It’s the morning after local government elections.
I’ve voted.
I want to know who has won my ward.
I want to know who is in control of the council.
So why is it so very hard to find out these two basic pieces of information?
I live in the West Midlands but I’m interested in the results in a number of places across the country. The trek to track down the information has proved to range from difficult to the almost impossible.
Councils with no mention of results on their homepage.
Or mention of the results on their elections page.
Or mention that the votes are actually getting counted later in the day.
Or sodding pdfs that won’t download.
Election night is graft, I know
All in all, I’ve covered election night counts for 20 years and I get the hard work that goes into them. They can see 20-hour days from people who try really hard to do the best they can with outdated websites and patchy wifi. This is absolutely not a dig at any one council in particular but rather a sector-wide complaint. Anyone who worked last night deserves a medal.
But I mean all this with love. If we struggle to get people out to vote we’re not helping ourselves if we make it really hard for people to follow the results or catch-up in the morning.
Social media is great in realtime, but…
I’ve been an advocate for posting results in realtime on social media. That’s great. But ward results very quickly get lost in the timeline. They’re part of the answer. Not all the answer.
But if we can’t tell people the results, no wonder turn-out ain’t great
So, I ran a quick survey of the 16 councils that are closest to me. I could have gone on but it was too depressing.
45 per cent had no mention of election results on their homepage
50 per cent had no overall party-by-party breakdown.
Not one told me which party was in charge. Not one.
If local government can’t master something so simple as telling people who is in charge then what confidence can when they tell people they’ll crack this smart speakers and 5G lark?
This announcement is about what’s next. Here’s some thoughts on how it impacts public sector comms.
Direction of travel: privacy and private messagers
It’s clear that Facebook have been stung by misuse and criticism. It’s also clear that the old Facebook of pages, news feed and the blue and white branding are on their way out.
The focus from Facebook will be privacy.
For the future, people want a privacy-focussed social platform.
Mark Zuckerburg, F8, 2019
Tools for business to buy and sell on WhatsApp will follow and there’s a lot of talk about Facebook Messenger being the safest, securest and quickest private messenger service.
Key message: Private messaging apps Facebook own like Messenger and WhatsApp will get more important as will messaging through Instagram.
Friends and family… and communities in groups
It would be wrong to translate the shift to privacy to more private messages.
It means a focus on smaller groups. Your friends and your family are that.
Two years ago, Mark Zuckerburg caused major upheaval by declaring an end to click-bait. How? He switched focus from naked clicks on pages to friend and family. The shift overnight undermined the business model of many media companies.
This year he reinforced the direction of travel to keep it towards friends and family.
So, your mates and you brother will be seen more as you scroll through your Facebook.
Our friends and family are always going to be the core of our social lives.
– Mark Zuckerburg, F8, 2019.
Key message: Not PMs but you’ll see more from your mates and your Mum and Dad.
Direction of travel: Groups, groups, groups
Facebook groups are going to be big, big, big.
I’ve been a keen observer of the role Facebook groups have played for a couple of years. They’re going to play an even bigger role. Why? They give a sense of community and there’s a bit of walled garden from the nasty wider internet.
I could not be happier about this.
In a world where people are joining fewer physical communities and there is less social cohesion its more important than ever to be part of comunities that are meaningful to us.
There are already more than 400 million members of Facebook groups that are meaningful to them.
We believe there is a community for everyone so we’re building on a major evolution to redesign the Facebook app to make communities as central as friends.
Overall, we’ve made it a lot easier to find and connect to groups with much better suggestions and search.
It all adds up to the feeling that groups are at the heart of the experience just as much as friends and family.
– Mark Zuckerburg, F8, 2019
This is huge, huge, huge.
If you’ve been a member of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group you’ll have seen the benefits for some time. A walled garden of shared interest it has engagement rates that dwarf any pages I know. You can find it here.
