Dan Slee

When is a mistakenly cut video not a mistakenly edited video? That was the question posed by the BBC.

With the General Election of 2019 days old the Conservative party tweeted a video of an ITV interview with Labour shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer.

On the BBC Radio 4 6 O’Clock News bulletin, Amol Rajan reported that Starmer in the edited clip appeared to hesitate with the words ‘Labour has no plan for Brexit’ added to the screen. In the original interview, he alleges, he didn’t.

When the difference was challenged on Twitter by a BBC reporter, Rajan, said the Conservative Party doubled down on the attacks.

The BBC Media editor in the bulletin added:

This is how modern media strategy works. First doctor a video. Then when you’re called out for it publish fresh attacks. What matters on social media is the noise you create, the cut through rather than accuracy.

Of course, that creates a problem for journalists. By highlighting fake news you draw fresh attention to a falsehood so ensuring that a falsehood is seen by countless more.

The Conservative Party may therefore have grounds for chalking up the doctored video as a win.

The video in numbers

The original clip was posted just before noon.

Fact checking website Full Fact challenged the video at 6.29pm – some six hours later.

By 8pm, on the day it was posted the video which hadn’t been deleted had been viewed more than 400,000 times.

You can listen to Rajan’s piece on the BBC Radio 4 Six O’Clock News here from 13’37”.

You can see the original tweet challenged by BBC’s Daniel Sandford here.

So what does this mean?

I don’t normally blog about political comms and do so here on professional lines as it touches upon comms ethics and tactics.

This story touches on academic research Stuart Bruce that shows when you rebut a falsehood people only remember the original falsehood.

It also poses a series of questions.

When the original online content contains a falsehood what then? 

When its based around video which is more trusted than plain text what then?

What come back is there?

The Advertising Standards Authority stopped regulating political ads in 1997. Twitter announced they would refuse to allow political ads. But this isn’t an ad.

We’re supposed to get more cynical at challenging things but most people simply aren’t going to track down the original interview and compare the clip against delivery.

So what then?

In 2019, the news cycle moves so fast that minutes count and as hours pass attention switches. The allegation of ‘fake news’ is left in the wake of the original.

It’s not for me to say if the approach breaches the CIPR Code of Conduct here.

Even it it was, what difference would it make?

Picture credit: Documerica / Flickr.

There’s an election swinging into view so I’m writing this quick signposting blog to two useful resources.

Purdah is the period that governs what you can and can’t publish as a council officer.

The idea is that the comms team cannot be the mouthpiece of a politician running for election.

There’s two links I’m pointing to you towards. Firstly, the Local Government Association guidance and secondly, a blog I’ve posted about advice for social media.

The LGA advice you can find here.

This guidance provides advice on the publicity restrictions that should be observed during the purdah period. It should be read in conjunction with any guidance produced by your own returning officer or monitoring officer, which provides specific advice depending on your local circumstances.

The social media Purdah advice I’ve blogged is here.

There’s this funny period in the run-up to an election which sees local government comms team change behaviour.

Gone are the press releases from politicians and in comes quotes from officers. Why? To ensure that the council cannot be accused of political bias in the run up to polling day.

The pre-election advice for the NHS can be found here.

This briefing sets out considerations for NHS foundation trusts and trusts in the period of time known as the pre-election period, or ‘purdah’, leading up to the 2019 UK general election on 12 December. It highlights the practical implications around provider activities.

The Civil Service advice you’ll find on this link here.

The basic principle for civil servants is not to undertake any activity that could call into question their political impartiality or that could give rise to criticism that public resources are being used for party political purposes.

As ever, check against delivery and with your legal team.

Picture credit: istock.

A famous Greek bloke once said that he couldn’t teach anybody anything but he could make them think.

Seeing people think is one of the delights of the Vital Facebook Skills workshop I deliver with Sarah Lay.

We’ve both had long experience of running corporate pages so we can deliver advice on how to create better content that’s on the right side of the algorithm. I’ve researched groups and Sarah works with Facebook ads. That’s wonderful theory based on practice but one thing I’m really keen on is to get people thinking about when to engage and not to engage when people comment.

