When I was training to be a journalist I met one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. Pete was his name.
Six foot tall, wiry and ginger he was six years older than the rest of us he was filled with explosive energy.
He’d laugh but we soon learned to be wary of his fiery temper. In the pubs around Darlington where we’d drink in he was a asset. Coming from the Headland in Hartlepool he knew how to handle himself.
One day Pete told us something surprising.
“I’m not going to the pub lads,” he announced. “I’m off home to read ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead.'”
And he wasn’t joking.
Being a Buddhist and a Hartlepudlian who had meditated in the mid-1990s it was quite something.
This week, I was reminded of them again after debate in Parliament and the online reaction.
As a communicator, this faces all of us with a challenge.
Should you shout louder?
Googling this morning I came across a passage that hits the nail on the head.
Right Speech is not just a personal virtue. Modern communication technology has given us a culture that seems saturated with “wrong” speech — communication that is hateful and deceptive. This engenders disharmony, acrimony, and physical violence.
We tend to think of violent, hateful words as being less wrong than violent action. We may even think of violent words as being justified at times. But violent words, thoughts, and actions arise together and support each other. The same can be said for peaceful words, thoughts, and actions.
The historical Buddha taught that Right Speech had four parts abstain from false speech; do not tell lies or deceive. Do not slander others or speak in a way that causes disharmony or enmity. Abstain from rude, impolite, or abusive language. Do not indulge in idle talk or gossip.
It’s awards season and a chance for the great and the good to nominate themselves for awards.
Sure, there’s a place for awards and I helped co-found some. Good luck to you if you’re entering and a genuine ‘well done’ if you are successful.
But the one campaign that may end up making the most difference won’t win a PR award because there’s no agency or team behind it.
The campaign in question was started by Greta Thunberg who protested alone with a sign outside the Swedish parliament. Her idea was simple: ‘We’re not doing enough to save the planet. ‘ Her call to action is to act. Her output is simply if humanity act fast enough to stop irreversible climate change. Simple. And people bought into it. Most of all school children.
Her ideas initially spread by her social media and then to local journalists and then further afield. It’s a pattern exactly predicted back when there was a feeling social media could save the world.
The attacks from grown-ups with things to lose have been predictable. The underlying tone… Who is this teenager telling us what to do? But such pony and trap attacks have felt dated and serve to reinforce the lines between the heroes and villains.
Seeing the campaign I couldn’t help recall some lines from the book ‘Trust Me PR is Dead‘ by Robert Philips:
“It is not about loudhailer broadcasting or ‘managing the message’ anymore. Shrill press releases are irrelevant in a world that sees through obfuscation and deceit. Building advocacy and activism from within networks is the way forward. The voices of regular people need to be heard.”
Aside from that, I can’t help but be impressed that a 15-year-old has called ‘bullshit’ on everyone older than her, every world government, convention, the entire PR industry and the whole of capitalism.
And then when she gets to the UN and is allowed to speak to the grown-ups she calls bullshit on them, too.
You can watch her four minute speech here:
This is the full speech. Incredible. Don’t just watch. Act. Changes I’ve made in recent years: Not buying throwaway fashion. Not using the little plastic bags for loose fruit n veg. Walking rather than use car. What changes have you made? https://t.co/OADltJpYLl
There is some great work by government, NHS, police, fire, ambulance and council but none has been better than this Swedish teenager.
What changes can I make in how I work?
I’m human. I’m a Dad. I forget to take plastic bags to the supermarket of a weekend. I like the idea of saving the planet but I quite like chicken and driving to Ludlow for a day out with my family.
But I do spend a lot of time travelling across the country. Over the last 12-months or so I’ve been to Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Carlisle, Sunderland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Middlesborough, Leeds, York, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Bootle, Wilmslow, Cardiff, Birmingham, Stafford, Bristol, Exeter, St Austell, Plymouth, Southampton, London, Maidstone and Brighton. Sometimes on multiple occasions.
That’s a lot of miles.
So, here’s a pledge.
I will be carbon neutral in my work in 2019 and 2020 too.
But how?
