NO COMMENT: Facebook may allow you to ban comments on posts… but is this a good idea?

Can it be true…? Facebook look as though they are bringing in the ability to ban comments on updates to pages.

The widely reported move looks as though it is being introduced after a court ruling in Australia which found that page admins were legally responsible for comments.

Understandably, some admins will be responding with glee at this news.

It must be tough to switch on the laptop at 8am and we faced with a wall of crap from anti-vaxxers. people complaining about potholes, too many bins, not enough bins and a load of other things beside.

So, switch off comments as default?

Some will undoubtedbly say ‘yes please!’ to this news.

But it got me thinking to how this may impact on the delivery of your message.

Blocking comments will undoubtedly see less interactions with a post. There’ll be no too-ing and frow-ing of conversation and debate either in support or against.

So what?

Well, trouble is, comments and discussion scores really well with the Facebook algorithm that enables your post to float higher organically into more people’s timelines. No comments? No algorythmic brownie points.

There’s the argument, and I’ve some time for that, that says that organic reach is so blunted these days anyway it probably won’t make loads of difference.

You’ve also got the additional issue is the accusation that your organisation are acting against he spirit of democracy. Look, everyone! It’s cancel culture! You bunch of snowflakes! There may be something in this but this kind of shouting sort of underlines the need to remove comments in the first place.

Besides, Twitter did something like this recently when they gave the ability to limit who replies to posts and the sky didn’t fall in.

Besu

Besides from organic reach you do have two other ways to boost your reach. You have boosted posts that involve you spending money and you also have the steps you take to drop the post into a Facebook group, too.

The bottom, line in all of this is that blocking comments isn’t without impact on your communications.

You’ll need to balance that on a case-by-case basis before you post.

NO ZOOM: A decision to return to in-person town hall meetings is bad for democracy

When the pandemic forced us to re-think how we do things some people fell into the trap of thinking this is how they’d always be.

Clearly, the argument went, people will see how better new ways are and people won’t want to go back.

I wasn’t one of them.

In 1789, the French revolutionaries were met by counter-revolutionaries who wanted to turn the tide of history back. This is always the case with any social change.

One of the good ideas was using video conferencing like Zoom to run meetings. The step allowed for people to log on at home to follow the proceedings. In the case of Handforth Parish Council it also showed how badly democracy was performing.

More public and more accountability were the spin-offs of Zoom meetings.

The counter-revolution

This sense of progress has come to a halt with a letter from local government minister Luke Hall MP to English councils where he points to updated guidance here that recommends meetings return to in-person delivery.

Rules for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland councils are issued by their home government.

The key passage is here:

A good day for bad councillors

There’s no data to accompany this to suggest the decision will make local government more open and accountable.

Heaven knows if this will bring more people into seeing what their council was doing.

Indeed, it’s hard to see the binning of Zoom and a return to dusty council chambers attended by elderly men and women and one man and a guide dog in the public gallery is a positive step in 2021.

A Zoom meeting with no face-to-face contact is inherently safer than a public meeting even with some space between seats and a bottle of hand gel by the door.

It’s also worth noting that Parliament will continue online meetings until the summer at least.

Mind, it’ll be good for councillors who don’t like transparency and accountability.

History tells us that sensible decisions taken in a crisis won’t mean they stay. If you work in central government you may recall the mid-pandemic request for staff to go to the office to save town and city centres. All of a sudden it was about saving the coffee shops when in reality it was about the big pension funds who have vast assets lying empty.

What’s next?

Of course the office isn’t dead, it’s just waiting for the counter-revolution.

EDIT: Speak of the devil.

TALES OF COVID: Public sector communication: How was your COVID-19? Tell us, so we can record the stories, content and recollections.

We are launching an independent project for public sector communicators to record their stories and experiences of working to communicate COVID-19. The independent ‘Tales of Covid’ project is being launched to record memories, highs, lows and content during a tough chapter of all our lives. You can contribute.  Kerry Sheehan, UK Government Communication Service, CIPR Board Director and Public Services Group Chair and Dan Slee, digital communications consultant explain how.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is the biggest global story in generations.

A year ago, as UK national lockdown restrictions were being put on us all, public sector communicators did not know how it would unfold.

12-months later, the public sector communication profession in the UK has been a key component, continually showing its value to the ongoing national, local and regional response day, in, day out.

Communicators undertook the most important and biggest reaching work of their professional lives. The profession further elevated its value and status with decision makers.

