FLAG DAY: What the outbreak of England flags on lampposts means for public sector comms 

As if from nowhere, England flags on lampposts have suddenly become a political campaign tool. 

On the one hand, this is a spontaneous expression of cultural identity and a celebration of English identity. They have national flags in other countries. Why shouldn’t we have them in our country? 

On the other hand, flags can lead to crude nationalism designed to mark out a territory for those who belong and those who don’t.

In Belfast, flags mark out areas of political influence. Union flags marking Unionist areas and Irish tricolours marking out areas of the Republican tradition. Academic Dominic Bryan who has studied the phenomena in the city says flags can bring alarm.

 “A flag can simultaneously be the marker of official and legal sovereignty and can become the marker of local space… It is emblematic of democracy but also the harbinger of fear. The display of a symbol can be defended as freedom of speech whilst also be criticised as intimidation.”

In short: it’s complicated.

In Birmingham, the flags on street lamps have centred around West Heath, Weoley Castle and Northfield. Birmingham is a city built on immigration from the Irish in the 19th century to post-war South Asian and Caribbean and in recent years from Eastern Europe.

How does this all play out online?

Inevitably, it comes back to Facebook groups where the issue of flags has been highly divisive. 

A search on Nextdoor found nothing. 

Ofcom have said before that Facebook groups are the primary place where people find out about what’s going on with their council from the age of 24 to 65. So, no wonder it plays out there.

A swift search shows flags can be found in debate in the B37 Facebook group with 30,000 members, Castle Bromwich ‘Official’ Group with Weoley Castle Community with 11,000, B News and Views with 62,000. 

In the Alvechurch Road Residents’ Facebook group there has more than 3,000 engagements and 300 shares. This is huge for a community group with 1,800 followers.

On the one hand there are those in the group that say this is an expression of national pride. 

And also…

But the range of opinion also leads to other British people pointing out that they feel British but they don’t feel the need to fly a flag. Others say adding a flag halfway up a streetlamp looks as though they are at halfmast. Who died? they ask.

With depressing predictability there is a racist element to the comments. Here on Birmingham Live’s coverage.

And comments which mirror far right tropes.

Elsewhere, Birmingham Live have limited commenting on posts. 

And in Birmingham, the far right have arrived. Turning Point UK, a group with links to Donald Trump have been quick to move into the space. The group post video which claims to be of ‘leftists’ in Wythall in North Worcestershire taking down a flag on VJ Day. This has been taken up by Reform in other parts of the country.

Birmingham Live, the Reach plc presence in the city, report one of the group behind the flags says there are 1,500 flags across the city. That would indicate there is serious money behind the campaign. Go online, and a single England flag varies from £8 to as much as £18. That means £12,000 minimum has gone into this. 

Not every flag will have come from the group to get the thing off the ground takes time, money and step ladders.

So what does this mean for public sector communications?

Everything is political, says 19th century novelist Thomas Mann. However, flags come with a special kind of politics. 

That British hero Winston Churchill was always careful with patriotism. Tradition helped being a country but also patriotism was also the last refuge of a scoundrel. 

So, some things to consider. 

It’s a community cohesion thing. This is absolutely about how different groups of people from different backgrounds can get along with each other. That’s central to local government communications.

It’s a social media house rules thing. Yet again, I’m going to bang the drum of having a set of house rules. This allows you to take action against people who break them. So, racism and abuse shouldn’t be tolerated. Polite discussion is fine even if it disagrees.

It’s anticipating responses thing. One lesson from Royal British Legion’s social media is to anticipate comments and have some lines to take. So, why Black History Month? Because six million troops from the Commonwealth served including India and the Caribbean is a good response to politely push back with. As ever, always push by sticking to the facts. 

It’s a question about the limiting of comments thing. There may be rare occasions when comments do need to be limited. I’m not sure if the flags issue is that point. 

It’s a disinformation thing. The space for disinformation and misinformation on this issue is huge. So too is the damage it can cause. UK Government’s excellent Resist 2 resource here is your friend. Any public sector communicator should be breaking this advice out. 

“Public communication should strive to be independent from politicization in implementing interventions to counteract mis- and disinformation. Public communication is conducted as separate and distinct from partisan and electoral communication, with the introduction of measures to ensure clear authorship, impartiality, accountability and objectivity.”