To misquote Mike Tyson, you can have the best plan in the world until someone punches you in the face.

So, when to engage and when not to engage.

For the most part, days go by with routine comments but every now and then there’s something more challenging.

In the training, I have some real life scenarios and throw them open to people. The aim is to get them to think.

The scenarios are the kind of thing that gets posted to a public sector page or a community group every day.

One thing really does shine through in this exercise. That’s that there is very little black and white on how to handle things but a lot of grey.

Each comment you’ll read as an admin is slightly different but some basic rules do apply which I’ve never really written down in one place.

1. Don’t argue with an idiot. It’s something I’ve blogged about before. Don’t have a slanging match with someone.
2. It’s fine to draw a line in the sand. If someone is off-target with their opinions its fine to respond if you’re factual and polite.
3. Don’t punch down. The BBC Press Office do this really well. Don’t beat someone up who is smaller than you are. It doesn’t look good.
4. Count to 10. Don’t respond by shooting from the hip. Reflect.
5. Take it offline. That involved discussion? Take it offline. Particularly if there is personal data being discussed.
6. Run it past a colleague before you post it. You’ve written something as a response you’re not sure about. What does your colleague think?
7. Add a name to it. People will shout at logos and will shout less if they think there’s a human. At the end of the day we all just want to be listened to. ^ Dan.
8. Let people be angry about policy. The world doesn’t smell of fresh paint. It’s not your job to censor debate if you’re in the public sector. It’s fine for people to disagree.
9. Have some house rules. A social media policy in plain English that says what behaviour you’re okay with and what you’re not is essential.

You’ll need thinkers to be the admin of a Facebook page. I hope this list helps you to think.

You can find out about Vital Facebook Skills workshops here.

Picture credit: Flickr / Sharon M Leon.

I’ll be honest, I wan’t sure how relevant for public sector people the new guidance for influencer marketing was.

So much of what government does is around owned channels and maybe trying to influence media.

But some reflection and a fascinating discussion at commscampnorth has opened my mind a little.

The guidance ‘We’re All Influencers Now’ you can find it here. Both authors Sab Guthrie and Stephen Waddington I rate highly as I do other material also published under the FuturePRoof banner.

What the guidance says

An influencer is someone who has carved out a reputation through creating social content on a platform who can influence or shape someone’s behaviour.

The popular view is that this is Joe Sugg, a YouTuber who also made it to Strictly Come Dancing or Zoella and her £12,000 charge for a post and the feeling amongst public sector people is that this just a different league.

But there is more to it than this and as a sector this is predicted to grow from £4.5 billion globally to £18.4 billion by 2024.

The advice is particularly good on governance and points out that the Advertising Standards Authority and Competition and Markets Authority are starting to step into the sector. There legal are issues around IP that you need to consider.

How this may effect the public sector

At first glance, this isn’t something that falls squarely into the lap of the public sector. Useful to know as a communicator maybe, but not a day-to-day requirement.

However, a discussion at commscampnorth change my mind. One attendee spoke of how influencers were being used to reach young people around rail travel. Free rail tickets are being provided in return for the influencer talking about how far away the destination is and how they travelled there.

That’s influencer marketing.

I can recall NATO using influencers to reach young people in Eastern Europe to talk about what the organisation does.

That’s influencer marketing, too.

It made me think of times back in the day when I’ve worked with members of the town Flickr group. Come and photograph the town hall, was the invitation. And can we re-use the pics under licence for free with a credit?

Or, the health watchdog who worked with young people to encourage them to create health-related messages on their Snapchat accounts to circulate to their peers.

Both of those are influencer marketing, too.

A working knowledge of the framework would be a handy thing to have in any communicator’s back pocket.  This work gives you a framework to use.

Picture credit: US National Archives / Flickr

I’m writing this in the cafe of the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford the day after commscampnorth.

I have a cup of coffee on the desk in front of me and on the wall silent films are playing and I’m reflecting on the event the day before.

I have headphones on and Elbow has dropped into my Spotify.  Don’t tell me algorithms can’t read your mind.  It’s been 15-months since the last comms unconference and I’m so glad we’ve got back into the habit.