To mark the enormous contribution public sector communicators have made to the UK’s national response, nationally, regionally, locally, across government, local government, health, emergency services and agencies – supporting to fight the pandemic on the ground – we would like to put together a collection of anecdotes and stories from UK public service communicators.

The collection, Tales of COVID, will form a commemorative book to mark the year of those first national lockdown restrictions, which would catapult our profession into the front line like never before. A time when there wasn’t a playbook and a time when our profession came together as collaborative partners like never before.

Tales of COVID will also serve as an historic record on the vital part public sector communicators have all played in the UK’s national response.

We truly believe it is important to document our experiences as communicators, those who threw all their mite behind fighting the virus whilst the world was brought to a standstill.

Furthermore, it is also important for the PR profession to have an historical record of one of the biggest crisis communication undertakings we have seen.

The book will also enable the profession to reflect on the momentous, tough, turbulent year it has been for our own, truly a year like no other.

The collection will be shaped by the contributions we receive, so it is by the public sector communication profession for the profession.

If you would like to feature, please send us your 250-word summaries of anything you would like us to consider for inclusion. Items can include your reflections, memories, something you had to overcome at pace, new ways of working, any tough situations, and how you felt as the enormity of the pandemic took over our work and our lives.

You can contribute to Tales of Covid through this Google Form here.

We would like this to be an account of how it actually was for our public sector communicators rather than glossing over the not so good and really tough parts.

It is your lived history, it is what you did, how you felt, how you coped – or didn’t – what you were proud of or what your lowest point was. It is part content guide, part social history and part honest reflection while the campaign is still ongoing.

Please do not contribute anything deemed officially sensitive. We would like this collection to be a raw account about how you, as public sector communicators, have got through working on the pandemic at continued pace for the past 12 months with many twists and turns along the way.

You may also have some funny anecdotes you’d like to submit or some nice stories of how you pulled together as a team, citing ‘you’re on mute’ and waving at colleagues through the screen. We’d like to tell COVID as it has been for our profession.

Once we have a good selection of summaries, from all four UK nations, we’ll put in place a Tales of Covid Editorial Group. We will put out a call for this at a later date and members will support going through submissions. We may then come back to you for a longer piece.

We would also like to include a roll call of all UK public sector communicators who have worked on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, no matter how big or small to recognise your amazing contribution.

At a later date, we plan to hold a series of Tales of COVID launch events – either virtually or who knows one day in person – across the UK where we hope public sector communicators will drop in to so we can say ‘thank you’ and reflect together on an historic time for our profession and how we all became the best collaborative partners we’ve ever been.

If you would like to be included in Tales of COVID, please submit a 250-word summary account with your name, job title and organisation by Friday April 30.

Alternatively, you can just submit your name, job title and organisation to be included in the roll call of UK public sector communicators who supported to fight COVID-19.

Kerry Sheehan, UK Government Communication Service, CIPR Board Director and Public Services Group Chair and Dan Slee is a digital communications consultant. The project is independent of any communications group or body.

YEAR NOTES: My COVID year

Today is March 20, my COVID-19 anniversary where three days before lockdown it gradually dawned on me that I may have caught the virus.

I’ve always admired the #weeknotes style of blogging. This is a dispassionate jotting down at the end of he week honest reflection.

So, inspired by them, some honest reflections.

Health

  • On March 19 at 6pm, out of nowhere I started sweating and shaking after feeling something was not right. An hour later it passed. A call to NHS 111 assured me as I didn’t tick the box of temperature, fever and coughing I was fine. So, Joe went to his High School for his programmed last day to say goodbye to his friends.
  • A day later at 6pm, the same thing happened. That was it. We weren’t going to leave the house. With bare cupboards we planned to batten down the hatches and made do with what we could while outside people panic bought. Take a deep breath.
  • So began the chapter with mild COVID-19. Tiredness, fatigue, dread and a cotton wool head. Our house isn’t big enough. We need to sort a will while we can. What happens if me and Clare are hospitalised? Questions but few answers. While the country open mouthed listened to Boris Johnson telling people to stay home, save lives and save the NHS I disengaged into a world of calmness, optimism, podcasts and looking outside at the garden. I had no capacity for anything but thinking that age was on myside and there was a bigger chance I’d get over this. Take a deep breath.
  • Advice on how to avoid it was plentiful but there was nothing if you weren’t bad enough for hospital.
  • Saying goodbye to my wife as paramedics loaded her into a ambulance was not fun. Fourteen hours later she was back home. They were long hours but I know I’m lucky – and so is she. Take a deep breath.
  • The first food delivery was amazing. After two weeks of making do with what we’d got as there was no-one available to do our shopping or delivery slots available I found a greengrocers that would deliver. Man, that fresh produce.
  • The pattern of mild COVID-19 was weird. A good day then a bad day then a day good enough to exercise with Joe on YouTube then a bad day. Tiredness endured. It wasn’t until September that I was able to work a full day.
  • Friends were being affected. Two friends parents died of COVID-19 and a friend’s wife was taken to hospital seriously ill. Any grousing I have is such small beer. I’m lucky.