It’s a street lighting thing. In my experience, street lighting engineers who work for councils are very black and white people. There is a right answer and a wrong answer. Putting ladders onto street lamps is dangerous. It’s a reasonable message most of the time. But can it appear council jobsworth?

It’s a comms team rota thing. At times of stress, you shouldn’t leave social media to just one person. In cricketing terms, rotate the strike. Have a rota of people who can pick up the baton. Share the sweets. 

It’s a police thing. Some of the comments look pretty actionable. But they also highlight areas of tension in the community. 

It’s a Facebook group thing. In the General Election, Labour and Conservatives both encouraged supporters to post shareable content into groups and into WhatsApp groups and onto Nextdoor. The flags issue once again shows the importance of groups in the media landscape of communities. This is not new. So, what would sharable content on this look like? 
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Creative commons credit: Silver Jubilee boys race, 1977 by Madhava.

STOCK CLIPS: How to build a B-roll library for a public sector comms team

In the words of Mark Zuckerburg, video has been the prime way that people consume content online for several years.

You may be used to image libraries of visual assets but how do you now create a B-roll library of shots that can be re-used in future content?

B-roll is the name for the supporting footage that illustrates your film. Maybe, that’s things like buses in the town centre, summer in the park or social care staff talking to a client.

Now, I don’t think every film should feature it but it is certainly useful from time-to-time. 

Here’s some ideas for you and some pitfalls to avoid.

GDPR and shooting for the public sector 

Firstly, anything you do shoot in the public sector is subject to GDPR. So, under the ICO’s office’s rules you need ‘explicit permission’ from people if they are recognisable. 

If you are conducting an interview, then get their permission and explain exactly how the footage will be used. That’s what’s meant by the ‘explicit’. 

So, the resident saying: ‘I think Dudley Council is great’ can be used for the video of the park event the council stepped in to save. However, the quote can’t be re-used for the budget cuts video unless the speaker agrees.

My colleague Julia suggests using something like Google Forms to create a form which can then be adapted for each job. Each form URL can then be run through a tool like qr-code.io to generate a QR code you can take with you while you are out and about. The interviewee then uses the QR code from their phone to access the link. Smart.

This avoids the issue of building up a sheaf of paper that then gets rained on or left in the car.

For big events, the ICOs office suggests a catch-all permission sign by the gate to the park informing people that Dudley Council are filming for social media a film that celebrates the park fun day. People can contact a steward if they want to opt out and can be given a coloured lanyard. That way the videographer knows to avoid them on the day or in the edit.

With children make sure you get that explicit permission.

Interestingly, journalism isn’t covered by GDPR. The Councillor accused of punching the bus driver can’t tick a box saying ‘no publicity’ as they arrive at court. Nor should they. 

Shooting B-roll 

Most B-roll you’ll want to shoot probably won’t have people who are identifiable. It can be things like the park in summertime or buses running through the town centre. This stock footage can then be repurposed in future for other film projects.

There’s an obvious advantage for shooting your own B-roll. 

Whatever you do shoot is likely to have local landmarks or be recognisable. Where I live, the buses are National Express West Midlands. If I see London buses illustrating a film about subsidised buses through Quarry Bank all credibility in the film has gone.

Do get into the habit of shooting B-roll when you are out and about.

Here’s what to do:

  • Shoot 20 seconds of landscape footage
  • Shoot 20 seconds of vertical footage
  • Shoot some alternative perspectives of the same in landscape and vertical.

Creating your own B-roll library

The first thing to do is save the file with the right key words.

So, a file name “Transport_Halesowen_bus_station_landscape” may work for the landscape shot of the Queensway bus station and “Transport_Halesowen_bus_station_vertical” will work for the upright.

Remember to use the same system of labelling for all your B roll.

Now that’s been shot where to store it?

Well, there are commercial providers I’ve looked at, but they start from around £4k a year and your budgets may not stretch to them.

I’m not totally convinced they are needed.

A perfectly workable alternative is to use Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive. Create folders for the subjects you’d like. So, Parks, transport, social care or whatever works best.

Here’s an example of the areas to save as part of your file name.

Having a file naming system like this will help you recover it again. Feel free to change, adapt or simplify. 

Here’s an example of wide and vertical B-roll. This is St John’s church, Halsowen outside my office.

And here’s the landscape shot. This was shot straight after the upright.

