A chance conversation a few years ago led me to explore Facebook groups and detail. What I found out showed how critically important they are to public sector communicators.
Firstly, why Braintree? Because it’s a useful mix of the urban of the new town built in the 1960s and also the patchwork of rural villages that surround it.
It’s a district of 150,000 and since that first piece of research I’ve gone back in subsequent years to map the role Facebook groups play in the district. That is apart from 2023. I think I was doing other things.
Here’s the 2025 research.
In 2025, the population of Braintree is155,000 people.
Across the district there are 569 Facebook groups across the area. Everything from sports teams, clubs, campaigns, village noticeboards and pet pages.
The overall number sometimes fluctuates. In early years, very small groups with a handful of people were unearthed by Facebook’s search engine. Search now finds the larger and more established groups.
For example, the village of Ashen with 300 residents has just one Facebook group with just over 300 members.
In larger places there are more Facebook groups. So, in Gestingthorpe where more than 400 live there are seven groups including the Gestingthorpe Village Facebook group with 600 members.
In the bright lights of Braintree itself, 48 Facebook groups can be found with almost 200,000 members combined. There are a number of groups from Braintree Hub with 30,000 members, Braintree and Surrounding (Buy and Sell) almost 8,000 with the local history group Braintree as it was with 10,000 members.
Across the whole of Braintree district there are almost 600 groups with a combined membership of more than 825,000.
If you are a nerd about this, all this means that are roughly 5.5 Facebook group memberships per head of population.
Sceptics would reasonably point out that some people who are members of groups don’t live in the area. Maybe they moved away but still want to check in on what’s going on. Maybe their parents live there.
But the figure is sizable enough to be a yardstick of how important Facebook groups are in a community.
The critical significance of Facebook groups
Newspapers and newsrooms are in established decline and they have moved away from the business model which they ran successfully for more than a century.
Advertising has moved online, Reach plc websites have moved away from covering the local area in the frantic search for clicks. Reach’s Black Country Live Facebook page near me may promise Black Country stories but delivers entertainment news and stories from across the UK almost 50 per cent of the time.
There are two main reasons why Facebook groups are significant to public sector communicators.
The first is Ofcom data that shows they are the prime route to find council news in their area.
In other words, Facebook groups are not only where people are but it’s also where people are finding out about what’s going on locally.
The figures here are for local government, but I’d argue police, NHS and fire and rescue will be close behind.
The second reason why Facebook groups are significant is because they are still taking up a big chunk of people’s Facebook timelines.
A couple of weeks ago I used this table published by Meta to show that links from Facebook pages are still not cutting through.
Just 1.3 per cent of people’s timelines are taken up with a page with a link. That’s vanishingly small.
But if you also look at the column to the left you’ll see 14.4 per cent of people’s timelines are from Facebook groups which don’t have links.
That’s a big chunk of attention.
Some Facebook groups are going to be good and some are not.
We have passed the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 attack on London and the day rightly was spent reflecting and allowing those involved to speak.
On the day, there were some powerful testimonies from survivors. For example, the TikTok clip of the woman whose life was saved by an off-duty police officer who was reunited for the first time in years was pure emotion.
But also on LinkedIn, posts from former Metropolitan Police comms people recalling their day.
The attacks killed 52 people and injured almost 800 people.
In 2025, the 7/7 attack found me by dropping into my timeline.
But in 2005, there was no timeline to drop into. Mobile phones were for phone calls and texting and when an emergency happened people’s attention turned to TV and radio. So it was for me twenty years ago in a council press office. We followed on BBC News 24 as the timeline moved from ‘power surge’ to ‘explosion’ and then grimly to ‘terror attack.’
What I didn’t know then was that day was a true watershed moment in communications.
For the first time, the internet overtook the newsroom as the prime source of breaking news.
It was the early crowdsourced web – Wikipedia – which emerged as the most updated source. Breaking news was not being set by newsrooms but by people on the street with camera phones. Images were coming from survivors first not TV news crews. The primary images of 9/11 four years before had come from TV news. In 2005, they started to come from people in the Tube carriages.
Let me explain.
The timeline
It’s striking to compare how 7/7 played out to how things now routinely play out. Back then there was the luxury of time.
8.50am – Simultaneous explosions.
9.15am – Metropolitan Police announced an ‘incident’ prompting London radio radio stations to report ‘incidents’ on the Tube.
9.28am – The first mention of the incident on the Wikinews arm of Wikipedia.
10.18am – The Wikipedia page that captures the incident is created with the first of thousands of edits.