But it does mean that public sector comms people need to massively switch-up their overall Facebook game. The idea of chucking something onto a page and forgetting about it has become as pointless as pinning an announcement to a lamp post.
Extra tools have been announced to clamp-down on misinformation or harmful content in Facebook groups.
Message: Communication on Facebook will increasingly be through groups.
Direction of travel: Seriously bad news for pages
Here’s the bad news for the public sector. Your page on its own is pointless. It’s something I’ve been saying for some time and has been hugely reinforced.
What’s interesting is not just what Zuckerburg said but what he didn’t.
The biggest loser in this announcement are pages. There was nothing of note said about them. When you bear in mind that the public sector pages real estate is huge and extensive this is really, really important.
The direction of travel for Facebook is clear: friends, family and communities through groups. Pages don’t feature in that at all.
Message: Stop putting all your eggs into the Facebook page basket.
Direction of travel: Facebook are keen on stories
Facebook are really keen on you making more stories with your content.
These are upright filmstrips that can be created with text, video, stickers and emojis.
I’m not a huge fan but if the direction of travel is towards rewarding them this is something that needs to be worked on if you want to reach people.
Message: Look afresh at stories.
Direction of travel: Instagram is not just for pictures it’s for buying and donating
Instagram has been a platform of growth for years.
The big changes announced here will delight charity comms people. A button to help people donate to a cause close to their heart has been announced. Aside from that, a shopping channel has been launched and Facebook are looking at ways to allow business to use the platform.
So, ‘merch link in bio’ will become a thing of the past. That means ticketing for events suddenly opens up as a viable strategy.
They’re also improving Instagram stories, improving private interactions and making the camera better.
Key message: Instagram has just got a lot more interesting to communicators and marketers looking to sell stuff.
Direction of travel: they’re having a re-brand and trying to win your trust back
The blue and white logo will go and will be ‘modernised.’ You won’t hardly see blue on the app and website from sneak peaks of the new platform.
So, white backgrounds. That’s the colour of purity, right?
They’re also stressing a new approach based on the principles of private interactions, encription and safety. They also talk of ‘interoperability’. That means how Facebook brands like WhatsApp, Messenger and the main platform can navigate to each other. On top of that, secure data storage is more important. So is ‘reducing permanence’ (translation: In other words, they don’t want you do be frightened that something you say as a kid will be dug-up to blight your future.)
Key message: Facebook are staging the largest re-brand in corporate history.
In summary: Big changes will require some big thinking from public sector people and a new use for some old furniture.
I’m running a new workshop to help public sector people understand how to better use Facebook.
I’ll be joined by Sarah Lay for VITAL FACEBOOK SKILLS at a city near you.
A few weeks back I was asked for a list of decent apps that I’d recommend for comms people and that always gets me thinking.
Rather than a list of things that look great but never use here’s a list of apps that I do use on a regular basis and that I’d hate to delete from my phone.
Some I use to create content while others are for keeping tabs on things.
I’ve taken as a given the main social channels of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. I’ve also taken it as read that if you are an android user you’re using things like Google sheets, docs and forms.
As I’m an android user, these apps are android. You may well find equivalents in the app store.
Capturing and storing
Screenshot Touch
Sometimes you find yourself scrolling through your timeline and see a tweet or a post that catches your eye.
If you do need and you need to capture it then this app is really handy.
Launch it and you’ll have a camera icon on the screen that you can use to take pictures that are saved to your gallery.
Seen something handy posted online that you’d like to save for later?
The Pocket app is a really useful way to save things. Rather like a pocket library Pocket acts to save your links.
Aside from saving your own links, you can also use key words to search for content on a particular content. So, need a look at everything on Facebook advertising that’s been saved by Pocket subscribers you can dive in.
This app captures records what is on your screen at a particular moment in time.
You launch the app and then you hit record.
The video is saved as an mp4 clip in your gallery that you can use as a separate video later. Useful for capturing a timeline or a Periscope live video.
Caution: it’s not great at recording sound and will record you coughing after you hit the red button.
