For the last 18-months or so I’ve been helping deliver video skills workshops with one of the brightest people I’ve come across in a long time.
Steven Davies is a freelance cameraman, University lecturer and throughly good chap. A while back I asked about how he saw the future of video.
Virtual reality, was part of the answer.
Virtual reality is footage shot that allows someone with a headset to be immersed in a different world. Google cardboard can be bought for a few quid and is a way to view the content.
For young people
I’ll paraphrase him, but the problem with talking about virtual reality is that it’s like dancing about architecture. It doesn’t really work. So seeing this Google clip at #firepro on what virtual reality – or VR – can do in classrooms is inspiring. If you are not sure what it is take a look at this for 90 seconds and see the reaction of schoolchildren. It’s amazing.
And it’s older people too
Don’t think it’s just for young people, too. There is this example where VR works with old people. It puts them in a safe recognised environment and works well with dementia sufferers. You can take a look here. The older person is immersed in an environment.
The opportunites for PR people are immense. It is entirely a new exciting blank piece of paper. The ability is to place the VR headset wearer in an environment. I’ve blogged about this before.
Shout if I can help dan@comms2point0.co.uk and @danslee.
Browsing some web stats I came across this peach of a gem. It’s about the amount of time spent watching YouTube’s most watched video.
What could have been produced while watching Gangnam Style
This, of course, remains Gangnam Style, the Korean rap song from 2012 that has had 2,691,003,293 views since it was first uploaded.
The Economist looked at the amount of time spent watching the video and worked out hypothetically what that time could have been used for. It’s eyecatching. Many Empire State Buildings, for one.
Of course, that all pre-supposes that the time spent watching the clip could instead have been used on construction. But the reality is that probably people would have spent the time watching cat videos instead.
All it does is illustrate is the amount of time people spend watching video.
It’s been raining solidly for the past 24-hours and the flood warnings have been pouring in.
Winter is well and truly here and the risk of flooding is rising.
Step forward people who are using the web, email and social media to communicate.
Local government and fire, police and ambulance services all play a role. But the organisation that is head and shoulders above others in an emergency is the Environment Agency. The organisation has a highly devolved and regionalised social media policy that sees scores of staff trained on scores of accounts. There are also more than 80 different Twitter accounts as well as a presence on Facebook, Flickr and a blog. A webpage is also updated with flood warnings. You can search with your postcode for updates.
Why a regional, devolved approach works
The thinking is simple. If you like in Herefordshire you’d want the information in your area. So with regional accounts there is a stream of information for your area. You don’t have to wade through Cumbrian updates, for example. The large numbers of staff trained also helps resilience. This makes perfect sense.
Post-truth the human face is even greater
I’ve been banging on about having members of staff posting in a human voice as themselves for years. They are able to build trust in peacetime and can find themselves calling on that well on good feeling when the chips are down. In the context of post-truth where no-one can entirely trust what they are reading the value of having a trusted member of staff with a social presence rises.
Which is all why Dave Throup, Herefordshire’s area manager, is a major asset. When the water levels rise Dave shares warnings as well as sharing other content.
Heaviest rain beginning to move away north now but some very heavy showers pushing in from south.
But aside from warnings, there is content taken and posted by mobile phone. This adds to credibility and acts as a line of content for news outlets struggling with smaller newsrooms.
I’m not convinced that Twitter is the answer for everything. But in this case there is an established network and the updates reach journalists and community opinion formers. It would be interesting to see the EA searching for Facebook groups and pages to engage with in an emergency, for example. There are more than 30 such groups in the Shropshire town of Bewdley, for example. Some can reach severakl thousand people.
But overall, I love ikt. This is the perfect approach to take. A mix of national, regional and personal.
Look after social media accounts? There are a series of questions you need to ask and depending on the answers you may need to delete the account.
Over the past few year we’ve run a series of comms reviews on organisations. Social media has formed part of that. We’ll look at how well they are performing and give advice. Often people know they need to but don’t always have the time or the expertise.