10.30am – Gold Control starts at Metropolitan Police signifying a major incident.
10.40am – Government sources confirm 20 dead.
11.10am – Met Police confirm a co-ordinated terror attack.
11.15am – Met Police begin a live press conference.
User generated content
Mobile phones in 2005 could take grainy pictures which could then be emailed and texted. Tube passenger Adam Stacey takes an image of himself trapped in the Tube tunnel with dust, light and other passengers. He sends it to Eliot Ward who then uploads it to Wikipedia and to the internet. He adds a creative commons licence allowing re-use. It becomes a defining image of the incident. Today, it looks grainy and amateurish. Then, it was a glimpse into the future just as cannon balls on a post-battle in Crimea had been in 1855.
How did people get their breaking news in 2005?
In 2005, traditional news channels reigned supreme. TV and radio were the prime sources although BBC News and ITN were taking the challenge from the emerging Sky News.
Martin Blunt was a Sky reporter in 2005 and 20 years on he retraced his step that day in this news package. You can se it here:
What’s striking is the way the news was reported. Unattributed sources shaped the Sky News package including the suggestion that this could be a suicide bomb – or multiple bombs.
The 7/7 attack saw a surge in visits to traditional websites with more than a billion page views across the day on the BBC website. The BBC hosted a ‘Your Photo’s page which captured first hand images. Blogs started to be published mapping the news in realtime.
When updates landed they were often on Wikipedia first
In the next 24-hours, there were more than 2,000 edits from 800 volunteers to update the July 7 attack page. Even a week later the page was still being updated 100 times a day.
The page also changed its title from ‘London Underground power surge incident’ to ‘London Underground explosions’ as the information clarified. Malicious edits were also an issue, Wikipedia’s account sets out with a core team of editors fighting to maintain standards.
All this is significant because the site was being updated faster than other online news sources. Also significant, The New York Times and Newsday began quoting Wikipedia as a source of their reporting. This was unprecedented.
Yet, for all the firsts that had been created, it is worth noting that a quarter of a million people saw the updates on the day. The days of social media taking over with millions of impressions were yet to come. In the wake of the Southport murders and riots, there were more than 27 millionb impressions on Twitter alone of misinformation.
This was the first major citizen journalist UK incident
As The Guardian reported five years after 7/7, this was the first realtime incident that the UK saw through the breaking news prism of citizen reporting, the internet and early camera phones.
It was a new kind of story. Not in the sense of what happened, which was thoroughly and depressingly as anticipated, but in the way it was reported and disseminated. The mobile phone photographers, the text messagers and the bloggers – a new advance guard of amateur reporters had the London bomb story in the can before the news crews got anywhere near the scene.
The blogging platform LiveJournal also became a hub for news and personal experience. This new platform in its own way was soon to be replaced by Facebook and in particular Twitter in the London riots seven years later.
It’s interesting to read in The Guardian piece that SMS and email was the main way that the BBC got updates of the incident. There’s no surprise when you realise that SMS was the main way that people communicated with each other in 2005. Mobile networks like 4G were a long way off.
Not only that but early photo sharing site Flickr was the place online where people shared images. The site holds a place in my own heart as being the place where the Walsall Flickr group coalesced. These early social photographers would come along to several photo walks I organised.
Camera phones
The grainy image at the top of the piece was taken by a Tube passenger Adam Stacey who was trapped between Kings Cross and Russell Square. Titled ‘Trapped Underground’ the image was taken with an early camera phone and sent to his friend Alfie Dennan who published it on moblog with a creative commons licence allowing it to be reused.
Looking back its clear that people were starting to realise that a survivor could also be a reporter
The BBC itself had 50 images within the hour and almost 1,000 by the end of the day texted and emailed by people who were very often eyewitnesses.
To today’s eye, the images are low grade. They are pictures. They are not video. Yet looking back on accounts from the time its clear the surprise of commentators. Looking back five years later The Guardian commented:
“The mobile phone photographers, the text messagers and the bloggers – a new advance guard of amateur reporters – had the story in the can before the news crews got anywhere near the scene.”
Conclusion
The 7/7 attack was not the first heinous terror attack in Britain but was the very first major incident where eyewitnesses with mobile phones were shaping journalism and the first draft of history.
Just a few years later, Clay Shirky’s ‘Here Comes Everybody’ would paint an optimistic picture of how the wisdom of crowds could be connected through the social web. In 2025, the driver is not how to tap into crowdsourced content but rather how to protect people from the disinformation it can bring.