I’ve kept the low murmer of the churchyard on as audio in these cases but there is an argument for removing sound for general shots like these. Not everyone remembers to adjust sound levels on each clip in the edit.

Spending time creating B-roll

There may be an argument for either commissioning a videographer to create you some B-roll. If you can’t do that, you may want to devote some time for gathering footage you know you are likely to re-use. That time spent can very quickly pay for itself.

If you are out and about filming once you’ve posted your video take a few minutes to add your individual shots to the library. 

B-roll libraries

Depending on who you are, B-roll libraries could be an option. They can be quite generic and the danger would be to use some footage which clearly wasn’t from the area you are talking about. A few years ago, a designer for Birmingham City Council famously used a shot of Birmingham, Alabama in some literature to wide Brummie derision. This is a risk you need to be aware of if you go down this path.

They can also be quite pricey. 

A good tip would be to make a search for what content is available. 

Here’s an example of bus B-roll from Pixabay. It was found using the search ‘UK bus’. Closer examination indicates it was shot in Liverpool.

Here’s an example of some footage from Pixabay:

Under the terms and conditions of Pixabay, you don’t have to credit the website or even the person who uploaded it, although they say they encourage it. You can also give the uploader a few quid, too. Again, that’s optional.

Almost all footage in B-roll libraries are landscape so if you were looking to create in vertical you’d need to import the clip as a cutaway and layer it over so it overlaps in the edit.

I’ve had a look at different B-roll providers and made some test searches along UK, UK regional and UK rural options. The cost and quality varied.

Most libraries allow their assets to be downloaded and stored within your own libraries. Double check. 

Of course, you also need to be alive to the fact that a slick drone shot of a town centre at night you are using in a film to illustrate your council’s night time economy may lead to questions. Like ‘how much was that drone?’ 

External B-roll libraries I’ve looked at aren’t strong on people content. So, if you are making content for the NHS or social care there may not be anything down for you.

Lastly, be alert to the fact that some external libraries may have AI-generated footage. This may or may not be in line with your AI policy.


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BUCKLE UP: What does AI mean for the future of PR skills? New research is out

Okay, I’ll strike a bargain with you there’s some good news and bad news for the future skills needed in 2030.

First bad news, research from academics working with Microsoft has been published and it doesn’t look pretty for public relations. Its 24th on the list of 200,000 jobs most exposed to being replaced by AI.

Here’s the list of top 40:

So, what’s in the bottom 40 which are predicted to be the least likely to be replaced by AI? 

The answer to that is dredge operators, bridge and lock tenders, water treatment plant system operators, motor boat operators and foundry coremakers. In short, they are practical jobs that are not part of the knowledge economy.

Optimism

So, what optimism can be found from this?

In the cycle of shock, denial, bargaining and acceptance here’s denial.

Public relations is 24th on the chart. Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ only reached 24 when it was first released and that still has value.

The good news is that every study and forecast doesn’t appear bleak for communications people. The World Economic Forum’s forecasts for the labour market in 2025 not only doesn’t see decline it also sees some growth in the number of people employed.

Social media strategists are towards the top of this image with media and communications also growth. That’s shown by the blue column.

Communications doesn’t show as much growth as AI specialists but it’s heartening to see a more positive image here. Before you ask, jobs at the bottom are bank tellers and postal workers. You can see the full World Economic Forum Fuure of Jobs 2025 report is here.

The report shows a third of UK’s core skills will change by 2030. Compared to other countries, that’s quite tame. That figure is almost at the bottom of the league table for the amount of change expected.

Now for bargaining and acceptance

On the Microsoft chart, as an English & History graduate I don’t see how historians are second. This is a job of interrogating files, papers, documents, interviewing and evaluating.

So, could the research be wrong? 

As with any forecasting there are elements of prediction and guesswork. It may come to pass and it may not. This is also research that Microsoft have a big hand in. 

It’s also important to remember we are on a hype cycle with AI. Tech company Gartner came up with this way of looking at technology that sees new ideas followed by a peak of inflated expectations and then the fall into the trough of disillusionment. From that we can recover to the slope of enlightenment where we start to work out what’s usable and what’s not. After this, if we are lucky we can have the plateau of productivity.

Here it is visually:

This approach maps the dot.com bubble. At first, every start-up was going to change the world and then we realised it wouldn’t. Then we realised that Google and Amazon were really quite good. Then we hit the plateau of productivity.