I’m a quarter of the organising team, a thirtieth of the volunteers and one hundred and fortieth of the attendees who made the event work.

Before the day slips through my fingers, I’m capturing a list of a few things I learned.

1. Bradford is amazing. This sandstone city is built on hills, wool, friendliness and a lack of bullshit. It loved being Victorian, didn’t like the 1980s but is evolving and reviving and quietly likes it when visitors fall in love with it like a spritely old couple who grow prize-winning geraniums in their back garden.
2. Kala Sangam is amazing. Our venue for commscampnorth was a sandstone General Post Office converted into a South Asian arts centre whose mission is to bring everyone together through the arts. A friendlier set of venue staff I’ve never met in 10 years of running events.
3. An unconference is made by the attendees. The agenda is decided on the day by the attendees.
4. It would be great to have a day of #RealLinkedIn. Ditch the show boating. Just for a day post what your day is really doing.
5. Every unconference has an underlying theme. For this one there was a feeling of not just doing something because its new and shiny but concentrating on the purpose and the results.
6. Facebook groups have become mainstream. The idea of connecting with a group seemed revolutionary a few years ago. It isn’t now.
7. Wellbeing in comms has momentum but the danger is that it becomes lip service. I’m hearing  lots of organisations talking about how its okay not to be okay. If that’s the case, its okay not to expect your staff to answer emails after 6pm and to have enough staff to do the job. I’ve read some utter bollocks from organisations who behave in diametrically opposite ways to the one love way they claim to be.
8. Imposter syndrome is a real issue in comms. When this was floated in the Facebook group before the event there was a real groundswell towards it. The session was also popular. There was a shout for Clare Josa’s book ‘Ditching Imposter Syndrome’ here.
9. Change comms comes back to ‘what this means to me’ not how shiny it will look on someone senior’s LinkedIn profile. It’s so easy to forget that.
10. Audience insight beats habit and gut feeling every time. This was a strong undertow this year.
11. Better email marketing is achievable.  But it still remains a bit Cinderella. Probably because its less visible and shareable as a really eye-catching social campaign.
12. Social media has been growing in an organisation for 10 years. While there’s an argument for giving people the tools and sharing the sweets there’s also an argument for taking a rain check to see what’s working and what’s not.
13. David Banks knows his stuff on media law. You can find him here.
14. Bright people are leaving the public sector to do more things in the public sector. The trend towards the gig economy that started a few years ago is increasing. I get that.
15. A commscampnorth or commscamp without a cake stall would be like Christmas without Santa. And Kate Bentham is perfect at the job of running the stall. Well done to those who donated and to sponsor Nick Hill for donating £200. The man is great.
16. It is always wonderful to see first timers at the event. My own aim is to give people the space and permission to think differently. Its important that job descriptions are left at the door. In the intros we accidentally forgot to include where people were from and I was quite struck how that made people people rather than organisations.
17. But I do worry that we don’t open the door enough for first timers. We trialled a buddy system this year ahead of the event on Facebook. I don’t know if this worked but I’d like to see how we can make it easier for solo first time attendees.
18. Trust the process. To make unconferences better, I always go back to a podcast between Dave Briggs and Lloyd Davis.
19. Accessibility regulations are difficult to enforce. The government hasn’t set out penalties as GDPR did. So, people just shrug and ask for their pdf to be uploaded that can’t be read by blind people. The idea of building connections between organisations who are trying to do it well is a really good one.
20. One danger prospective heads of comms need to remember is that they’ll be doing less comms.  This may be a good thing but it is a true thing.
21. I love the idea that people can run something as part of the event. The lunchtime run – or runch – works for those who love the running and Albert’s walking tour of Bradford drew 60 people. Carolyne’s tap dancing was also a fab idea.
22. If you are using creative commons images read the licence and abide by it. If they ask you to credit the photographer then do so. Or else you may get a bill.
23. A good team. Albert Freeman, Bridget Aherne and Josephine Graham are good people to organise an event with.
24. Working with good sponsors is good. Bravo MusterPoint, Touch Design, Granicus and CAN. I hang my hat on all of them.
25. There was huge love in the room for Emma Rodgers who usually organises these things. I’m glad we raised more than £500 for MacMillan Cancer the cause she suggested.
26. In the big question of the day, Who was is the best Bradford entertainer Kiki Dee or Tamsin Archer, it was Kiki Dee. Well done, Kiki.
27. An unconference is a simple idea. You get the right people in the room and when it ends is the right time for it to end. They talk about how you can crack the problems we face TODAY.