In 2005, there were traces of disinformation and the need to gatekeep. Wikipedia editors held the line that they would not post information without it first being verified. But across the available channels, there were no far-right or Russian commentators online looking to turn people against a minority.
Looking back to 2005 and you can see the future of communications emerging. This was not a moment where switch was flicked and everyone looked online for eyewitness accounts and hot takes. But it did signal a profound change that communicators are still struggling with.
The future of communications arrived in 2005. It showed that bystanders would shape the narrative and bad actors would also try and influence the story. It showed the speed of the internet was faster than more traditional ways of communicating.
It also showed that public sector comms teams needed to be faster, clearer and more accurate and were one voice in a sea of noise.
When LinkedIn was taken over by Microsoft a wag joked at how they hoped they wouldn’t change that fun, freewheeling spirit that the platform had.
The joke was, of course, that LinkedIn was the dull older brother of the socials where he hung out with accountants and spoke about his career a lot.
However, for a long time that dull older brother has quietly became a calm haven from the river of abuse that other networks have you wade in. It’s also a place I get a big chunk of my insights and reading from.
Besides, with the world turning upside down many people are keeping one eye on LinkedIn for career development.
If you missed it, here’s a recap on my research on what makes the most effective LinkedIn content for a public sector page. The top ranking thing is a carousel of images.
For LinkedIn pages, advice, help, celebrating staff and opportunities work best.
For your own profile, something helpful or insightful always goes down well. You’ll find Linkedin much more work-focussed than other platforms. But don’t worry, TikTok is great for recipes, the BBC Sport app covers breaking scores and Facebook groups can be good for local news.
As a platform, LinkedIn has been innovating and I thought it an idea to recap on some of the developments for 2025. Some are tactical and some are strategic. Some are for you and some for your page.
#1 Bring out your people
In 1999, the groundbreaking ClueTrain Manifesto was published and was a map for social media well before Mark Zuckerburg even went to college. It spoke about how some people from companies were cool online and if they didn’t have a tight reign they’d be among the people – not brands – they’d turn for answers.
The people we turn to from LinkedIn from LinkedIn are right there in front of us. So, Heather Timmerman Moller is the named face who wrote the update on how video ads can be made through Canva. You can find her online here.
It’s not the corporate blog, there’s a name.
So, that’s the first lesson. Have your senior people use their own profiles if they are happy to do so to share the news.
This makes sense. If the senior accountant is talking about the new accountancy system the organisation is using to help save time and money they are doing so to their audience of accountants. That network will be far stronger with accountants than the corporate page will have. By all means share it to the corporate page too. But that’s not where accountants will be.
What people does your organisation have?
“Say it louder for the people at the back credibility travels through trusted voices.” – Wensy A, creative thinker at LinkedIn.
#2 Video, video, video, video
LinkedIn has been comparatively late to the party with video. It was only in 2017 that the platform allowed video to be uploaded natively.
For a LinkedIn ad, the video should be less than 30-seconds. But interestingly, the non-ad video dropped into your timeline can be maybe up to two minutes, they say. That’s also interesting. It steers away from the 15-minute ego stroke of someone senior talking at length without much purpose.
So, if you are looking after a corporate page, the senior person’s soundbite can work. If it’s you, your own video can work well. It’s something I keep meaning to do myself.
LinkedIn themselves have published some video best practices. This is hugely useful when this happens. It’s a much firmer peg to hang a hat on. There’s something revolutionary in the notes. Using a mic for sound, subtitles and 9:16 – portrait shaped video – are all good notes.
On top of that there’s some technical specs. This image is especially useful as it shows you the ‘safe’ areas where its okay to add text and other things.
LinkedIn’s own 2024 Marketing Benchmarking report said that they’d be expecting a quarter of people would be using AI in 2025. I’d say that was behind the curve. Don’t feel obliged to use AI on LinkedIn but do be obliged to learn safely.
For me, there’s the idea creation that AI can bring and the content creation. For content creation, that’s audio, video, music and images. I’m not sure that that’s where public sector AI use should be right now. I think right now, the public are hesitant about AI and while they don’t mind seeing AI help diagnose cancer more effectively there are other things they are less keen on.
Using AI to help sub-title the video clip you may post to LinkedIn would be a genuine timesaver but once again, do check against delivery. AI can’t do regional accents or place names very well.
On the platform itself, LinkedIn has offered some AI tools to help recruiters narrow down the right people. There’s also some AI ad tools. Should you just go ahead and use them anyway? I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Experiment on what the tools may be but for me, don’t use them in anger until you have a policy.