You can edit with a comprehensive range of tools that a few years ago you’d have to pay serious money for.
There are 11 set template styles and 28 tools contained here.
About 10 years ago, the free Google product was still behind the paid-for platforms. That’s understandable. But this free Google product is an excellent way to edit images on the go.
I spent years working in offices and find that being around people meant I got more done. It also meant I got less done with daft interruptions.
So, the White Noise app is a happy medium between the idea of working in a work environment and not having to listen to people saying ‘if you’ve got a minute.’
Rain is the most productive part of this.
If only I could work in an open plan office on the top of Haystacks in the Lake District.
Busy time in Manchester tomorrow with the Reds facing an unfancied side from Spain. The @MENnewsdesk tells us where the travel deadlocks will be, and posted a very creative info sign from Transport for Greater Manchester https://t.co/6WPZD6Kahspic.twitter.com/kdDjlsUMZN
In my early days as a communicator, media relations was the stand-out skill I needed.
I worked for a newsy council that had not long come out of special measures and fell at the intersection between warring newspaper groups. Three daily papers and three weekly papers fought it out with two radio stations and two TV channels. It was a busy time.
Media relations is still important.
But as news has moved from print to digital the key to media coverage has evolved from the ability to create 300-words of press release with a photocall to what content you can supply for Facebook.
Facebook remains the behemoth as we head to towards the third decade of the 21st century.
As I’ve launched a new workshop Vital Facebook Skills with Sarah Lay here are some things for you to know.
10 reasons why every communicator needs to take Facebook seriously
It’s a platform that has the numbers
In the UK, there are 41.8 million people who have used Facebook in the past four weeks. If we take the current UK population as 64.1 million that means 65 per cent of the population is a regular Facebook user. (source: Ofcom)
It’s a platform that is growing
Facebook users are going up not down. The Cambridge Analytica scandal is something to be aware of and there has been a movement to quit Facebook. But this has had limited impact on the bigger numbers. In the UK, from 2017 to 2018 the number of UK Facebook users rose by 5.2 per cent from 39.7 million. (source: Ofcom here and here.)
It’s a place that’s local
Every man woman and child likes nine local groups and pages. That was the result on research I’d carried out. It has become the Parish pump. And the place new parents hang out for advice.
A Facebook group mobilises support for an issue locally. In the old days it was a pen, paper and a clipboard to collect names. Now? It’s a Facebook group to turn clicktivism to rapid activism.
That’s something you need to be aware of and listening to.
It’s an effective place to target adverts
You can reach people you want to reach if you have budget. When you use Facebook you give it a pile of data. That means if you are after a married brass band enthusiast who lives within 20 km of your town hall you can target them and only them. Facebook accounts for 20 per cent of the global ad market, the FT says.
It’s a place where people don’t like to like public sector pages, TBQFH
In research I’ve carried out, just three per cent of the population like a public sector page. You can have good content. But you need other ways to go and reach people where they chose to hang out on Facebook.
That’s in local groups more often than not. (source: original research).
It’s a place that reaches older people
Ipsos research shows that Facebook reaches 7.8 million people in the UK aged over 55.
Often older people are on the platform to keep in touch with family. (source: Statista).
It’s a place where the traditional media now is
As newspapers sell less print papers their digital reach has grown. Reach plcs’ Marc Reeves points to the Birmingham Mail’s 20,000 print copies and its online audience being 40 times larger through Birmingham Live’s 350,000 subscribers and its other Facebook footprint.
That huge.
It’s a place where video is watched without sound
Video is an important driver for traffic on your page or profile. But 85 per cebt of content is watched without sound. Why? Because people are out and about or at work or sharing a sofa with someone watching TV. (Source: digiday.)
It’s a channel that’s predicted to rise in the UK
Research suggests that Facebook is not going away any time soon. It predicts a rise in Facebook use in the UK to 42.27 million by 2022. (source: Statisa). That means its going to get more important and not less.