Just recently we ran a survey over on comms2point0 with Musterpoint about the number of accounts operated by different organisations. If you missed the study you can find it here.
What stuck out was the number of social media accounts operated by different sectors. You can see the findings here:
The optimum number of social media accounts for an organisation
It got me to thinking about what the optimum number of accounts for an organisation was. Really that depends on the organisation. It depends on its staff and it depends upon who is the audience.
In the comms2point0 survey, the stats for fire, police and ambulance really stuck out. On average each service has almost 50 social media accounts. Very often they are frontline staff, teams or stations. A local face for the service can work well.
That’s fine.
But once a year at least I think every organisation needs to take a long hard look at itself just to check if they are on the right path. If you are responsible for an organisation’s social media footprint that means asking some tough questions and yes, it’ll mean going through the accounts forensically.
Some questions to ask during a social media review
What are the channels? Make a list of all the accounts attributed to an organisation.
Who has access? It sounds straight forward but so many organisations don’t keep a list of those with access or their email address. Let alone store that in one place where it can be easily accessed.
When was the last time they were updated? Look to see how active they’ve been. An account gathering dust probably isn’t much use.
How many times did they post content in the last seven days? It’s a simpole metric but it gives a snapshot.
How many replies did they get? Again, a simple metric but the more activity there is shows how engaged poeople feel with it. Engagement is good.
How many replies did they respond with? But once people engage with it you need to take a look at how they are responding. An account that blanks all people’s questions isn’t a good one.
What’s the balance of content? I’ve argued for a long time that an 80 – 20 split is desirable. The 80 is the human content that’s the bright picture or the meme. The 20 is the call to action. Mess this up at your peril.
Are they embeded on the right webpage? It’s fine having an account that speaks on behalf of a team. Or even an individual from that team. But is that account embeded in the relevant page on the organisation’s website?
Do they help tackle the organisation’s aims? In other words, do they make a difference and help important people sleep at night? Can this be quantified?
When you carry out your social media review, you’ll find some surprises. Very often, you’ll find a third of the accounts in an organisation are prospering, a third need a helping hand and a third probably need closing down. Don’t shirk at closing down accounts if they need to be closed.
So, don’t go for big numbers. Go for the right numbers.
Shout if I can help. I’m dan@comms2point0.co.uk or @danslee.
If you want to see where we are in how we communicate compare the emotion of the Amazon TV ad with Woolworth’s from 33 years ago.
One uses emotion to tell a story that makes you feel better and gives you hope. The other has Lenny Bennett.
Emotion as a channel
But as an example of using emotion to communicate the new Amazon Christmas TV ad is a perfect example.
You may have seen it. A white-haired man opens the door and invites a grey bearded into his house. It’s clear they are friends and it’s clear that they enjoy each other’s company. Equally, it’s clear that they are gentlemen of the cloth of two opposing faiths. One Christian and one Muslim. But no matter, they come together as friends and enjoy a cup of tea. Getting up to leave they both struggle with their knees. So, in a further surprise they order knee protectors for each other from Amazon.
It’s inspiring. It’s beautiful. It’s less about selling product and it is more about the emotion. As a world where there is too much distrust and fear between people, colours and religions we need this. The fact check that Amazon staff don’t always feel beautiful towards their staff is important too. Maybe the company will live up to their TV ad.
But what is fascinating about this TV ad and others such as John Lewis or Sainsbury’s is that emotion drives them. This isn’t about the head making judgements about price. It’s the heart that wants to make the place a better place to live.
And Woolworth’s…
Compare this to the Woolworth’s TV ad from 1983. Go on. Watch it. I dare you. It’s brilliant. It’s a mad list of products and their prices with celebrities of the day. Geoff Capes? Lenny Bennett? Kerching.