Work

  • Work disappeared overnight. Fixed points in the calendar vanished. Training in person as a concept ended. As 80 per cent of what I did was this, this was a problem. But I was too tired and concentrating on my health to give it much thought.
  • The #viewfrommyworkingwindow tweets disappeared overnight. I used to travel a lot and take a pic out of the window. Gone.
  • Travel also went. In 2019, the last full year of work, I was away from home 97 days out of 365 from Cornwall to Belfast to London to Aberdeen. Sometimes in the same week. That year I spend £8,500 on trains and around £7,000 on hotels. Gone.
  • A chum cajoled me into helping with a COVID-19 related project which drew on the things I was teaching in workshops. It made sense to do practical things while I waited for training to come back. I’m so grateful to them for that.
  • #commscampstayshome was a focus. I enjoyed working out how to run an in-person event online.
  • The Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group was a help. A community now of heading for 6,000 the connection of Facebook showed each other the mountains they were facing.
  • Long overdue, I formally resigned as director from comms2 point0 the company I’d set up with a former colleague. It had been years since we had worked together and it was a deeply liberating release.
  • In October with health returning I thought through what online training would look like. I started a course that was the distillation of 20 years work and I’ve got more out of that than anything else I’ve done as a freelancer. I’m busier in the first three months of 2021 than I was in the previous year.
  • I’ve worked alone or collaboratively for seven years. I miss being able to read the room while training but not the journeys. I see footage of crowds and now instinctively shrink away from them.
  • I miss commscamp. I miss the in-person greeting of people and giving friends a hug, sharing cake and conversation. I miss that badly.

Home

  • Your mind plays tricks on you. If you look back you remember the good stuff. My good stuff was using the OS app to find obscure footpaths across Shropshire and Worcestershire with the family away from the crowds. I hope growing up that’s what my children remember.
  • Homeworking. In lockdown 1.0 I worked at home in bursts and then slept when I could. As things eased, I returned to the office I rent in a converted factory 20 minutes walk away.
  • With travel gone, I saw more of my wife and children. We played board games and darts. Looking back, it has been hard on all of us in different ways. I think about my son taking GCSEs and studying for A levels unable to mark these chapters with his friends.
  • I’m using the the more limited cycle of travel and being home. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to full pre-lockdown patterns.
  • I miss my brothers and I miss seeing my in-laws. I miss my children and how they are with the in-laws. They live nearby but shouting through the window isn’t the same.
  • Spotify reminded me my bleakest moment in all this was in October when I played ‘Isolation’ by Joy Division on repeat. Thanks, Spotify.

Sometimes, I wondered why Samuel Pepys did’t write more about the plague in his diaries. This year has shown that everyday life is filled with everyday things even when big events blow you onto a different life path.

Of course, Pepys spent a plague year talking about what he had for dinner and what he was wearing because that’s what make life.

This last year has made me realise that my default setting is optimism and sometimes that can be a problem.

FINAL EDITION: War stories on the demise of the newsroom

So, farewell the newsroom, that place of blood, sweat, tears, joy, despair and stories.

Reach plc has announced it wants to keep reporters working from home retaining a few sites where people can catch-up with people.

What may seem a routine accommodation matter for a national newspaper chain also strikes at something fundamental that public sector comms teams also must grapple.

How can you learn when you’ve no-one to watch and learn?

But that’s for another day.

I wanted to just celebrate the best office I ever worked in, the Sandwell Express & Star district office in Black Lake.

It was built on a West Bromwich rubbish tip underneath towering overhead power cables downwind from the Robinson Brothers’ chemical works that put the identifying smell into the odourless North Sea gas.

Window screen tint was put onto the newsroom windows to reduce the glare on our screens so everyday was mid-February.