This isn’t from LinkedIn itself, rather my observation of its use in the public sector. This came about from delivering a session to NHS people. They got the importance of using LinkedIn but they just didn’t want to say the wrong thing. So, they went away and developed a sensible use flow chart.
On the chart was advice not to endorse a particular product unless senior people were fine with it. They also wouldn’t say anything about a joint project unless the other people in the project were okay. However, they could talk about industry trends and observations in the abstract.
#5 Extra tools for pages
While I’ve blogged a lot about encouraging people in the organisation to use LinjkedIn you may also like to know that Premium Company Pages launched last year cost about £50 a month to use. They give bits of marginal additional functionality like a list of people who have seen your page and an AI-powered writing assistant that I’m not mad keen on.
You can already see the absolute basics with the LinkedIn creator pages which is the ABC of content creation.
#6 Live Events
You have the ability to create an event through your LinkedIn page. For me, this is the most under used tool on the whole of the site.
If you are looking to explore these the best tip would be to go and register for some to see how they work and see how the can be improved. The best live events are ones which are created with LinkedIn in mind. So, in other words a 30-40 minute chat on a particular subject with the ability to ask a question. The LinkedIn events page is useful to help you with this.
Failing that, if you are planning a conference or similar event then adding the date and time to LinkedIn along with a sign-up form is the answer.
#7 How often to post
If you are not used to LinkedIn and maybe you are exploring it in detail for the first time spend some time on the platform first. Scroll, read and see what you can learn. As you get to know the language of the platform you’ll see how it all works.
Think about commenting on a post first. That’s straightforward. You can add to a discussion or just say ‘thank you.’
I’m never that keen on suggesting the number of times to post per week. If its good enough then post it. You’ll get a sense of if its good enough because you’ll get feedback from comments and likes. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work first time. It’s called a stream for a reason. The stream passes and new things come down towards you. Tomorrow is another day.
This is your quarterly reminder that yes, Facebook still hates it when you put links into your post.
Data for the first three months of 2025 has been published by Meta that show that a meagure 1.3 per cent of people’s timelines were taken up with posts with links.
However, there is a bit of a comeback for content from pages without links. It now stands at 12.7 per cent. That’s almost as much as the long-favoured Facebook groups content.
This compares to a rock bottom 0.0 per cent of people’s Facebook timelines that had pages content in early 2024.
So, in short, there’s oxygen for your Facebook page but not really if you post a link. Even Meta themselves have begun to advise posting in the comments.
A third of content comes from an AI selection based on your viewing, scrolling and engaging habits. This is classed as ‘unconnected.’ It’s Facebook’s idea of a ‘For You’ page where content is selected for you on what you’ve been engaging with. This explains the midweek recipe idea from a recipe group after you’ve been complaining about the lack of cookery ideas, for example.
One of the great things when something is new is that you get innovation in the most unexpected places.
For example, the Arts Council have published a new resource that can be adapted by any organisation looking to develop how they use an AI policy.
While you’re reading this your brain may saying incredulously: ‘The Arts Council? How can they help me exactly? Don’t they pay for opera?
That’s the joy of what they’ve produced. Sure, they’ve made a ‘Responsible AI at Arts Council England’ resource that shows what their AI policy is and what their workings out were. Tidy.
But what really catches my eye is the Responsible AI Practical Toolkit they’ve published alongside it. This seven step workbook acts as a breadcrumb trail from hesitant first step through to having something really robust and well thought through on your desk. Huge credit to Kate Hughes for spotting this and sharing it.
Runners have couch to 5K and I think the AI equivalent has been produced. I think you’ll like it.
What the AI Practical Toolkit does
There are seven stages to the process and each one has a handy pdf for your to download and follow.
They are:
First step. Starting the AI Conversation
I love that they have identified that pressure to come up with a policy can lead you to cut and paste someone else’s. While there is no doubt that the UK Government AI Playbook should be revered, framed and placed above the mantlepiece your organisation may need to factor in some other things.
What’s really lovely is a set of questions to ask to start the ball rolling.
Are you already using AI tools?
If so, what tools are you using?
What excites you?
What concerns you?
The secret sauce to this may well be that it looks to bring bright people along. When social media was new, these used to be called the militant optimists. Opening the door for discussion to these people can only be good. Just as good is asking the views of people who are inherently concerned about AI.
Some national organisations have produced guidance that feels more top down than anything and I wonder if that’s the best way forward. The wisdom of the crowd can still sometimes be a positive force.
Second step. Internal stakeholder mapping
And here, a form that asks several more questions that includes these
Who has concerns?