Nat and Julia’s story
This is where Nat and Julia Higginbottom come into the story.
I first met the two of them maybe a decade ago. At first, they were names on Twitter who became names in real life at events and gatherings I was going to. They’ve been supportive of commscamp and other things and have lent help and support.
This year, after a lot of research and planning they decided to do something about the climate question.
They’ve moved home from Birmingham to become crofters on the isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland. There, this autumn they will plant 1,000 trees while working with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and repairing fences and other things.
We’re awaiting the match funding hitting our account which means we only need £4870 to get there.
With 5 days to go that seems hard but we raised £1940 over the last 2 days we can do it if we keep at it! 1/nhttps://t.co/qRvDCx3lbBpic.twitter.com/XXMbJexZDZ
Like buses you wait for one download for comms wellbeing and then suddenly two come along all at once.
A few weeks back the CIPR published handy guidance for how to avoid stress and burn-out while still doing an effective job.
Now along has come Charity Comms’ own contribution a well-thought through wellbeing guide collated by Kirstie Marrins. You can find it here.
The subject is worth paying attention to. The last CIPR State of the profession report put 67 per cent of public sector people rating the stress they were under at an average of seven out of 10. That was higher than in-house private sector or not-for-profits.
The whole document is worth a read but here are four things that you could easily apply in the public sector.
Sharing the workload
As part of upskilling, we’re also prepared to get stuck into work that doesn’t naturally fall into our job roles – especially during crisis periods. There have been times where teams have supported each other to ease the workload and pressures of dealing with difficult content. For example, taking shifts to monitor social media channels in order to provide a break for colleagues.
I can recall a period of extreme weather when I worked for a council comms team which resulted in our old friend chaos on the road. The incoming messages about gritting were utterly relentless. On their own they were fine. But the weight of people complaining about their side road just got wearing. Sharing the workload in these circumstances was essential.
Practical task: Factor in training for other people and allow them to monitor and respond to social media during quiet times. Book it in. Don’t wait for it to be quiet.
Having a framework to respond
One good tip when handling tricky incoming queries the guidance suggests is having a framework. In other words, three stages to consider. For them, this is research, respond, review.
So, try and prepare for a tricky campaign by looking into the possible issues. Then before responding count to 10 and respond drawing on this research. The advice of taking a few moments to walk in their shoes is a really good one. Finally, review what you’ve done when things have calmed down.
The 1,200 things local government does makes this tricky but I think the approach can be replicated in the public sector.
When you respond, you’ll need to consider how to balance showing understanding, whilst also giving a response appropriate for your organisation.
You’ll need to balance offering support or information whilst also managing expectations on what you can realistically say. Drawing upon position statements and key messages can be helpful when handling issues, but this will need to avoid sounding too ‘corporate’.
Practical task: what would your framework look like?
Be your own cheerleader
There’s some good tips in the approach about your own resilience. Think about meditating, for example.
We can all be overly critical of ourselves. So the idea of celebrating something you’ve done well strikes a chord.
Be your own cheerleader.
In contrast to listening to your inner critic, being your own cheerleader involves talking to yourself regularly in a positive way. A key resilience building strategy, as identified by Dr Rick Hanson, is to champion yourself the moment after you’ve achieved something great. According to his research, this builds new neural pathways which over time lead to a greater sense of wellbeing and high self-esteem.
Practical task: It wonder what each member of the team’s shining moment would be? And wouldn’t it be great if there was a way of celebrating the really small wins in the team?
Talking about mental health
If there’s one part of the Charity Comms advice that really shines then its in the area of talking about mental health.
There’s been a stack of things written about ‘it’s okay not to be okay’ and the general landscape feels as though it is moving. But how to actually tackle the subject? Here the approach excels. Importantly, the guidance can be deployed by colleagues just as much as line managers. In fact, in some ways there’s probably a greater value in members of the team raising the subject.
Often, it’s easier to talk side by side, rather than face-to-face as it feels more informal. You could suggest going for a walk outside the office so you’re walking side by side. Being in a neutral surrounding could help them to be more open to talking about mental health away from other colleagues.