Everything about the bricks and mortar was ordinary but it was the people in it and the stories they made that made it special.

Through the reception on the ground floor was sales and production and a corridor led to the aircraft hanger at the back where two newspaper production towers loomed. From them, newspapers were produced in a river of drying ink and warm newsprint that would be sent down to be bundled ready for the waiting dispatching fleet of red Express & Star vans.

Sometimes, I used to go down to the press hall to catch an early copy if there was a particular story I’d been working on and wanted to see how it was used. When the towers were running the building would hum and shake and you could only talk by shouting. Journalists can be as cynical as chip paper but let me tell you I was as deeply impressed by that towering newspaper production line on my last day just as much as I was on my first.

The newsroom

But it was the newsroom that really mattered.

Walking through the door, on the right were a large bank of tables with chunky apple terminals, chairs and on each desk the detritus of Firkin sandwich bags, old newspapers, committee papers and letters.

To the left was the darkroom, a table for photographers and over in the far corner by the fire exit a desk for the Birmingham edition reporters. That was the fire exit Dave dragged Paul the chief photographer mid-row.

“That’s enough,” Dave said. “I’ve had enough. I’m going to throw you off the top of the fire escape.”

And he meant it.

“Don’t throw me off,” Paul begged. “Anyway, you’ll get the sack.”

“Yes,” Dave fired back, “but I’ll get the biggest leaving present in history.”

When I started on the Express & Star in the late 90s the internet was still finding its feet. The print edition was what counted. There were 14 reporters and three photographers in the office. First edition had a deadline of around 9.30am and our edition – the Sandwell edition – was the last of 10 editions at around 2pm.

The whole reason the print works was built in West Bromwich was so that we could be as late as possible producing the evening paper so there was a golden couple of hours when news breaking could be ours alone. In that way the competitive advantage was retained.

But it was the people in the newsroom that made the newsroom.

I became a better reporter because I watched and learned and when I was stuck would ask. We were led by Ken, a sage bearded man in his 50s who had been there since 1968. There was no crisis that Ken could not think through a solution for.

Each strategic crisis was measured in what Ken was eating. A minor crisis was met with Ken going to the canteen where he would plot his way through company politics.

But a trip to McDonald’s signified a much deeper crisis to plot through that only a Big Mac meal could provide the answers to.

His deputy was Dave who had joined in 1976. Dave hated gardening while Ken was gardening correspondent. Dave knew the borough backwards but was all at sea four miles down the road in Dudley.

Dave cracked the same repertoire of jokes that had long since stopped being original. The laughter came from eye-rolling disbelief that Dave was still cracking them.

These jokes were for an occasion.

A fire engine with lights and sirens?

“They’ll never sell any ice creams going at that speed.”

A murder?

“Smaller turkey in their house this Christmas.”

The mention of Dudley?

“I had a very sheltered life. I though the third commandment was ‘Thou Shalt Not Commute to Dudley.'”

Dave’s age was a constant source of mystery only solved when he died years later.

Not always good

When things were good on the Express & Star they were the best and when they were bad they were indescribably bad. A Victorian family-owned company they had retained working practices back then that should have stayed Victorian. The photographers who walked off the job because they had had enough, for example. The lack of brown faces in the print edition was another. This was no Garden of Eden but in Sandwell we worked hard to make it so.

When the internal phone rang it was the news desk and your heart skipped a beat in case you fucked up or they demanded more. It was your job to make more happen. Sometimes in 10 minutes.

Once, we’d printed the wrong picture of the road traffic accident victim so we had two lots of family on the war path.

There are so many stories I could tell you, but to really get them you’d have to know the office. That’s how good offices work.

I left Sandwell office, the Express & Star and journalism in 2005 to go to Walsall Council’s press office. After 12-years as a journalist I didn’t want to go to London or go to the Express & Star head office. There was a baby in the house and I needed regular hours and more money.

A few months back in lockdown, we had a leaving do on Zoom for a Sandwell colleague who had retired through ill health. Getting the band back together would be strange, I thought.

Black Lake was long closed and the printing was moved to Shropshire. The internet had done for it.

On the Zoom re-union, we laughed, remembered Dave’s jokes, the time Ken was stalked by a gent with a stained duvet, when Marion went out for the Evening Mail and was so shocked to see a story she’d missed she left her battered Datson with the engine running outside the paper shop. She returned hours later the car unstolen. Not even the criminals of the Black Country were tempted by it.