Who may block the project?
Who has decision making authority?
Asking who can block and who can make decisions seems so obvious but its striking how rarely this is done. A group of people agreeing in a meeting is a taxi-full of positivity when the organisation is Regimental or Division sized. Spot the issues now and you could do something with it.
Third step. Developing an AI policy
There is a saying that perfection is the enemy of progress.
In this part of the Arts Council approach, the advice is agreeably relaxed.
When developing an AI Policy, it is important to identify its scope. Your first policy does not need to cover all potential future uses of these technologies, nor does it need to be a definitive text.
The pressure is off.
Fourth step. Risk List
Now, this I also love. Maybe, it should be called the ‘AI tools list’ rather than ‘Risk list’ but this is the place they suggest a Red? Don’t use, Amber? Proceed with caution and green it’s been checked and you are fine to use it.
What this does well is create a workable list that people in the organisation can turn to. A recent list of tools has 14,000 AI tools marketed at marketing people. That’s in keeping for AI being on the hype cycle and can’t be medium term sustainable.
Fifth step. Responsible AI checklist
Now the green light has been given, here’s a checklist on how to use tools in the wild. That’s a really good approach.
Fifth step: AI Pilot Project Management Template
And we’re away…
This now keeps things on track and keeps tabs on who is in charge and what they are doing.
Seventh step: Delivering a Successful AI Pilot Project
This set of steps captures what is working and what isn’t so the rest of the organisation can learn.
Make sure managers in the business area are on board AI pilot projects are likely to encounter blockers and may attract differing opinions from colleagues. Having senior-level support from the relevant business area is vital to keeping things moving.
Why this is good
It’s quite clear that AI will have far ranging uses and benefits. But in 2025, there is nervousness and the public sector can’t perform like it is a Californian start-up. Nor should it. It is answerable to the people it serves and they should be brought along.
Organisations need to share their workings out with the public. So many pieces of AI guidance talk about the need for transparency. If your part of the public sector is being transparent and having open conversations it is picking the date and time of where AI will be discussed. Failure to do that is slowly and surely building a path to the phone ringing and you having an hour to debunk sometimes wild accusations.
I’ve had a great many conversations with people whose organisation has not tackled many of these steps. To my mind, it doesn’t make sense to release a tool like Copilot without there appearing to be either a policy or a discussion about one.
While the document doesn’t directly stress public transparency that the public sector needs the act of gathering information is a valuable approach. While this Arts Council document is for their sector the bright person can lean across the garden fence and take some lessons. I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS.
Interesting things are happening with video in 2025, the algorithm loves them even more and they are getting slightly longer.
When I first started to help deliver video skills training back in 2014, the landscape was emerging. MySpace was still in Ofcom’s top 10 list of social channels and LinkedIn sniffily wouldn’t even let you post video.
Fast forward to 2025 and all the social channels are pushing video strongly. Why? Because the more time you spent watching and scrolling on a platform is more time you spend on that platform. More time on a platform means you are more attractive to advertisers.
It’s getting longer
One observation about optimum lengths is that they are getting slightly longer. They are also getting more platform-specific. Over the last few years, a short form portrait video like TikTok and Reels had an optimum length of 15 to 20 seconds.
In the 2025 figures, that’s lengthened. The social insider blog has some good data on video lengths. For this table, I’ve used that and other sources.
So, optimum lengths for TikTok is around 30 seconds with the healthwarning that TikToks over 60-seconds are also working well. For Instagram Reels its around 30 sconds while it is 90-seconds for Facebook Reels.
The difference between the lengths of two Reels is intriguing.
These numbers are definitely to take into account when you are looking to shoot content.
Don’t make a video make a TikTok, Reel, Short, YouTube clip…
The early advice from TikTok was not to make a video but a TikTok. It’s a great line which basically advises to make something bespoke for the platform. That advice is nailed on for all the platforms.
But filmmakers shouldn’t use the optimum length as the only yardstick. If its good enough its long enough. Don’t pad things out just for the sake of it. Besides, there’s always the opportunity to make more than one video.
I’m an absolute sucker for emails with good titles.
I subscribe to ‘Blocked and Reported’ mainly for the name and I wish I’d had the foresight to call my blog ‘Dan is Writing…’ back in the day when I started it.
One that I’m particularly fond of is ‘Link in Bio’ a newsletter by Rachel Karten an American blogger who works in the brands social media field. It’s not always useful to the work I do with the public sector but occasionally there are some really good turns of phrase or insight.
In a recent email she used the headline ‘Fewer, better.’