There’s also advice on how to talk to a colleague returning after a period of mental health. Go look it up.
When social media was still quite new I began to train staff on how to use it so they could talk to people direct.
Often there was a latent fear of something going wrong. That’s entirely understandable and if you are training people you need to understand this.
For years, I found this one-page flow chart was a really useful training aid. This is from 2009 and was drawn-up by Birmingham blogger Michael Grimes after he re-purposed a US military blogger engagement chart.
However, times move on.
Things can be a lot more organised and so the Centre for Countering Online Hate have published a really useful guide to combating online trolling. This is a much needed, well thought through lifeline that can sit behind glass in case of emergency.
The principle that people feel better if they have a piece of paper is timeless and this download is also really good. If you are helping councillors or senior people communicate you’ll find this really helpful.
What to do if you are trolled
The guide is really useful on what to do if you are trolled. Don’t reply. Turn off notifications. Don’t complain you are being targeted.
The advice is also to block. I’d differ slightly and suggest that the mute button on Twitter does a similar job without the troll realising that you can’t hear them anymore.
After the initial attack, report and record. Don’t suffer in silence. If you work for an organisation talk to your legal team.
Don’t confuse legitimate questioning with trolling
If you work for an organisation people will sometimes question what the organisation is doing. Sometimes they won’t always be happy. So long as they stay on the right side of civil I’d suggest that’s part of the deal.
To make a social media account work, you need to put heart and soul into it. Criticism online cuts a lot deeper than a letter of complaint. I know. I’ve been there.
Do have a social media policy
I’ve often talked about the need for a social media policy. That’s a kind of, here’s what we’ll do for you but also ‘here’s what we expect from you in return.’ Asking people not to be abusive, racist or sexist sets a minimum bar. It’s hard to justify blocking someone from your page if you don’t have rules to break. The City of York Council policy is a good one to look at. I’d be tempted to have that as embedded text rather than a pdf. I like this one from Bradford CCG NHS, too. Simple, clear and straightforward. Replicate them on your Facebook page, too.
The Daily Mail and Times runs a knocking piece on the fact that two per cent of what they spend goes to help save lives across the world.
Just reflect on that. Saving lives of people in poor parts of the world is somehow A BAD IDEA. That’s where we are as a country, it seems.
Only…
Tthe RNLI rather than cower in the bunker come out fighting.
They took to Twitter to point out that it’s two per cent of their budget they spend and they’ve never tried to hide the fact.
In response to the @MailOnline & @thetimes:we are proud of our international work. Its saves (mostly kids') lives. And we haven't kept it secret – it's in our annual report, on our website and in the media. We spend just 2% of our expenditure on this work: https://t.co/STztOxG1OP
But while that was good the cherry on top of the cake was the #rnli_disgrace hashtag that turned into an ironic British thing that echoed the exact opposite of what you may think the hashtag was saying.
People withdrawing #RNLI donations over their ‘audacity’ to use 2% of funds to support causes abroad are really the worst of society. My dad was a lifeboatman for 25 years and the work they do is incredible, brave and selfless. #RNLI_disgracepic.twitter.com/r8UG2ZKF4q
See? That’s exactly why sentiment trackers for British Twitter is utterly pointless and why we are – just – smarter than machines and Daily Mail and Times journalists.
Most human comms just shines a light on what the organisation does. This shows that the response to criticism can be pretty human, too.
Credit to them for thinking the same message across multi-platforms, too.
A quick shout if you’re looking to connect with Facebook groups as there’s going to be some tweaks.
Don’t worry, they’re not bad ones. They’re just tidying up around the edges and changing the terms.
Facebook is the largest UK social media platform and since groups are really hot right now this is something communicators need to know. it’s something I’ve blogged about before.
The names are changing
Secret, closed and public are going and are replaced with new terms. Secret groups are groups that have been set up, closed and can’t be found in a routine Facebook search. You join by invitation. Closed groups can be found but unless you’re a member you can’t see the content. Public groups are exactly that.
Now the change will be…
No doubt using the word ‘private’ emphasises the drive towards privacy that Facebook are trying to promote. The full announcement is here.