UK Government talks of a £45 billion saving through AI trimming back six per cent of Government spending by harnessing AI. I’m not yet convinced by this. They are putting a lot of faith into hyped technology. Who knows if they are backing a winner or just boo,com.

Yet, this also leads into a third truth. With technology we often over-estimate what the short term will look like and then under-estimate the impact long term. This is known as Amara’s Law. 

So, what does the future look like?

To be optimistic, one thing that AI doesn’t have is lived experience, common sense and political nouse that public relations, particularly in the public sector, need to have. Many of the starter positions have long gone from comms teams. When I started, there was an employee working two and a half days a week scanning newspaper cuttings before circulating them to senior people. That went in the first wave of cuts following the Banking Crisis.

Yet, the public sector will only go as fast with AI as the public will let it. When I talk to police communicators, trust is the number one issue. Blow trust with a community and the police are in real trouble. At various points in history, when that goes a breakdown in law and order can take place. Think Toxteth, 1981 for example.

In short, the predicted pace of change does not factor in these very human variants.

The reality is that the world is changing rapidly and standing still isn’t going to work for many people. As communicators, we absolutely have to be prepared for it. 

Is the public sector ready for it? If I’m honest. I think many comms people would like it to go away. 

When I post AI content, it performs as third as well as that on more conventional comms. If you’ve read down to here, thank you. You could well be the people that find a future with AI. There are those who don’t still up that simply won’t.
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BBC TV WINS: The media landscape in Wales in 2025 

In Wales, BBC One remains the main source of news with Facebook in second place.

The social challenger to the news crown emerges in Ofcom’s breakdown for the Principality found in Ofcom’s Media Nations: Wales 2025 and Cyfryngau’r Genedl 2025: Cymru.

Overall, TV is a source for news for 60 per cent of the population of the country with social media second on 52 per cent, radio on 34 per cent and print newspapers 19 per cent.

The full table is here:

As with other parts of the UK, the figures underline the growing importance of social media as a whole. This is not new. But I’m not convinced all communications teams across Wales have invested staff time in the area.

From the league table, Welsh specific platforms that perform well are ITV Cymru Wales / ITV 1 which is in third place with 35 per cent and The Western Mail / Wales on Sunday with 13 per cent.

Elsewhere in the report

In 2024, the most watched TV show was the Gavin & Stacey: The Finale which was partly set in Barry, South Wales. 

Wales is a country of video watchers with the five hours and six minutes consumed daily the highest of any of the UK countries. Within this, the 50 minutes of video on demand was also highest in the UK. Over 65s are increasing their TV viewing. 

Also the highest in the UK, 88 per cent of the Principality connects their TV to the internet to allow access to Netflix, YouTube and other platforms.

YouTube is watched by 12 per cent of the county which is at the same rate as ITV channels. Unlike other countries, ‘how to’ videos are the most popular content with 41 per cent also watching YouTube Shorts. Short form video of less than 15 minutes is the most popular content with just one in 10 watching complete TV programmes uploaded to the platform.

Radio also performs strongly in Wales with 89 per cent of adults listening at some stage every week.

BBC Channels are watched by the most number of people per head of population with 72 per cent tuning in from Colwyn Bay to Cardiff and Bridgend to Bethesda. 

Internet connection is available to 96 per cent of homes. 

Eighty per cent of adults in Wales are ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ interested in news which focuses on the country.

I’ve blogged a summary for the UK here, Northern Ireland here and Scotland here.

You can find the full Ofcom Media Nations 2025 report here. 

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Creative commons credit: Spar Shop on the A5, Betws-y-Coed by Ian S.

TV & RADIO WIN: What the media landscape looks like in Northern Ireland in 2025 

In Northern Ireland, TV news has an unassailable lead as the most popular channel for news. 

BBC One with 42 per cent is the single most popular channel narrowly beating by one per cent UTV / ITV1.

Facebook is in the third place with 29 per cent.

The figures come from Media Nations 2025: Northern Ireland. 

For news, television as a whole reaches 64 per cent of the population beating radio stations and social media which are tied on 46 per cent each. Print media lags behind on 16 per cent.

Elsewhere in the report

In Northern Ireland, adults watch the most TV of any UK nation at two hours six minutes per day. 

Local radio out performs in the country. A total of 64 per cent pick up news from local radio which is twice the level of other parts of the UK. BBC local radio is listened to by 18 per cent and with commercial radio 44 per cent.