This describes a trend away from pumping out a prescribed amount of content everyday and being more selective.
Rachel wrote: “I couldn’t escape conversation about “fewer, better” this quarter. Brands are no longer wanting to play the quantity game on social platforms. Instead, they are focusing on ways to create smarter, more intentional content—even if that means fewer posts going up.”
This absolutely articulates something I’ve been finding from social media reviews over the past 18-months.
Don’t aim for a target, aim for high standards.
Anyone can do this but it will take some time every month to look at your insights. What’s working well? What kind of content is that? But also, what’s not working well? The data has pointed clearly that links in content get strangled by the algorithm. If you are feeling particularly cute maybe post some content with a link and then capture the data. You can then use that data to educate the organisation about what good looks like.
“But the chief executive will expect to see that thing we’ve always done.”
“No, they’ll like it better if it works,” is the reply you’ll be able to give backed with data.
One of the striking things from a UK Government survey earlier this year was a word cloud in which the largest word was ‘scary.’
Even advocates of it, and I’d include myself in that, have moments where I find myself blindsided by something. But that’s to be expected, isn’t it? Any innovation has moments of excitement and worry.
So, with that in mind, I’d thought I’d write something around what a public sector comms person needs to know about audio and AI.
One other factor for writing this is that so much stuff out there are generic AI think pieces. They are from the tech press, academia, the sector or geeks. Nothing wrong with that, but they don’t have the public sector filter that has to be layered on. What can be used? What can’t be used safely?
Some basic AI terms
As with any field, there’s some jargon with this.
Artificial Intelligence – or AI – is the ability of computers to carry out tasks normally done by humans.
Generative AI is the ability of AI systems to come up with images, text, video, code or ideas. It does this because it can draw upon vast amounts of knowledge to help it make rapid decisions.
Large Language Models – or LLMs – like Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude or Meta AI, are generative AI tools that can help you produce new content. They are given vast amounts of data to base their decisions on.
Avatar. This is a human-like head and shoulders who can deliver through video the message you want to give.
That’s the jargon, here’s some things that public sector people need to factor in.
What public sector people need to bear in mind
Trust. Working with police the number one issue for them is not ‘can we’ but ‘should we?’
Trust is hard earned and easily lost. Right now, people are suspicious of AI and are not totally won over by it. But drill into that and it’s clear that it depends on what AI is being used for. Data from the Ada Lovelace Foundation & Alan Turing Foundation survey in 2025, shows that almost 90 per cent of people in the UK are happy at using AI for cancer diagnosis, for example. The survey shows we are least happy about mental health chatbots with about a third fine with it.
Be open and transparent. The UK Government AI playbook is a magnificent document which I recommend everyone read. In it, transparency is essential. Tell people that you are using it and how you are using it. The Scottish Government, for example, has a webpage that sets out what tools are being used and how.
Have a policy. Right now, it often feels like the Wild West with AI being used without too much in the way of oversight. Having that policy for your organisation. If needed, cut and paste huge swathes of the UK Government playbook.
GDPR. This is absolutely critical. How you use personal data is very much your responsibility. If you want to add someone to an email list you need their permission. You need to tell people exactly what you’ll do.
Information governance. This is how a public sector org looks after data legally, ethically and securely. Unless you know how the unpublished data you are uploading is being stored don’t do it.
The three potential areas where AI is used in public sector comms
AI can have uses in many places across the organisation you work for.
Explaining what service areas are doing with AI. For example, NHS Grampian has been leading on an AI trial which sees AI being used to help consultants diagnose breast cancer. The trial showed diagnosis times reduced from 14 days to three and accuracy improved. Being able to explain this to the outside world demands a basic knowledge of AI for public sector comms.
Idea generation. For public sector comms, a recent survey I carried out showed 76 per cent of public sector comms using it for this purpose. That’s the largest category and beat spell check and grammar into second place.
Content generation. This leads to creating content be that words, images, video or audio.
Okay, so how about audio?
This is where the impressive website blurb hits the reality of working in the public sector.
Meeting note takers. Big red klaxon. Unless the tool you are using is secure, don’t use a meeting notetaker. At a stroke this knocks out a number of AI tools. The meeting notetaker which is silently sitting in on a serious case review can have the data it is collecting silently accessed. Don’t do it.
Chatbots. The comms team may be responsible for the website and chatbots here may be relevant. In particular, users could use their voice to chat with the bot installed on the website. This is fine, but where would the data be going? Is it secure? An insecure off-the-shelf tool may look great on its website but could land you in trouble.