But even private groups can be policed
One interesting line from the announcement is a reminder that certain rights holders will be able to have access to closed groups. That would appear to say that Sony BMG music can look to see if knock-off Madonna DVDs are being knocked-out in a for sale group.
It also means that you shouldn’t be featuring Beatles tracks in your content thinking that John and George are dead and Paul and Ringo are busy. The algorithm will get you. Intellectual Property is quite closely policed.
One for trading standards and police?
This does pose the question about trading standards and law enforcement. Will they be able to have access? It would be interesting to see how they can keep a weather eye on the myriad of buy and sell groups that have sprung up.
I help run workshops to help you use Facebook better with groups, pages and advertising. You can find out more here or drop me a line dan@danslee.co.uk.
So far this year we’ve had flooding, extreme heat and dams that almost collapse.
In the rest of the year we have the prospect of snow, ice and the impact of a possible ‘no deal’ Brexit with government modelling of food shortages, medicine shortages
So, how do you get across the need to prepare for possible future emergency?
With great difficulty it seems.
A tweet from Police Scotland appeared to set off a mix of alarm and mirth with the #GrabBag hashtag trending and BBC News picking up the baton online and in broadcast.
A number of police and councils have also used the hashtag along with #30days30ways to ask people to get ready in peacetime ahead of any emergencies ahead.
The aim is positive but in an atmosphere of mistrust, it can very easily go off target.
With some possible alarming days ahead its worth taking a pause to reflect on how we can pull this stuff off. It’s long been a frustration of mine that emergency planning is always 9th on the ‘to do’ list, never rises above that and gets ignored until its too late.
The #GrabBag content
Here’s a quick look at the content in and around the #GrabBag hashtag.
Well this is random and a bit scary, still, I’m taking bets.
I think if police stations up and down the country are going to start simultaneously suggesting we pack a #GrabBag they should at least hint as to why. A zombie apocalypse is going to need a very different packing strategy to an AI takeover, for example.
WTF is #GrabBag all about. Why would we have to leave our homes ? Monsoon? Forest fire? Hurricane? I notice that the police and councils up and down the country haven’t said WHY we might need to evacuate quickly. I have never know a campaign like this and it is fucking scary.
But any good analysis should look at the data, too.
So…
The #Grabbag numbers
Using Ritetag analysis, the hashtag had reached large numbers with almost 4,000 tweets.
The hashtag had also spiked impressively in the analysis.
However, the big problem with hashtag analysis is drilling down into sentiment. The US-based algorithm is incapable as yet of spotting sarcasm leading to a manual analysis of what people were really saying.
It’s safe to say the hashtag didn’t really perform as intended.
Sarcasm, worry and brand jacking emerged, the analysis suggests, and the original purpose of the hashtag was obscured.
The #Grabbag key words
The most frequently used positive terms were fine…
The most frequently used negative ones less so…
But what were the trends to a UK audience? I went through and counted a cross-section of around 150 to give a snapshot of the underlying sentiment.
The #Grabbag sentiment
Counting through the content, the sentiment was overwhelmingly parody with supportive tweets being outscored four to one.
The original tweets with the original purpose had been swamped by people who were either pouring scorn or were entertained by the idea of a #grabbag full of gin. Hey! Big LOLs! There’s an argument that any publicity is good publicity. I’m not convinced by that argument.
But there was also a more worrying undertow, too. Did the Police know something they didn’t? Shouldn’t people be more responsible? Who was responsible for all this? This is 2019, we’re talking about. There was even a flavour of newsjacking with big brands trying to cash-in.
Conclusions
So, armed with all this, what does it tell you?
Well, first up, I’m not going to suggest anything stupid like stopping tweeting. Police and local government people who tweet have my undying admiration. I used to be one. Whoever launched the hashtag should be applauded for trying to tackle a serious issue. But the episode does provide some teachable moments that we can learn from.
The public sector should still tackle the big issues
The temptation after adverse publicity is to go into a bunker and maybe delete your account. ‘No,’ and ‘no’ to that. There is a need to communicate in the places where people are. Besides, its a legal obligation for the public sector to warn and inform.