If you’d like to be kept up to speed on future commscamp events you can sign-up for this email list here. I’ll blog again on hows to run an unconference and again once the ace Nigel Bishop finishes editing pics from the day.

Lovely stuff.

My attention was caught by a group of future communications leaders who were learning about best practice and for the life of me I couldn’t help but hear alarm bells ringing.

Best practice is something that has worked well in practice.

But the thing is, the world is so complex, what may be best practice 12-months ago often isn’t today.

When I dig behind something that has worked I’m often struck by the amount of research that has gone into it.

It is the act of research that’s the star of the show not the whizzy graphics.

A few years ago Sport England ran a campaign ‘This Girl Can’ that encouraged 2.8 million women of all sizes to do something to exercise. Suddenly, everyone wanted carbon copies.

Stop it.

Avoid best practice.

Instead, go and research to build your own beautiful ideas that will work today and if you’re lucky next week, too.

Picture credit: istock.

I was struck by the blowback online and radio from the failed Extinction Rebellion protest at Canning Town this week.

I only started coming to work by tube because of Greta Thunberg. And now I run the risk of the train being hijacked by the lunatic fringe of Extinction Rebellion. Would they rather we all drove? Targeting commuters on public transport is a staggeringly stupid move.

— James O’Brien (@mrjamesob) October 17, 2019

Devolved campaigns devolve risk

Data would say that the incidents shone greater attention on the campaign

Have you ever wondered what piece of advice you’d share with someone starting in public sector comms?

Some of the finest minds from Police, fire, central government, NHS, ambulance and local government put their thinking caps on.

A thread in the wonderful Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group chipped in with some pearls of wisdom.

Great if you are looking to start in the public sector but also handy if you’ve been around for a while.

Being able to write is just the start

“Good writing skills are good to arrive with – but more important is attitude: an interest in people and the services your organisation delivers, proactivity and determination are essentials.” – Bridget Aherne.

“Keep asking questions. Mostly why?” – Esme Yuill.

“Find a few folk in your working life where when faced with a difficult situation ask yourself what would they do right now. What would they say? How would they react?” – David Grindlay.

The personal skills you’ll need

On my travels, I’m often asked about how to deal with shouting online.

It’s rarely the first question, as people want the skinny on best practice and approaches but it’s always there not far from the surface.

That’s fine. I get that. I’ve done time in the chair and it can be difficult and waring.

You put more of yourself into a social media channel than you do a poster or a press release but its the elephant in the room.

Most of the time you’ll be fine but from time you’ll need to reach for other strategies to help you and the team.

People who run public sector social media accounts need a break

I came across a council who were doing Facebook amazingly well.

That’s great, I said. How do you do it?

“It’s me. All me,” the comms person admitted. “I know I should share but I hate it when I see something that hasn’t been done quite right and I can’t help but log on to correct it.”

It’s understandable but people need a break. They need time away from serial snark posters.

To use a cricketing metaphor, rotate the strike. Let others face the fast bowler.

Here are eight strategies I’ve found useful in my time being an admin of a public social channel.

Have a social media acceptable use policy

Okay, don’t call it a policy, call it an agreement or terms of use.

Say what you’ll do for people who’ll use social media and what you expect in return.

So, if people don’t shout, swear or abuse people then you’ll try and respond in 24-hours.

When people come through the front door of the First Stop Shop customer services already have an acceptable use policy. No shouting. No swearing. That kind of thing. Same if people ring up. Use that as the basis. Link to it from your social channels.

Without these rules you can’t effectively enforce a ‘no swearing at the staff’ ban.

Upload a list of banned terms to the Facebook page. That should stop people from telling you you’re f***ing s**t at half ten at night. If you haven’t got that, how the f**k can you close down the abuse?

