cooking, such as camping stoves in the house.
4. Cutting back on fire safety.

Local government

1. Public health in a time when willingness to follow advice is reduced along with the money to comply.
2. School meals.
3. Emergency food support.
4. The permanent social care crisis.
5. Stay warm advice.
6. Budget advice.
7. Council tax arrears.
8. Declining income from venues.
9. Instituting warm banks.
10. Social cohesion.

Police

1. Spiralling crime rates.
2. Risk of civil disorder.

NHS

1. Stay warm advice.
2. General health declining.
3. Health information aimed at the vulnerable.
4. Nutrition advice.

None of this would fill anyone with joy.

There is far less joy in failing to plan for what is coming.

What planning can you do in advance?