There’s a minority of people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
They’re the first to complain and often among the last to help.
They crop up in the comments section of the Daily Mail and you’ve seen them in the local paper and from time-to-time on your Facebook page, too.
Social media has given them a platform and their indignation helps keep media companies’ share price in the black.
Nobody minds challenge, but the self-righteous eye-rolled trolling isn’t that at all. It’s a drip-drip of corrosive bile that can sometimes inhibit some people from posting. It can only end in a world that is much poorer.
So, it was so refreshing to see a newspaper group shun the clickbait of faux outrage for something far better and by doing so ironically reach a wider audience.
The story is this. Police officers were photographed eating breakfast getting a briefing in a branch of McDonalds. A debate broke out on Facebook with some criticising the officers for their public break. So, credit EssexLive for shunning easy outrage with this headline:
We don’t care that Essex’s cops stopped for coffee and neither should you.
Their enlightened stance was welcomed by a senior officer responsible for them.
What builds on it is this piece of human comms for an Inspector who on his own Twitter gave public support and gave an explanation of what they were doing:
Really pleased for such a sensible response. Personally it was nice to see my incredibly hard working officers had a chance to get hot food (which is rare), and proud they chose to use their meal break to have a team meeting, remaining visible in the town. https://t.co/UxwfQbaPPa
Facebook has gone and done it again and shifted the algorithm.
For video, the optimum video has shifted from just 15-seconds to a bumper three minutes.
The new number is contained in advice to Facebook page admins spotted by eagle-eyed Bradford City Council digital comms whizz Albert Freeman.
Thinking behind three minutes
For a while it’s clear Facebook has had designs on being YouTube.
The optimum time for a YouTube clip has consistently been around the three minute mark for years. Of course, some will be longer and some shorter but around the three minute mark has been optimum.
The thing is, people head to YouTube in the same way people head to the library. They want information or to be entertained. So, to spend three on YouTube to learn how to change a tyre or watch a cartoon is fine.
But I’d bet the real driver for Facebook’s shift to three minutes is driven by money.
The longer you spend on Facebook the more attractive you are to advertisers. That includes ads cropping up part-way through videos that Facebook are keen on and with a short 15-second clip you can’t really do that.
An unscientific check of my own Facebook timeline shows these results:
56 per cent are over three minutes.
9 per cent are between two and three minutes.
22 per cent are between one and two minutes.
6 per cent are between 30 seconds and one minute.
3 per cent are 30 seconds or less.
But grabbing attention remains paramount
The temptation to use the three-minute mark as an excuse to park sloppily-edited content would be a mistake in my view.
Let the camera run for three minutes on a subject?
That would be a huge mistake.
The one thing that I think hasn’t changed is people’s attention span.
How are they consuming media? They’re scrolling through their timeline looking for something interesting.
So, the first three seconds are STILL paramount
A week or two back I met a journalist from a news site that is part of the new breed of journalism. Video, he said, is a key driver.
But for him the first THREE seconds were critical. If it didn’t have anything to grab attention in those seconds he tends to skip over your email.
If your content is interesting and tells a story then you’ve a chance. A film sent back from an embedded journalist on life as a medic in Afghanistan was re-edited to open with the burst of machine gun fire that came in towards the end.
Why?
To grab attention.
Length is one factor but quality is another
It’s tempting just to look at video length and keep the record button pressed for the required amount.
That would, of course, be really silly. The optimum lengths are useful to know what is being encouraged by big tech companies so you can plan your video accordingly.
But you also need interesting and engaging content.
You need an eye-catching start and story telling is a strong asset while you are planning your content or editing.
You also need to think titles and sub-titles as 80 per cent of video gets watched without sound.
I’ve helped train more than 2,000 people from 300 organisations over the past four years. For more on workshops near you click here. Or give me a shout by email dan@danslee.co.uk.
But a special case for the BBC Brexitcast podcast needs to be made on the theme of looking to communicate with a human voice.