Superfast broadband is ubiquitous with 99 per cent of the population able to access this.

The largest TV audience in 2024 with 630,000 was The Grinch on Netflix.

Two-thirds of the population watch at least three minutes of YouTube at home but the country has the lowest rate of watching the platform – 35 per cent – in the UK. 

Adults in Northern Ireland are more likely to watch the news on TV than anywhere else in the UK. Sixty per cent watch in Belfast, Lisburn and Omagh compared to 51 per cent in England.

Podcast listening at 19 per cent is the lowest in the UK. 

You can find the full Ofcom Media Nations 2025 here. 

I’ve blogged a summary for the UK here, Wales here and Scotland here.


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Creative commons credit: The Book Stop, Omagh By Kenneth Allen. 

FACEBOOK FIRST: What the media landscape looks like in Scotland in 2025

Facebook has now overtaken BBC One in Scotland as the single most used place news is consumed.

That’s the surprise verdict of Ofcom’s Media Nations 2025: Scotland report  a detailed investigation into how media is consumed across the UK.

This, I have to say, is huge for public sector communicators. In 2013, just two per cent of the UK were getting their news from the Meta platform. In Scotland in 2025, this is now the largest single channel with 38 per cent taking news from the platform.

However, the BBC when counted across web, live TV, TV on demand and radio can still piece together the largest combined audience with 64 per cent.

There’s a couple of things comms teams can take from this. Firstly, public sector comms needs to put more focus on Facebook. Many people mistakenly think that it’s an inconvenient bolt on. It’s not. It’s where the Scottish audience is. It needs to be fully resourced.

I’ve blogged before on what content works best on Facebook in the public sector.

Here’s the data: 

The revelation, and yes, a newspaper word like that is fitting, comes as social media has climbed across the UK to the second most consumed media after video on demand. 

If you are wondering where printed news is, it’s at 20 per cent with TV as a whole 65 per cent. Radio is 42 per cent with social media in general 57 per cent.

Elsewhere in the table, STV /ITV 1 comes in third at 35 per cent with almost a quarter consuming BBC iPlayer just ahead of Sky News.

In Scotland, around one in ten are tuning into BBC Scotland, STV Player and a number of regional radio stations including Clyde 1, Forth 1, West Sound, Tay FM, Northsound and MFR.

Elsewhere in the report 

More people in Scotland watch YouTube at home than anywhere else in the UK. The figure of 44 minutes a day is the highest in the UK. 

The highest-rated TV programme in 2024 was the Scotland men’s team football game versus Switzerland, with 1.3 million viewers.

The connectivity gap has almost ended. The report shows 94 per cent have broadband at home.

YouTube viewing (14 per cent) is close to the amount of BBC watched at home (17 per cent). 

There is more interest in Scotland – 88 per cent – into news about their country than anywhere else in the UK. Almost nine in 10 were ‘very’ or ‘quite interested’. This is higher by eight per cent than Wales the next comparable nation. 

I’ve blogged a summary for the UK here, Wales here and Northern Ireland here.

You can find the full Ofcom Media Nations 2025 here. 


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Creative commons credit: David McMumm / Newsagents shop at corner of Harley St and Ibrox St.

DATA REVEALED: What media people in the UK are consuming in 2025 

Often times, it’s not the attention grabbing lines that are the most useful from Ofcom data and 2025’s Media Nations report is no exception.

I’ll talk about the findings around YouTube that got most attention shortly, but for me the most useful single table was the monthly reach of online and offline selected media activities.

It’s useful because it paints a broad picture of what content people are consuming on average across the UK.

This is it. I recommend you study it and save it. 

What media we consume in the UK in 2025

In short, the most popular content consumed by all ages across the nation is watching video on demand. That’s telly that we can catch-up with. That includes iPlayer, Channel 4, ITV Disney+ as well as a whole list of other fringe platforms regulated by Ofcom. That’s things like Dave, BFI Player as well as less August platforms like the Adult Channel. 

Overall, 85 per cent are watching video on demand. That’s considerably higher than the 67 per cent who watch live TV.

The data shows the need to recalibrate comms teams 

Social media is the second most consumed data in the UK with 84 per cent having used it at least once in the previous month. This is more than three times the number reading print newspapers or reaching what Ofcom call online news brands. That’s everything from a local Reach plc title to the BBC online. 