When things go awry I think Cadbury’s and Easter
Every year the meme re-surfaces that Cadbury’s have banned the word ‘Easter’ from their Easter eggs. It spreads across the internet like wildfire. It’s political correctness gone mad. Angry people bombard Cadbury’s with messages to say how outraged they are.
The only thing is that Cadbury’s haven’t banned Easter at all.
The chocolate manufacturer when this first happened where faced with a choice. Either ignore it or talk back. They chose talk back. Like a giant version of whack-a-mole their team mans the ramparts to try and tweet back to people who complain online.
@geordieron40 There’s no policy to remove ‘Easter’, it’s mentioned on the back! As a seasonal treat they’ll always be linked with Easter
Active rebuttal in the manner of Cadbury’s when things have gone a bit awry is something to deploy. If the message out there is that the police want you to pack your bags because… something BAD is about to happen that feels like something to address.
Equally, it wouldn’t go amiss to respond to some of the parody tweets with a degree of wit and humour.
Yes, this means more resources.
Yes, it helps to direct people towards your message.
Get by with a little help from your friends
The public sector is great but often vital campaigns are launched in a corner of the internet. With #GrabBag, I didn’t see the combined might of the public sector combining. It would have been good to see partners, friends and the rest of the organisation come to the fore to amplify any explainer tweets.
Tapping into your internal comms and companies
If we don’t trust government officials, who do we trust?
Well, it turns out we trust our employers far more. Perhaps surprisingly, even those who think the system is failing them put their trust in their employers. The Edelman Trust Barometer puts 69 per cent of those with a cynical outlook as still trusting their employer.
That’s a massively powerful figure and one that invites a real re-calibration your message. Have a loudhailer. But add companies’ internal comms channels to your loudhailer. It’s also enlisting your own internal comms too for public sector organisations are not just big employers but they’re big local employers.
Thanks for reading. You can find me @danslee on Twitter and dan@danslee.co.uk by email.
A while back I sat next to a journalist from joe.co.uk and the conversation turned to video.
Video was a central plank in how journalists reach an audience and good images made a story, he said.
Crucially, good images at the start of the video were crucial, he added. That’s something that I wholeheartedly agreed with and it was good to hear it from a journalist, too.
This week, I saw a joe.co.uk video that really brings strands together. It looks into how a no deal Brexit will affect Northern Ireland. The video is longer than you’d think it would be. It rolls on for more than nine minutes but doesn’t have slack.
It has an audience of 1.6 million on Twitter.
Whoever you are, take inspiration from where you can find it.
News organisations online are giving you a free lesson in how to assemble good content.
Social media video best practice
Put the most arresting clip right at the start
In training, we often talk about putting the exploding helicopter in the first three seconds.
In other words, put a clip of the strongest footage in the first three seconds to grab attention and stop people from scrolling on.
In this clip, the quote from one man: “Ten of my friends were shot beside me.”
That would stop anyone in their tracks. Why? How? When? What happened? Your interest is piqued and you want to carry on watching. While visually not arresting the strong line coming from a kindly-looking old man certainly is.
Leave the office, find the real people and talk to them
Real people can be far more interesting that a politician reciting lines to take or trying to make them up on the spot.
Real people also have more friends on Facebook who are more likely to view and share the content. It also shows that real people are affected by decisions made by politicians.
Add a logo in the corner
Some people are wedded to the idea of having three seconds of logo to act as a kind of MGM Lion roaring into your consciousness.
The problem with this approach is that this doesn’t meet social media’s scrolling and goldfish-lite attention span. The way round that is to add a logo in a corner in the style of Channel Five’s football coverage.
Add a title to each interviewee
So, as each interviewee is introduced, they have their own title to display their name.
Joe.co.uk use black on yellow for titles – in other words people’s names – to introduce them to the viewer. The title sits above the sub-title which is what the person is saying. It puts them into context.
Add sub-titles into the video itself
When you burn the sub-titles into the footage you don’t have to worry about whether or not the viewer has switched settings to allow sub-titles on Facebook.