The drivers for this are value and bargains rather than making the world a better place. It aims at the head not he heart. Yet, the two companies fill the same niche in the market 30 years apart. They’re places where you can pick-up bargains. One was on the High Street and one online. In 2016, only one survives.
Reading through the post-Trump and post-Brexit assessment of where we are one passage stood out.
It’s from David Simas, Barack Obama’s political director, in a lengthy New Yorker piece you can read here.
It’s touches upon Facebook fake news and echo chambers:
“Until recently, religious institutions, academia, and media set out the parameters of acceptable discourse, and it ranged from the unthinkable to the radical to the acceptable to policy,” Simas said.
“The continuum has changed. Had Donald Trump said the things he said during the campaign eight years ago—about banning Muslims, about Mexicans, about the disabled, about women—his Republican opponents, faith leaders, academia would have denounced him and there would be no way around those voices. Now, through Facebook and Twitter, you can get around them. There is social permission for this kind of discourse. Plus, through the same social media, you can find people who agree with you, who validate these thoughts and opinions. This creates a whole new permission structure, a sense of social affirmation for what was once thought unthinkable. This is a foundational change.”
And I read this in former CIPR President Stephen Waddington’s Facebook timeline.
It’s public so I’m not betraying confidences. You can see it here.
I don’t have immediate answers to what post-truth comms needs to look like. But it feels like UK diplomat Tom Fletcher’s words about communicating like an insurgent form part of it. I’m heartened there are people looking for the answers. But I’d say that that’s not enough. You can’t outsource it. It cuts straight to trust, audience and effectiveness. If you are working in the field of communications in the public sector this is something you need to tackle too.
Six laws for content that works on the web… Ooo! Aaah! Wow! OMG! And I didn’t know that!
Every day we read, write, be amazed, shout, laugh at and share content online.
We do it after we wake-up, go to work, get to work and get home from work. The we do once we’ve kicked our shoes off.
Research would say we see 285 pieces of content every day. I’d say when I’ve got time on my hands it’s a lot more.
As communicators we are every day trying to compete with content that is shouting more loudly. Nobody is waiting for your press release. Or your video.
But how do you make yourself heard over the din?
I think it starts by looking at what works. What works for you? The meme? The 10-secondfd clip? The image? Think for a second.
It got me thinking how if I can catagorise the stuff I see that works. For me, it boils down to five words of phrases… Ooo! Aaah! Wow! Ha! And I didn’t know that!
Sometimes, if you are clever you can tick several of these boxes.
If you are not ticking any of them you need to think if that man in a suit against a wall for 20 minutes is going to fly. The chances are it won’t.
Ooo!
This is the spectacle. The arresting sight that makes you stop and stare.
This is the one that makes you stop and plays on your fears. Like the RNLI breath test produced to try and persuade people not to swim out-of-their-depth in the sea.
Ha!
This is the funny one. The one that makes you want to laugh and share it with your friends so they can laugh too.
Biden: okay here’s the plan: have you seen home alone
Obama: joe, no
Biden: just one booby trap
Obama: joe pic.twitter.com/Zbs2ym7GJP
This is the helpful one. The YouTube clip of the Indian student telling you how to fit a new cricket bat grip or the American showing you how to change a tyre. You look it up to help you. You’re amazed at how easy it is to follow and how complex the written instructions sound.
So, if your content isn’t any of those, should it be content at all?
“Why is it,” a Canadian fire and rescue officer said, “Why is it that firefighters who run into burning buildings afraid of change?”
A friend had asked him this and he admitted he was unsure what to reply.
The comment was made at Fire Editor’s #reimagine event in Birmingham where senior officers were debating big change that is coming down the path. Mergers with police forces are on the cards. So is closer collaboration. My role was to talk about the importance of communications in all this but the line about fearing change struck a chord. Not because I think firefighters are inherently resistent to change. Or because they don’t have concerns. Far from it.
It struck a chord because of my own regular soapbox about IT people and what I often say about comms people – myself included:
“Why is it that so many IT people think the everything that happened after the Commodore 64 is dangerous and should be resisted?”