When I consider how often a team can be pointed resolutely at traditional media this data shows how outdated this concept is. Traditional media still has a role absolutely. The crisis posed by the car driving into the Liverpool FC trophy parade shows this. Responsible reporting of police announcement dampened down the potential for a flashpoint. But so many days of the year people are not moved to head to a news site as a destination over scrolling.

I’ve been making this observation for more than a decade and I’m not alone in this. It’s refreshing when this adjustment is made but all too many don’t. Planning, creating and posting effective social media should be a core skill in 2025. 

Radio is the perennial Cinderella platform

Yet again, radio makes an appearance high in the chart with 68 per cent listening on a radio set and 38 per cent listening to live radio online. Strong numbers. 

However, so much live radio is not something that public sector comms teams can easily tap into. Regional BBC radio and maybe community radio are where conversations can be had but elsewhere in the report shows around 15 per cent of the population are listening to regional stations.

The kind of audio younger people are consuming is online music enjoyed by almost two thirds of the wider population streaming YouTube, Spotify or another music streaming service. For younger people this rises to 90 per cent.

What this may flag up to the eagle eyed is the advertising value of reaching younger people through Spotify ads. 

Podcasting 

Keep an eye on podcasting but not too much of one. This is a national pastime rather than local with 35 per cent listening. Elsewhere in the report, under 34s are most likely to be listening to entertainment podcasts and over 35s are most drawn to news. If you have a nationally significant piece of news or some niche content this could work for you but this is not a well-trodden path. I’d love to see more. 

Your TV and YouTube 

Someone wise once said that things get really interesting when they get a bit boring when it comes to technology. YouTube is just that. It’s not new an exciting is it? But it is pulling in strong numbers. 

Much attention in the Ofcom press release was paid to the report’s revelation that YouTube is making inroads in people’s TV sets. Smart TVs connect to the web and can be watched easily. The overall figure has risen by 47 per cent from 14 minutes a day on average per UK adult to 21 minutes.

Overall, we are watching more TV with the figure now standing at 39 minutes, a rise of 13 per cent year-on-year. 

Again, there’s an opportunity here for some YouTube ads via Google. 

The strength and danger of broad figures

There’s something to be gained from broad brush figures which this blog features. There are elements of breaking it down for different age groups in the document and I’d encourage you to drill into the report of you need more. 

There are versions for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland too. I’ll blog about them seperately. 

You can find the full Ofcom Media Nations 2025 here. 

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Creative commons credit: Newsagent, King’s Parade, Cambridge.

HEADLINE NEWS: What you can learn from The Sun’s video strategy

A couple of months ago, I heard a senior executive from The Sun speak about how they’ve upended their approach to journalism.

Print was hardly mentioned and the priority is now the moving image.

On the one level, it’s not surprising but for someone who grew up with the aggressive tactics of the print-first tabloid it’s nothing short of astounding.

“Video is at the heart of the story process,” Will Payne Head of Digital at The Sun said at the event. “It’s our primary asset.”

It’s a line that stuck with me and I’ve kept a weather eye on what they’ve been producing.

The Sun of twenty years ago was a print-first monster whose newsroom and executives were mired in the phone hacking scandal. It was the title still not bought on Merseyside after their coverage of Hillsborough.

Prompted by the change of direction, here’s what public sector comms and PR people can take from this change of approach.

They have been open on how they have used video to transform their newsroom and have made video hugely important as part of their strategy. 

The hard numbers: print decline and online boom

In 2000, more than 3.6 million copies of The Sun were bought daily and the newspaper had declined to just over a million print sales when they pulled out of the ABC circulation audit in 2020.

In 2024, videos made by The Sun were seen by 1.7 billion people. That’s an astounding figure.

Here’s where they are coming from:

YouTube: 6 million subscribers

Facebook: 3.7 million followers

TikTok: 3.2 million followers

X: 2 million followers

Instagram: 500,000 followers

Strategy: Going to where the eyeballs are

Early newspapers were puzzled as to what to do with the internet. In 2025, this is not about driving traffic to their website.That’s a huge takeaway that the public sector can have for free.

Instead, The Sun wants to be in people’s timelines as opposed to be in news stands. This is about taking then news to people themselves.