We remembered the annual bun fight over who was arranging the Christmas party, how Anne never went to the canteen, Ken would cover-up for people with white lies and how we’d repay his loyalty in spades.

I’m raising a cup of tea to the newsroom. That place of joy, laughter, graft, panic, ego, fun, terror and swearing where people learned how to do their jobs by seeing how the best did it sat next to them.

That’s a problem for comms teams, too.

Looking back, I was lucky.

Thank you Ken, Dave, Marion, Jo, Nina, Anne, James, Joe, Anuji, Wynn, Kath, Louise, Paul F, Paul P, Tony, Sunny, Chris, Marie, Phil, Tim, Viv, Katie, Irena, Eileen, Bob and others I’ve missed out.

To quote Paul the miserable photographer: “Things is mate, I made the mistake of joining this place when it was a proper newspaper.”

BRICKWALL: How do we learn when there’s no-one to watch and learn from?

In all the rush to the brave new world of sacking the office for WFH with touchdown spaces one thing has been missed.

It took a junior member of a comms team on a Zoom call to point this out to me.

“I don’t have much confidence,” they said “because I started two weeks before lockdown and I’ve never really sat opposite from anyone who has dealt with a call from a journalist.”

It got me thinking.

I worked as a journalist in an office where I learned watching and listening to other journalists.

I worked as a press officer where I learned watching and listening to other press officers.

I wouldn’t have been the person I was without watching and learning.

So, how do we pass on like passive smoking the ability to do jobs where judgement and confidence is key?

GUEST POST: People are bored of ‘hands, face, space’ but our local human stories of compliance work

After 12-months we’ve all grown bored of the generic messages reminding us of the rules. So how can we remind people to stick to the rules? By showing people… sticking to the rules says Julie Walden.

Back in January I read a blog about how we should be sharing stories of compliance to encourage compliance.

The author had heard Radio 4’s Today show sharing stories of compliance. As his email dropped into my inbox I realise it linked directly to recent Government behavioural science workshops I’d attended that said the same thing…

Positive messages encourage positive behaviours.

Government data shows that 80 to 90 per cent of people do follow the rules to a high degree. However, when stories circulate – particularly on social media – about those who don’t follow the rules, compliance begins to fall. Behavioural science at a very basic level.

Our Government Covid-19 ‘hands, face and space’ messages, and those from our Local Resilience Forum, consistently received very little interaction or response on our channels. Even the trolls and Covid deniers had given up commenting.

Each post we put out was met with a tumbleweed and no interactions at all. After ten months, I’d exhausted the different ways to say wash your hands, cover your face and keep your distance. I was bored of writing it and our residents were bored of reading it.

It was time to rethink our communications approach.

Compliance comms shows people sticking top the rules

The blog sparked an idea and I created a series of ‘compliance comms’ (not the snappiest title, I know) messages around the activities we all do week in, week out – catching up online, staying home and staying local: following the rules.

Members of staff and the local community submitted their photos to show us of how they were following the rules in their own ways. Each social media post had to have a ‘scene setting’ introduction explaining that most of us were staying safe and following the rules to reduce rates in our area and keep the community safe. Then I added the compliance story and each post was finished with the reminders about the hands, face and space guidance.

We shared individual, real stories about how people were sticking to the guidelines, including:

Messaging on lots of different platforms to keep in touch with grandparents.

Coping with elderly, vulnerable relatives living far away (staying away to keep them safe).

Delivering shopping for grandparents without going inside their house.

A grandad facetiming his 9 week old granddaughter

But we also shared stories around:

Working from home, missing people but with cute dogs for company (dogs always a hit on social media.)

Visiting local beauty spots but choosing less well-known areas to keep away from crowds.

Children playing Guess Who online with vulnerable family members.

A primary school child’s view on home schooling and missing friends.

Walking the same routes locally and Facetiming family members who couldn’t visit.

Real stories, real people doing things we all do every week to follow the rules.

The impressions and reach of the compliance posts compared with our previous posts was dramatically different. We went from a tumbleweed to each and every post having a really positive reaction, with lots of likes, shares and comments with examples of how others were following the rules. The campaign was an easy to organise, no-cost and a creative way of boosting messages that were previously falling flat.

Twitter impressions were for the most part between 1-2,000 per post with similar figures achieved for the reach for these messages over on Facebook. The one video we used performed strongly on both platforms which supports what we all know about how the algorithms work on these platforms.