Subtitles are the text of what the interviewer, interviewee or narrator is saying. By using sub-titles you are reaching a wider audience. Not just by making it accessible to those who have hearing difficulties but also making it accessible to people who are second screening at work, on the bus or while on on the sofa while their partner watching Eastenders.
Use cutaways
Cutaways are shots which add colour and context. They make the video more interesting.
So, shots of road signs, the garage and the countryside show the Northern Irish community that will be affected by a Brexit ‘no deal’. The fact that they look ordinary and every day reinforces the message of concern from those interviewed. This is not Beirut or Kosovo. This looks like many parts of the Brritish Isles and island of Ireland.
Build a story
The video builds a narrative. The story is of a journalist who voted for ‘Leave’ in the EU Referendum in 2016 but is now having misgivings.
He returns to Northern Ireland where he has worked as a journalist before to ask how people there feel. He asks what the town was like during the Troubles from the late 1960s to the large 1990s. The people who lived there were often anxious and there was a large police presence, he is told.
He finds disquiet amongst people that a hard Brexit may see a return to the bad old ways and his final interviewee recalls how he was dragged off a bus with 10 workmates by terrorists who shot them leaving him as the only survivor. That’s a powerful story. But as we’ve seen the stand-out quote has been pulled out to form the first four or five seconds to draw the viewer in.
Put your logo at the end
The Joe logo animates into the screen right at the end. It;s the full stop to the video.
The video shot list
1.Opening shot. Interviewee: “Ten of my friends were shot dead beside me.”
2. Journalist Peter Oborne talks of how he voted remain but he now thinks he didn’t have enough information on how it will affect Northern Ireland where he worked during his career.
3. Cutaways: The Irish countryside and road signs in Bessbrook. Armagh, Northern Ireland.
4. Bessbrook resident Ray Collins: It was scary in The Troubles with a strong Army presence and the risk of murder by the UVF.
5. Bessbook resident Tracey Feehan: Wants the British government to get real.
6. Bessbrook resident Joe McGivern: We’re in limbo here.
7. Bessbrook resident Alan Black: Ten of my friends were shot dead beside me.
8. Journalist Peter Oborne: His reaction to the interviewees.
9. Danny Kennedy, Ulster Unionist Party: When the Referendum was fought there was little attention to how it would affect Northern Ireland.
10. Jarlath Burns, Principal of St Paul’s High School in conversation with Peter Oborne: The Referendum was an English Referendum and English people didn’t fully realise there was a land border, Jarlath says. Peter accepts that.
11. Cutaways: the car journey to Dublin and Dublin landmarks.
12. Journalist Peter Oborne, reacts to his Northern Ireland visit.
13. Senator Neale Richmond, a member of the Irish Dail. The border issue didn’t arise during the Referendum but it is an issue to the PSNI.
14. Montage of candid clips of interviewees.
15. Journalist Peter Oborne: conclusions.
Conclusion
Overall, the joe.co.uk video is an engaging video on what could be a dry topic. The backstop for Irish border arrangements is not the most engaging content on the face of it. They’ve made it interesting by talking to the real people. They’ve made sure it reaches a wider audience by including titles and sub-titles.
It’s always amazing where you can find inspiration but I never thought it would be the last stages of Yugoslavia’s civil war.
I found the lesson in ‘Shadowplay’ by Tim Marshall a memoir of his reporting for Sky News in the former Yugoslavia.
By 1997, Slobodan Milosevic remained impregnable as President of Serbia after presiding over four lost wars and tens of thousands of deaths.
A NATO bombing campaign helped avert bloodshed in Kosovo but only cemented his position as the traditional wagons of Serbian society circled in support against foreign aggression.
It became clear that where bombs failed something else was needed.
The book talks of how there was no Serbian Vaclav Havel or Nelson Mandela ready to press for power. But there was a grassroots Serbian called ‘Otpor’ meaning resistance in Serbian.
As the British and Americans informally met the group it became clear that what was needed was something that would burst the balloon of popular feeling that Milosevic would never be removed from power.