This is absolutely a lesson to learn. Driving traffic as a tactic ended some years ago. Why? Because the algorithm suppresses posts with links. As I’ve said repeatedly, tell the story on the platform. If news titles like The Sun can get this, so can we all.

Style: Away from tabloid 

The Sun is no longer tabloid-first. It wants to be vertical on someone’s timeline. To state the obvious for someone who bought newspapers in the 1980s, there is no page three.

The great skill of the printed Sun was skilful writing. The sharpness is now into editing and creating hooks. Again, this is a skill to learn from.

YouTube: specialised channels

The Sun is the largest news outlet on YouTube. You can see why they have taken this path. Views can be monetised. That’s not really an option for the public sector.

But what is an idea to learn from is that they don’t just have one channel they have several.

For example, there are 320,000 subscribers to the Sun Sport channel and 150,000 to the Sun Fabulous magazine. These sub-channels cater for different interests.This echoes the Daily Mail approach to WhatsApp. They don’t have one single channel there but instead have multiple special interest channels.

It makes sense. If you have one interest, you’re just not interested in other things. Many council YouTube channels, for example, run their live meetings as well as everything else. Who cares? 

Instagram: The white hook box

The white box is the hook on the screen that pulls in viewers and The Sun are sharp at this.

In this case, it flags up the death of Brummie singer Ozzy Osbourne.

This is absolutely something that should be transferable to any organisation looking to make video content. It makes people stop scrolling and the best are a tease or an encouragement to watch more.

TikTok: Journos as podcasters

Go onto a video first platforms and you’ll often find teaser clips from radio programmes or podcasts. These can be 30-second clips with the juiciest soundbite. They work, too. A short clip with Stoke fan Nick Hancock on just how bad Kurt Wimmer was as a signing reeled me in to listen to an hour long podcast.

In the past, podcasters were happy to film themselves in their lockdown spare rooms. Now, it often looks as though they’re investing in a swanky studio. The Sun have taken this idea and run with it. 

So, here’s Sun journalists talking as though they were on a podcast:

@thesun

What Chris Martin REALLY thinks of the Coldplay gig jumbotron scandal

♬ original sound – The Sun

It’s an interesting idea that I can working for what was once called Fleet Street. The problem for the public sector is who do you put in front of the camera? Politicians often aren’t that great, to be honest. A museum demonstrator talking about the new exhibition? Fine. But I don’t think comms people are the right people. 

Besides, kitting out a studio isn’t the right look for many organisations facing tough budgets.

Overall, we should absolutely be looking to see how news organisations are using the internet to talk to people. 
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Creative commons credit: Newsagents and Refreshments Kiosk, Keighley Station by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0.

NUMBERS UP: How to make that big number stick… make it relatable

There’s a task I run in a workshop I run where we de-construct a news package that tells its own lesson.

An environmental campaiigner talks about how she went scuba diving in the 1950s off the coast of Bali and the sea was crystal clear. Now? It’s full of rubbish.

So far so good, but she pulls out two facts to illustrate what she is doing to the planet. We dump 12 million tonnes of plastic into the sea, she opens. That’s the equivalent of a truckful of waste every minute, she adds.

What stat is most powerful?, I ask.

It’s always the truck a minute. 

Why? Because it’s more relatable. We can see the picture of the truck dumping rubbish into the sea and if you were brought up correctly we are slightly morally offended. 

There is something uniquely effective about making something relatable.

I was reminded about this walking to work this morning listening to the Rest is Entertainment podcast. Apparently, the new Grand Theft Auto game has cost £2 billion to develop. That’s more expensive than the Grand Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai.

Now, working in and around the public sector not everything can be compared to a Middle Eastern property development. 

So what can? 

An Olympic-sized swimming pool is 2,500 square metres.

A football pitch is 90 metres long and at least 45 metres wide.

The Royal Albert Hall is 99,000 square metres of volume.

You can park 25,000 double-deckers in Wembley Stadium.

But real stats can also paint a picture.

More than 120,000 pints of lager were sold at Glastonbury 2025.

At Wimbledon, 1.9 million strawberries are eaten every year.

To quote Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, one death is a tragedy and a million a statistic.

What’s your favourite comparison stat?

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Creative commons credit: Wembley stadium: the old stadium from the stands by Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0.

BREAKING APP: Nextdoor is putting a toe in news and what this means for the public sector 

That curates egg of a social platform Nextdoor is branching into news reporting.