Mute is better than blocking

Most people are fine when they realise a real person is monitoring the channel.

For those that aren’t don’t block. Use the mute button on Twitter or the same functionality on Facebook. They don’t know you’re not listening to them but your insulated against potential abuse.

People are entitled to an opinion

I was born and grew up in Stafford where my local hospital was Mid Staffs General. The Francis report shone a light on early deaths although the 1,200 deaths widely quoted has since been discredited. Public servants are human. They are trying to do the best they can. They are constantly looking to improve. Taking feedback is an important function. Just because someone doesn’t agree with your press release doesn’t mean they are wrong. Find a way to pass through feedback to the opinion makers.

Take it offline

A detailed blow-by-blow of an issue is probably best resolved offline than online.

Be human

This probably shouldn’t come as a revolutionary act but if you adopt a human tone people in my experience are less likely to shout and you’ll get more sympathy if they do.

Be clear when the account is monitored

If you’re keeping an eye from 9am to 5pm then say so in the account bio.

Be mindful that in a world of 24-hour banking there is an expectation that the response will be quicker.  Just be clear when you can reply and when you can’t.

Count to 10 and then maybe 100

Don’t react to trolling with anger. It’s never the right answer. Feel free to count to 10, make yourself a cup of tea and maybe run it past a  colleague. You’ll feel better.

If its serious then report it

Serious abuse such as a threat of violence really should be reported. To your legal team but also to the police. Don’t mess about. Draw a line in the sand.

It’s pretty clear that social media hasn’t been in a good place for a while.

Then again society hasn’t been in a good place either.

One isn’t to blame entirely for the other’s headaches.

But both nag at each other like an old couple on a never ending circular coach journey who’ve used their last paracetamol but can’t remember who is to blame.

In Paul Sutton’s excellent Digital Download podcast this week he chatted to Euan Semple about an earlier comment that social media isn’t broken, people are.

What they had to say was fascinating. Yes, there needed to be some online regulation, Euan said. But the problems in the world are caused by people not technology, he says:

In some ways the internet is a mirror and its showing our true natures and the bits we don’t like have been more obviously evident than they have been in the past perhaps. That’s an opportunity for us to deal with it… and to accept that we need to do better.

Just to blame someone else or to expect social media companies to tidy it up and make it go away seems to me to be a missed opportunity. It’s our human characteristics that we are seeing and should be dealing with rather than just technology.

But what legislation?

Euan makes the point that there’s enough legislation. He may be right but there’s certainly not enough enforcing of that legislation. The imperious online abuse of MPs would show this to be true. Besides, he says, the ones demanding more legislation are often those that understand the internet the least. He’s broadly right on that. The US Congress’s grilling of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg is a case in point. So is the terrifying lack of understanding and regulation of AI.

What I think they’re talking about is a kind of change dilemma where change outstrips common understanding and effective regulation lags far behind.

A bit like this…

There is a moral obligation if you’re using technology to do better, Paul and Euan say.

But I’m really not remotely convinced at all that people will pick-up that obligation.

One fringe benefits of carrying out Facebook group research over the past three years is joining scores of Facebook groups myself. I’ll stick around to see how they behave. Like an online petri dish conversations will drop into my timeline. Often, unless there’s a good Facebook group admin the group can quickly degenerate into abuse. Why? Because there’s often no consequences and someone decides they can’t be arsed to be nice. It comes back to frameworks and laws, no matter how gentle.

I don’t buy entirely the idea that there’s a volume control on mob rule, especially if you’re public sector. An arm of government can’t block out views they find problematic. Echo-chambers are not a great idea. If you live in them you could wake-up puzzled that the country has just voted to leave. Or be surprised that those people in the wilds of Montana you’ve ignored have armed themselves with guns and some pretty wild ideas.

For me, the future is in the past. I’d love to know how the advent of the printing press went down and how long it took to be seen as a force for good.

William Tyndale, who revolutionised the printed Bible but was burnt at the stake for it may have a view on this.

You can listen to the podcast here. You can find Euan Semple here and Paul Sutton here.