The answer was simple.
The resistance slogan ‘Gotov je’ or ‘He’s finished’ emerged as the simple message.
If that could be painted or stuck across Serbia it would chip away at the castle.
So, the British and Americans simply helped smuggle the tools to spread this slogan on walls and buildings and on t-shirts. A radio station was funded and other tools bought and smuggled into Serbia.
“Each time a sticker, poster or spray-painted ‘Gotov je’ was seen another grain of sand fell away from Milosevic’s sandcastle. Almost three million stickers were produced.”
As the tide was turned, attention could be turned on who could be swept to power by the popular campaign of street protest unimaginable before the ‘Gotov je’ campaign.
The lesson is this. For good communications, it is not always remote power that is the answer but listening to people on the ground. Here, it was the subtle wit of a sticker that helped turn the impossible to the inevitable.
Tim Marshall’s ‘Shadowplay: The Inside Story of Europe’s Last War’ is available on amazon here and from bookshops.
Here we go again… something has come along to shift the comms landscape again.
Yes, yes, I can hear the Statler and Waldorf comments complaining about things changing yet again.
What now?
This post is about the video creating and sharing app TikTok and I’m blogging because its formed a serious chunk of the digital landscape.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a Chinese-owned platform whose servers are outside China itself to allow for a little more freedom. It’s a fast growing app that is now used by 500 million globally with no readily available UK user stats.
The platform works by allowing you the option to drop music tracks through the TikTok app into your video. The standard video length is 15-seconds but you can make that as long as 60 seconds or as little as three seconds.
What the app is doing is giving younger people the tools to create and edit content with text in the app. Short stories and gags with set-ups and punchlines are achievable by a 10-year-old. Or younger.
Hashtags work really well with content created around topics. Like, #petbff that celebrates pets, #ukcomedy, #ukfood or #noodledance. The issue of climate change works really well. Would green messages work? With some thought behind them, yes.
Here’s an example of content…
And also from Liverpool FC…
The orientation of video is upright rather like Snapchat. It is the opposite of the more common landscape video used by TV and much of the internet.
Who is using TikTok?
More than 500 million users are claimed. Lots of young people. The demographic is much younger than other platforms although some organisations such as Liverpool FC are experimenting with it with 600,000 people following their account while 165,000 follow BBC Radio 1 and 88,000 following the Washington Post.
Health warning #1 China
It’s Chinese-owned. Which shouldn’t be a problem unless you are looking to set state secrets to 15-second videos backed by K-Pop.
Health warning #2 GDPR
But there is a far bigger red flag health warning. The Information Commissioners Office are investigating the platform for a suspicion that it is not keeping to GDPR legislation. In addition, there is the suggestion that children can be messaged by adults without there being safeguards in place.
The thrust of the investigation would appear to be into the architecture of the platform rather than each of TikTok’s many users. But such a review should set some alarm bells ringing if you are thinking of embarking on using it.
Health warning #3 Not many examples… yet
The second note of caution is that there are very few public sector organisations using the platform.
Most use is through young people making content for other young people. What there is is more human content from frontline staff such as paramedics who are making short lip-synch videos for fun. Watching them, its hard to get away from the feeling that this is the trendy uncle breakdancing at a wedding.
But don’t be put off. Be your own case study.
Health warning #4 Trendy uncles
Looking at TikTok, there is a strong flavour of Snapchat in that its users are younger than the average comms person. So comms people are likely to be baffled by it. But I’m not sure that young people would follow public sector organisations. The exception to the rule would be the marvellous Caenhill Countryside Centre in Wiltshire that posts a daily video of animals leaving the barn in the morning that is truly magnificent.
Here is one…
In conclusion
Until the GDPR issues are sorted there is an argument to keep a watching brief.
If it is sorted, then an account that creates young-people focussed content may work. Adding music without the risk of legal action is attractive. But a communicator trying to pump out key messages and calls to action feels like the the wrong thing to do here.
Working with young people for them to create their own content to their own networks may be the best way. But until those GDPR issues are sorted its probably not worth looking into.