For those who don’t know, the platform is a community-focused platform that looks to bring people together to share updates about their area.

While it has the whiff of a Facebook group about it Nextdoor users add their address to allow the app to bring them only local messages. 

Now with added news 

In a new development, Nextdoor has gone through a redesign and they have now in the process of adding a number of news providers to people’s feed. 

In the past, Nextdoor has not allowed news organisations the chance to create a page in the way they can create a Facebook page, for example. As a result, when news links have been shared this has been done on an ad-hoc basis by users themselves.

UK Press Gazette talks of Nextdoor have added news as an option to their existing site. Checking this today this hasn’t reached my corner of the internet. However, as the West Midlands does not have a news partnership it makes sense not to update until they do.

Globally, 3,500 news sources have been added. However, an extensive search has revealed only three so far announced in the UK.

In July 2025, they are: 

London – The Standard (Lebedev) 

Kent – Kent Messenger (Iliffe) 

Cambridgeshire – Cambridge Independent (Iliffe) 

Lincolnshire – Grantham Journal (Iliffe) 

In the weeks after launch, Nextdoor say that 80 local news pages have been added. I’d be keen to list them if and when they are available.

Nextdoor’s three new areas on the app

According to a Nextdoor press release there will now be three areas… News, Alerts and Faves.

For news, “trusted outlets are now reaching neighbours directly through the platform, bringing community-focused local journalism to neighborhoods everywhere,” the press release says. From the confirmed list that’s not strictly true just yet.

For alerts, the statement says the alerts will be from council, police or fire and rescue and will allow conversation during critical events. Alerts are already available as partnership agreement, as far as I know. 

If that’s Nextdoor trying to push into the highly competitive WhatsApp group and Facebook group crisis comms landscape then good luck.

For Faves, interestingly Nextdoor refers to 30 per cent of the platform already being local service recommendations. Ai will be used to give a summary response on the best coffee shop based on seven years of data. Great to be faster but so much can change in seven years which can make the answers inaccurate. This is launching in the US first before being pushed to the UK at a ‘later stage.’

What this means for public sector comms

While the idea sounds great, an initial launch of three titles will not uproot many trees just yet. Starting small before rolling out makes sense. But The Standard in London has shown no interest in covering local news in London boroughs for decades so it’s also not likely to make much difference.

Three of the 30 Iliffe titles also won’t make that much difference. The Standard in London doesn’t cover community news. However, to cut some slack, this is a toe in the water as opposed to a wholesale reinvention.

But if the scheme is successful, this could increase visible scrutiny of the public sector which has shown to be healthy for the democratic process. It would also mean that media relations becomes a bit more important day-to-day as opposed to in an emergency. 

What Nextdoor already is

One of the great things about Nextdoor is the partnership agreement they can offer to public sector organisations. If they sign-up their content is pushed straight into people’s feed. This is an absolute God send to an organisation struggling with algorithms.

Not only that, but people can send messages ward-by-ward as well as town, city or county and that’s powerful.

What Nextdoor is not so good at 

I mentioned the Curate’s Egg at the top of this blog. In a nutshell, the downside is the data on who uses the platform isn’t great. Ofcom in a single line described Nextdoor’s audience as being over 55s. But Ofcom don’t drill into the platform’s audience in the way they do with other platforms. 

That’s not Nextdoor’s problem, of course.

There is some data that appears to show that more than 10 per cent of over 55s get their local updates on local government from Nextdoor. This is sizable without being gamechanging and the figures lag behind their main rival which are Facebook groups.

Nextdoor are not particularly great at sharing numbers, either. The cynic in me says this is because the numbers are not for shouting about. But as a consultant this does leave me stuck when advising on what channels to use. 

After publication, Nextdoor got in touch to say that as a publicly traded company, most of our stats were global. However, they claim 10 million users, with one in four in the UK and one in three households in London.

The only acid test for public sector people is to experiment and keep a close eye on numbers.

The development with news providers means that the public sector may soon more widely have a conflicting voice. It’s not clear if comms teams will be able to even see them in their partnership agreement dashboards. 

One to keep an eye on. 
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Creative commons credit: By Hampstead High Street, 1988 by Ben Brooksbank, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130693367

This has been updated after publication to clarify that Nextdoor have updated their current platform rather than build a new one and also updating the press release link. I’ve also updated the 80 news platforms available.

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