Not surprisingly the posts featuring dogs and children worked particularly well, especially 9 week old Penelope going down particularly well on Facebook.

Not everything was perfect. The messages were tricky to make work on Twitter. Next time I’d use Twitter threads rather than tweets using photos containing the text – from an accessibility point of view this is a better approach. I used it here but I wasn’t consistent sharing messages in this way.

We’re now looking at how we can re-use some of this content for further messages over the next few tricky weeks, while lockdown is still in place but people in our communities are going out and about much more.  

Julie Walden is marketing officer at Selby Council.

GUEST POST: Encouraging vaccine take-up through research, data and behaviour change

Encouraging people to take the COVID-19 vaccine is the challenge of our time. Hounslow Council shaped their approach by talking to residents and using behaviour change techniques. Sterling Rippy and Eddie Coates-Madden explain.

In Hounslow, comms started planning for a vaccine comms campaign with behaviour change specialists from the public health team towards the end of 2020.

Even at the earliest stages it was clear misinformation was going to be an issue.

The plan set out comms in four key areas:

  • Logistics – ensuring residents know where to attend, how to get there and how to get away, to avoid bottlenecks
  • Encouraging take-up.
  • Myth-busting for key groups as part of the encouragement work, and 
  • Contingency crisis responses to any actual problems with the vaccine.

We were clear about complementing NHS comms work, not replicating it by doing personal communications to patients, or providing medical information.

We set out to use local government’s key strengths: comms that knows the area and knows local communities.

We laid out some principles: partner branding, socialisation, behaviour change ‘rewards’ and detailed segmentation identifying, for example, messengers, community languages, tailored assets, messages, channels and rewards. 

In one of the most diverse council areas in the country, we were very aware we also needed a clear view of the vaccine concerns of particular communities, e.g. South Asian origin communities, the financially excluded, Afro-Carribean communities, women aged 30-40, and younger people.

The key realisation has been that the challenge of hesitancy is about getting good information – as opposed to bad information – into those communities.

In the absence of other sources, we created detailed, extensive FAQs on our website. 

The challenge is getting that right information to the right people. The approach developed with behaviour change colleagues seeks to use the messenger principle to address misinformation. Working through surveys and engagement sessions, we realised misinformation was circulating, specifically among South East Asian and Black Afro-Caribbean communities.

We ran focus groups with members of these communities to identify barriers and enablers. Across all conversations residents wanted to speak to their GP about their questions in order to make an informed decision.

One of the prevalent rumours is that vaccine trials were rushed and skipped important safety trials. Residents also told us they didn’t want to be forced, or attacked for their hesitancy. Utilising feedback gained from the insight sessions and, recognising people are generally more receptive to information coming from figures they trust, we designed and tested four types of messages and messengers.

Hounslow Council’s four types of messages and messengers

  • An NHS infographic stating the vaccine went through all of the same trials as other vaccines and medications.
  • A council branded message redirecting viewers to a FAQ page with information on the vaccine.
  • A quote from a local GP of either South East Asian or Black Afro-Caribbean background stating that the vaccine went through all the same trials as other vaccines framed as a ‘MYTH vs FACT.’
  • A quote from a local GP of either South East Asian or Black Afro-Caribbean background, stating that the vaccine went through all the same trials as other vaccines but framed as ‘you asked, your GP answered’.

Testing all four on Facebook, we targeted people within 10 miles of Hounslow, and recorded click-through as the outcome metric – an indicator of engagement – as tracking actual vaccination rates was not available.

Message version four was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the clear winner. What was more surprising is that people preferred the ‘you asked, we answered’ questions over ‘myth vs fact’.

We’re using this testing to inform the basis of our campaigns to ensure informed decision making in hesitant communities.

Other quick wins have included, using local GPs to deliver FAQ sessions, and leveraging social norms by providing residents with stickers to display prominently showing they’ve had the vaccine.

There is much yet to do, and we recognise we have yet to reach the more hesitant priority groups. Hounslow has had good uptake to date, with over 90 per cent of our top four priority groups, and over 54,000 people in the Borough having had the vaccine in total. There has been excellent uptake in care homes amongst both staff and residents, with some of the highest rates in the capital. 

We won’t be getting into arguments with anti-vaxxers, because our focus is on that segmented, targeted, tested approach. The prize is to convert hesitancy and it’s our belief that that is best done through local knowledge, local partnerships and driven by Behaviour Change expertise.