A generic voice in video or your web content. There are several platforms that can give you a generic voice or avatar. HeyGen and veed.io are a couple. TikTok for a long time has had this in its editing app. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I’ve seen the occasional use of these tools for public-facing video content and I’ve never been wholly convinced by them. A Home Counties voice to deliver a message to people in the Black Country is not the best option, for me.
Translations. There are websites that assure you they can translate your video into different languages. Right now, avoid them unless you have them checked against delivery by a native speaker. This is because they are not anywhere near 100 per cent accurate. Delivering a public health message that is 20 per cent wrong is problematic.
An AI rendition of someone’s voice. Now, this is where it gets interesting. You can add someone’s voice to an AI tool but you’d need their permission. For me, you’d also need their permission for each delivery and you also run the risk of that person withdrawing their consent. The benefit of having a local voice talking to you is obvious. However, this is more problematic.
AI music. Tools like suno.ai can use AI to create music along with the lyrics you provide in the style you suggest. So, the lost 80s synch-pop classic that celebrates recycling really is possible.
With trust at an issue, I can see a potential role for in-house training videos. However, public facing videos on contentious subjects I can’t see flying too well.
Conclusion
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Be open and be clear when you are using an AI voice tool. Make sure the data that is being collected is secure. The obstacles that are in the path of public sector comms aren’t there to block use but to channel you towards using it safely.
Instagram and TikTok have emerged as key places under 35s get their news and information, so what do you do?
If you are older, you could rail at young people and how they find their information these days and do nothing.
Or you could start to think about using these vertical video platforms as a way to reach younger people. It’s something that news providers are light years ahead with and public sector comms again can learn a lesson.
Firstly, younger people are getting more news from social media so it makes sense for you to target them here. Print really is not an option to reach under 35s. Online and social media is.
Ofcom are also clear that TikTok and Instagram perform strongly with younger audiences. Their data shows 81 per cent of under 35s are using Instagram on average for 980 minutes a month while 59 per cent use TikTok for a smartphone-draining 1,667 minutes a month.
Elsewhere, some surprising names are performing well with video. The Daily Mail has 19 million Instagram Reels subscribers with 1.9 million views per post while The Sun has 2.7 million TikTok subscribers with 100,000 views.
Newer news providers are also performing well with the iconoclastic Pink News’s 1.2 million subscribers viewing each video upwards of 100,000 on average.
A news approach versus a trends approach
First things first. I’ve nothing against posting trends as part of an effective social media strategy. Trends can be a particular style of filmmaking. A recent one was Gen Z wrote the marketing script where old people using young people buzzwords. Get on it within days and you are riding the wave. Wait too long and you can appear painfully behind the curve.
The news approach may be easier to deliver for an organisation that doesn’t want dancing nurses at a time where waiting lists are growing.
If you haven’t got them in a second you haven’t got them
One key characteristic that every video shares is that it wins or loses in less than a second.
When I first started delivering video skills workshops the first five seconds were vital. That figure has shrunk with our attention span. As we scroll through Reels and TikToks unless we are captured immediately our audience will scroll past.
For me, the ability to write an absorbing intro – or first paragraph – to a news story here has been replaced by the ability to capture people. This is now best done through a white box. The white box is added using the platform’s editing tools before it is posted live. It is a place to tease, inform or intrigue your viewer into staying around.
For heaven’s sake, don’t start off with the interviewee’s name. Cllr John Smith telling you that he’s cabinet member for anything will only accelerate the scroll away. No, thanks.
The white box deconstructed
In this post, I thought I’d go through some examples of news content posted as vertical video to deconstruct what they were about.
BBC News Reels: ‘Why you could be SNEEZING more this weekend’
There’s a tease at work here. Why could you be sneezing more? The opening footage features a man in his 20s scratching at painful eyes while the voiceover gently leads the viewer towards the information that the pollen count is high, according to the University of Worcester. The voice is identified after 14 seconds as a BBC weather presenter. She then takes to the streets and shoots herself in the style of a selfie delivering the remainder of the warning. It’s the whitebox that has teased the viewer.
Bonus points for datestamping the clip so it it does resurface weeks later it’s got some built-in obsolescence.
Pink News TikTok: ‘Republicans claim ‘Sesame Street’ is ‘grooming’ children following a Pride Month post
The eyebrow raises at the assertion that a decades-old children’s TV show is trying to ensnare children in a less than positive way. They’ve said what? How so? Intrigue plays a part as well as the emotion of moral indignation one way or the other way with this. It’s a subject that is going to appeal to their core viewers who may be homosexual and alive to Pride month and attack by politicians.