Or what I often say about comms people:
“Why is it that people whose job it is to communicate are so poor at communicating?”
Why do we often fear change when other parts of almost our job would terrify another person?
It’s the annual local government Twitter event today and it got me thinking.
Five years ago I was part of a team at the first local authority to tweet what they were doing across 24-hours.
We won an award for it. But it wasn’t until 10 minutes before the 7am start time that I really thought it would work when I posted a tweet from the corporate account to say that environmental health officers were investigating a noisey cockerel on a deprived housing estate.
In following years the LGA picked up on it as a model and have run sector-wide events.
I’ve had high hopes for the model to help tell the day-to-day story of all the 1,200 activities that local government does. I’m not at all sure that it has managed to do everything it can. It’s not collectively banged a call-to-action drum for social care, for example. Or for people to join libraries or some other service task.
As Twitter slips from third to 5th most popular social media platform maybe the time is right to expand it in future to other platforms. However that may look. Evolve, adapt, learn, iterate.
But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe its enough purely a chance for local government people to be bold, stand tall, be proud of what they do and celebrate all the day-to-day things that build a bigger picture.
If for one day a year local government people can be proud of themselves and each other then that’s no bad thing. If you’ve taken part, well done. If you’ve persuaded someone else to too, even bigger well done.
Or ‘One day like this a year will see me right,’ as Elbow singer Guy Garvey once sang.
A few years ago I did the PR for the most famous man in Walsall you’ver never heard of.
Sure, the borough is not over-stocked with famous people. Three Men in a Boat author Jerome K. Jerome came from the place and so did Noddy Holder, swimmer Ellie Simmonds and drum and bass pioneer Goldie. All good within their own field, sure.
So, in that list most people wouldn’t add Steve Jenkins.
Steve who?
You will have bought, listen to or hummed any of the more than 150 top 40 hits he was connected with. Think Billy Ocean, Steps, The Stone Roses, Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Steps, Kylie Minogue. They wouldn’t be where they are without Steve Jenkin’s role in the machinery behind them.
Steve started his career in the music industry in the 1970s with The Beatles’ management company before moving through the industry to become MD of Jive Records. He did the promo for Stock Aiken and Waterman. He was part of a team who signed an unknown Britney Spears. In the industry he was one of the most powerful men for a very long time.
How did I get to know him?
He’s proud of Walsall so we staged an exhibition of his gold discs, fan memorabelia and the social history of pop music. It was great. He brought Pete Waterman along and a load of others.
So what?
I was reminded of him by this YouTube interview he gave where he talked about the slightly dark art of targeting record shops that featured in the chart returns. His team would go from store-to-store, offer free records for display and then quietly move them to the front of the rack. So, people browsing through ‘K’ would be met with Kylie Minogue straight away, for example. As Steve says, this was all above board and would only have a marginal impact. But if persued energetically it maybe the difference between a new chart entry at 29 and 35.
Here he is talking about it:
So why is that on a comms blog?
Simple. During the months of working on the exhibition one thing above all struck me. He was a geek. In the best sense of the word. He was a geek about the pop charts in the 70s, 80s, and 90s especially. He knew everything about it. How it worked. How it didn’t work. Because he knew it backwards he knew where the difference could be made. So, he knew when to release a record and which Woolworth stores to promote it in. Him and Pete Waterman would plan the promo campaign for bands while on the way to Walsall games.
He was a joy to do press with. Five journalists would spend 20 minutes with him one after another and all leave with a brilliant different anecdote, He has an autobiography you may like.
If only the social web was around when we ran the exhibition. We could have by-passed everyone and gone straight to the fan sites.
Take this lesson from him… know your stuff backwards. Kick the tyres. Learn. See what others do. See where you can get better. Experiment. Be bold.
Above all, pick a subject. Love it. Be a geek on it. Know it backwards.