Sterling Rippy is strategic lead behavioural insights at Hounslow Council and Eddie Coates-Madden is interim head of communications and events.

   

ONLINE COMMUNITY: Key points from NYU research on Facebook groups

Quietly, Facebook groups have undermined the pillars of what made a local newspaper work.

Small ads? Why pay £7 for 20 words in the back of an inkie when you can whack it up onto Facebook Marketplace and sell it within an hour?

Same for local news, sport clubs and society news. Why wait until Friday when you can keep track of the game in real time and debate it as you’re doing it?

Of course, none of this is new but it took the COVID-19 pandemic to really bring it home to some people.

New York University with Facebook have produced ‘The Power of Virtual Communities’ based on interviews and research into Facebook groups in 15 countries. It’s authors in the introduction were sure they made clear they retained editorial control despite the document being part Facebook-funded.

The research is not so strong on numbers and repeats YouGov/Facebook research from late last year over overall numbers. There are 1.8 billion Facebook group users, it says.

But there are a few gems. Online groups have become in the UK the most important commuinities to members with 38.9 per cent preferring them to offline groups (35.2 per cent). A mix of the two accounted for 25.8 per cent.

However, the research is particularly strong at the opinions and views on why and how groups work and how long lasting they could be.

What Facebook groups show

People find a strong sense of community in Facebook groups despite them not being physical. But they very often lead to meet-ups that bridge the on and offline divide.

New leaders have emerged through groups. They are often marginalised and not represented through traditional offline structures. They do it through love rather than as a career decision.

Facebooks show what academics described as ‘networked individualism.’ Individuals join groups rather than kinship groups or families.

Often the admins of Facebook groups are accidental leaders.

What drives Facebook group’s success

A strong admin of the group that allows differences of opinion and acts with ethics makes groups work.

They can form and take-off at speed.

In COVID-19 times, Facebook groups show people coming together over a shared wish to support each other.

What can be Facebook group’s failures

Interestingly, the research also called into question everything about groups. They are not perfect in every way.

Because of the speed of their formulation, longevity is still up for question. Some critics question the value of online connections against offline face-to-face relationships.

Those are perfectly valid criticisms.

For me, what they are are ways that people are consuming the internet in 2021 and the way they connect. May they be in ten years time? I honestly don’t know. But what I am confident of is this. The lessons learned in connecting with Facebook groups will be useful as the web develops.

Facebook groups have evolved as more private spaces as users have grown tired of public social media and the noise and lack of privacy that this brings.

Online communities like Facebook groups are places communicators need to know about and invest time in.

Picture credit: Documerica / Flickr

A YEAR? How public sector comms people look back at 12-months of COVID-19

‘This is my truth,’ NHS founder Aneurin Bevan’s widow recalled him saying to people, ‘tell me yours.‘

Truth is, there is no universal truth of the first 12-months of the pandemic. Our experience differs. For some, a welcome break working from home. For others, grief or a fight for health.

It got me thinking. How have public sector comms people fared? I asked members of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group for their thoughts.

On March 23 2020, the UK Prime Minister announced the widest set of restrictions on personal freedom in living memory. It’s hard to recreate the shock of it and since then things changed.

Can you sum-up the last 12-months in four words?

“You are on mute.” – Mark Chapman.

“Relentless change and challenges.” – Suzie Evans

“What a fucking rollercoaster,” – Sarah Tidy.

“I am not thriving,” – Kelly Harrison.

“Hardest of my life.” – Lucy Salvage.

“Frustration, exhaustion, revelation, gratitude.” Lucy Hartley

“Legacy hand?” – Jon Phillips

“Emotional, frustrating, proud, enlightening.” – Laura Broster

“Bleak, tiring, uphill, love.” – Angela Maher.

“I’m ok with change.” – Joy Hale.

“Keep swimming through currents.” – Kirstin Catriona Thomson

“Relentless. Exhausting. Camaraderie and Gratitude (and quizzes!)” – Emma Russell.

What was a personal positive moment of the last 12-months?

“Having a warm, loving household.” – Suzie Evans

“No commute, absolutely brilliant.” – Stephen Wilkinson.

“I absolutely love homeworking.” – Clare Parker.

“Incredible commitment, resilience and talent of countywide partners working together to do great things in comms and elsewhere.” – Thom Burn.

“Volunteering at the Vacc Centre seeing happy, dancing Octogenarians.” – Marie Lewis.