The clip pulls in tweets and lasts barely more than 10 seconds. It uses trending audio which has been used for a variety of clips. There are algorithmic brownie points in this.
Daily Mail UK Reels ‘Kings Guard horse BITES tourist… and won’t let go.’
In this clip of user-generated content, the promise is a day gone wrong for an overly bold tourist. You stick around with the promise of footage that back in the day would have been on a show like ‘Beadles About’.
The text is needed because footage of a tourist with a horse isn’t that promising.
The Sun TikTok ‘Iconic Doctor Who pair set to reunite for huge special’
The whitebox here is red with white letters but does the same job. It sets up a reason to watch the clip. A huge special? What’s that about. The clip opens with a still of David Tennant and Billie Piper who led a successful reboot of the TV show 20 years ago. For fans, this is likely to be a hugely popular venture to see them return.
What’s also interesting is that there is just one hashtag on this video #doctorwho. This also underlines the relative lack of strategic importance of the hashtag. There’s no need for them to go overboard. The algorithm reads the images and the transcript of the video as well as the caption.
Conclusion
The whitebox on the screen acts as a way to tease, inform and draw the viewer in. It’s aim is to stop the viewer scrolling. It acts in the same way as a headline does in print but its purpose is slightly different. It rarely tells the whole story.
The whitebox is added when posting the video using the editing tools of the platform. The long term benefit is to put a title on each of the videos in an account’s back catalogue.
After agonising moments after a car ploughed into pedestrians at the Liverpool trophy parade Liverpool City Region’s strategic director of communications takes us through their response to a major incident.
It was just after 6pm on Monday 26 May and thousands of football fans who had lined the streets of Liverpool were thinking about heading home, catching a pint, or grabbing a bite to eat.
Those of us who had spent the day in the Transport Co-ordination Centre, the multi-agency combined control room or hunched over our laptops monitoring socials and producing content, were gearing up for a busy time on the transport network.
The bus carrying the red heroes had just about completed the full 10-mile route and the rain hadn’t dampened spirits. However, in the blink of an eye everything turned up a notch – police vehicles and ambulances were being dispatched, a major incident was declared, and the city centre was gripped by panic and fear.
Crisis comms
For those of us trained to deal with major incidents, or crisis comms, it was the moment to turn the rehearsals into reality. Phone call cascades were commenced, emergency social posts were produced and all scheduled content was stood down. Liverpool’s City Region’s Mayor Steve Rotheram – a self-declared red – had been watching the day’s events unfold. It was clear that he would soon be required to issue reassurance and details of the incident to the world’s press.
As transport colleagues launched their operation of ensuring that more than 150,000 people got home safely on the Merseyrail network and more than 165,000 people travelled through Lime Street station, with many more walking, cycling, travelling by bus, or driving home, we were picking up the phone and responding to press queries.
Interviews
Multiple interview requests were coming in thick and fast and a news conference was required. I was working on the first statement from the Mayor to be issued to the press and we were mindful of needing to move location to join the blue lights and Liverpool City Council’s leader in reassuring the public.
An emergency briefing was organised, the journalists took their seats and the principals made their way to the conference room. However, there was a notable absence, as a Combined Authority we are not officially classed as a category one responder and there wasn’t a seat at the table for the region’s Mayor.
In 2004, the Civil Contingencies Act was established, it defined the framework for the roles and responsibilities for local authorities and other organisations in emergency preparedness and response – at that time Combined Authorities did not exist. They were established after the legislation in 2014.
So, we sat on the sidelines and after the news conference was over, the Mayor was thronged with press wanting information. It was an interesting moment when the legislation and the real world were in conflict.
Over the next few days, the Mayor gave more than 20 regional, national and international media interviews in his role as civic leader. Phone calls were received from both the Prime Minister and Home Secretary, and we were delighted to welcome both to our city region as they met with senior police officers and local political leaders. Following the news that the injured were all recovering well, the Mayor issued a message of thanks on behalf of our region, paying tribute to those who had showed the ‘very best’ of our communities.
Speaking with one voice
Despite the noise on social media and the clamour from the traditional media, the strength of local partnerships and collaboration ensured that the Liverpool City Region leaders spoke with one voice and were able to quickly defuse misinformation and disinformation.
Here is City Mayor talking on Sky News.
And also with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Here on the @metromayorsteve Instagram channel.
Another good reminder that nurturing those relationships in the good times pays off during the bad times.
Camilla Mankabady, director of strategic communications and corporate affairs, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