What is Brexitcast?
The idea is simple. BBC journalists put together an occasional – and more recently daily – podcast to summarise what is happening with Brexit and give intelligent informal analysis.
What you get are BBC journalists you may see for 45-seconds on the BBC News at Ten given space to breathe and to kick around ideas. Free from the shackles, they’re also allowed to behave like human beings. So, their frustrations, fatigue and nail colour also form part of it.
If I could break it down by numbers, it is 10 per cent Newsnight, 25 per cent humour, 10 per cent running-on-empty tiredness, 40 per cent insight and 5 per cent speculation about the significance of the colour of Laura Keunssberg’s coat (baseless as it turns out).
MPs talking like humans
Fascinatingly, the informal approach also rubs off on occasional guests such as this MP who talks about his Brexit coping strategy:
“How long do you spend in your hole?”
MP Andrew Percy tells us about his special hiding place in Parliament. 😂
As this snippet posted to Twitter shows, you get a disarming insight into the life of two MPs. One a Remainer and one a Leaver. They’re both affected by the stress of Brexit.
So much so, that one MP finds a quiet spot in Parliament to escape the stress by pulling his jacket over his head and maybe flick ‘v’s at passers-by.
The podcast itself gets published late at night and is my way to get up to speed on shifting developments.
Journalists talking like humans
As a former journo, I get that the most interesting stuff often doesn’t make the news story and Brexitcast gives some degree of flavour.
It captures something of the excitement of breaking news in a newsroom and the down-time speculation around stories that made where I worked such an exciting place to be.
News has changed
This could not have been done the last time the UK was debating its membership of what was then the EEC.
Technology has changed and so has people’s habits of consuming the news.
Things like Brexitcast remind me how antiquated the idea of solely gathering around the telly at an appointed time for news now is.
But what’s also fascinating is that downloads of the podcast on the itunes chart may give future historians an insight into how bothered people were about Brexit itself:
Pic: itunes chart, April 2019
At a time when MPs are being threatened in the streets and dodgy money is funding Facebook attack ads this is a wonderful reminder that at heart we are still British.
If you look hard enough, we still have a sense of humour, still have intelligence and still have tolerance. And the BBC are still finding ways to be as relevant in the 21st century as Robin Day’s bow tie was when I was a kid.
Note. I’ve updated to reflect that the podcast has been daily of late.
I’ve said it before but UK police can be flipping brilliant at delivering wry asides through social media.
The Bulwell, Rise Park and Highbury Vale Facebook page posted this image of a phone as a kind of lost and stolen item.
But reading on, it also seems plain that the phone could be returned but only if there are responses to the £100 of steak its owner took and ran off with and the suggestion of drug dealing.
Wry and witty it paints a picture that the police are human, have a sense of human but also take shop lifting – and drug dealing – seriously.
But one thing really does emerge from asking a set of additional deeply unscientific set of questions I asked of the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group.
They in no way replace or undermine the CIPR data but one thing absolutely shines through for public sector communicators and that’s a lack of respect.
The strawpoll results
182 – Lack of respect for comms as a profession.
108 – Lack of resources
49 – Lack of planning and prioritisation
39 – Most of them, TBF.
8 – Stress
And what to do about a lack of respect
For me, comms people often are their own worst enemy. One cog in a large organisation the easiest way is to go along with the request for a poster even when a poster isn’t what’s needed.
There are only so many times you can push back against someone with more years of service and a bigger salary and I get that. But I keep coming back to the idea that unless you do challenge and offer advice there’s really nothing between you and a glorified shorthand typist.
I’m a member of the CIPR. Why? Because broadly, they’re an organisation heading in the right direction.
If I was in-house I’d be looking at the work that LGComms, GCS and communicators in the NHS do too.
I’d be looking to train and learn as much as I could.
But at the end of the day, while there are organisations around, the need to be taken seriously as a communicator begins and ends with yourself. If you don’t take yourself seriously how can you expect others to?