“Learning to sew and play piano.” – Carolyne Mitchell

“Getting much closer with my partner, being home together more could have been rocky, and I know others haven’t been so lucky, but I’m so thankful we had each other through the highs and lows.” – Jennifer Ann Bracegirdle.

“Getting to spend time at home with my teenage daughter and the birth of my niece.” – Ghazala Begum.

“Seeing my dad get a vaccine.” – David Grindlay.

“Joining my family for the first time in months for a BBQ on the beach. Feeling the warmth on our faces and remembering what it felt like to be in their company and how much we had missed. And now I remember that, and that it will happen again.” – Emma Russell.

“Getting a promotion and having that first hug off my niece when we were allowed.” – Ceri Doyle.

“How much I’ve valued and love my partner and my two girls.” – Nicola Fulton.

“Hugging my Dad for the first time when we were finally allowed to form bubbles. And getting our puppy.” – Jennifer Kightley

What was a personal bleak moment of the last 12-months?

“Grandmother’s funeral.” – Andrew Clayton.

“Not seeing my dad for a year and him missing kids birthdays and Xmas.” – Leanne Hughes.

“My grandad passing away at what felt like the most stressful point in my memory, end of March 2020, however it did make me stop for a weekend and step back to process everything around me.” – Jennifer Ann Bracegirdle.

“Watching my child break down because everything is ‘weird and feels bad,'” – Kelly Harrison

“Not seeing a single person I knew face to face for 6 weeks something others won’t even be able to imagine but reality for those of us wfh who live alone.” – Ceri Doyle

“Losing one of this group to COVID. It really affected my patience – for a few days there I lost any ability to tolerate deniers/rule breakers and the ‘but they were old/already sick’ brigade, grrrrr…..” – Beck McAuliffe

“Worry about the long term impact on my daughters mental health, wellbeing and education.” – Ghazala Begum.

“My cousin hung himself in April 2020.” – Anonymous.

“Missing the birth of my second son when there was a flight ban at the start of the pandemic and not seeing my mum for a year now.” – Mark Templeton.

“Losing my voice through stress for four months.” – Joanne Cooke.

“Personal tragedy aside, having to concede defeat and take time off from work for my mental health.” – Lucy Salvage

“Realising that although day-by-day, hour-by-hour I feel absolutely fine, just below the surface the isolation, the pressure, the long hours, the dark nights, the missing family and friends, the worry, the constant covid- anxiety, the funerals we couldn’t attend, the weddings cancelled, the hospital appointments done alone, the elderly relatives giving up because their life has stopped… well it really does take its toll, that and the daily annoyance that still my job is referred to as ‘making pretty things and jazzing stuff up’.” – Emma Russell.

“My husband’s friend died of Covid leaving a widow and young child.” – Angela Maher.

“My Mum’s tears at not seeing her grandchildren for months.” – Marie Lewis.

Homeworking? Back to the office? Or a mix?

“Discovered working from home suits me, but I need to go to the office too ~ 70:30?” – Lucy Hartley.

“Both – and the trust to be able to chose which works best for me, my job and my team at that given time. But I really do miss seeing my wonderful colleagues.” – Emma Russell.

“Homeworking, with some friends house working and the odd office touch-down.” – Carolyne Mitchell.

“Keep me home working. Love it.” – Clare Parker.

“Definitely a mix, I miss homeworking days when I needed time out from meets to focus and I miss office times with colleagues to be creative and group think through the troublesome, sticky issues properly.” – Laura Broster.

“Mix but more at home to hang out with bandit-dawg.” – Leanne Hughes.

“Working from a very quiet office is better for me than being at home.” Nicola Fulton

“Homeworking is finally acceptable.” – Brioney Hirst.

Thank you to contributors Andrew Clayton, Mark Chapman, Suzie Evans, Thom Burn, Sarah Tidy, Kelly Harrison, Ghazala Begum, Lucy Salvage, Jon Phillips, Stephen Wilkinson, Emma Russell, Marie Lewis, Carolyne Mitchell, David Grindlay, Laura Broster, Angela Maher, Leanne Hughes, Jennifer Ann Bracegirdle, Beck McAuliffe, Clare Parker, Joanne Cooke, Ceri Doyle, Nicola Fulton, Brioney Hirst, Jenny Kightley, Kirstin Catriona Thomson, Amanda Rose, Charlotte Parker, Mark Templeton and Joy Hale.

This is their truth, tell me yours.