While it articulates visually the maze of tools that are out there it also works as an interactive map that checks and logs new tools by category.
Martech – short for marketing technology – lists applications and websites with added Artificial Intelligence.
Move your mouse across the link on the website you can see a range of different categories from PR, content marketing, display and programatic advertising, mobile marketimng, CRMs and also tools for print.
You can also find out basic information as your mouse hovers as well as click through to the site.
So, there’s a list of almost 80 tools that use AI that are PR-specific. This includes mainstream platforms such as Cision, Veulio and pr.com’s press release tool.
There’s also more than 300 for video including YouTube but also a tools that allow a range of skills such as animation, voiceovers and text to video.
It’s as close to a search engine for AI tools as I’ve seen which is going to make experimentation easier.
It’s also important to note that the 14,106 figure is a 27.8 per cent growth year-on-year. Less than three per cent of vendors have pulled out their services in the past 12-months.
There’s also hundreds that work with Open AI’s ChatGPT tool.
A while back I wrote a blog post on how to write a comms plan and the icebergs for you to navigate past.
It’s a subject that keeps coming up so I thought I’d take a fresh look at it and simplify things.
Yes, comms planning and evaluation is still important but its so often the thing that gets squeezed out.
Do it well and it saves you time in the medium and long term. It also demonstrates your worth.
Who should be involved in comms planning?
You should be and you should be holding the pen, too. You should be involving the service area and maybe two or three others too. The service area bring the data and you bring your expertise.
What can go wrong?
The comms plan is shaped by one person. This is a collaboration between you and other people. If it goes wrong it’s the fault of whoever drafted it.
They’ve got no data. If they’ve got no data you’re stuffed. You need to understand where you are now and where you’re going. You’ve got 100 volunteers. You need 120. So, that’s 20 recruits. That’s a different shaped campaign compared to one that needs 200 recruits or 2,000.
They’ve already made their mind up. It’s posters we want, choppety chop. This is not a comms plan. This is the text of an email to Prontaprint. You need to sit down to work through this plan.
They’ve left it too late. At this point you are managing expectations.
Here’s what an effective comms plan template looks like
Here are the questions for you to ask.
Where are you now?
2. Where do you want to go and why? (5 minutes)
3. You’ve done these two before the meeting, so there’s no need to spend too long on this. This points out on the map where you are.
4. Who do you want to talk to and why?
5. What’s the one thing you want them to do and why?
6. How much work time and money do you have to help you reach them? (15 minutes)
7. How long have you got?
8. When and how are you going to evaluate?
9. Who are you going to tell that you are doing this so you can tell them how it has gone?
10. Whats the timeline of tactics for it all?
Do this in advance and you’d got more chance of making the thing work.
The template can be found as a downloadable Google doc here.
In the early days of video training I helped deliver we’d have a clip that showed how landscape was the right way to shoot footage and upright video was plain wrong.
“People have eyes side by side,” the video joked, “not above each other.”
It’s a huge shake-up but I’m here to tell you it needn’t be daunting.
Why are they doing this? Because more people watch video on a mobile phone holding their phone in one hand upright scrolling with the other.
When will this take shape? This transformation is taking place in USA and Canada first before being rolled out globally.
This huge shift in approach and demands we all take a fresh look at how video is created. A key part of this is to look at what the recommendations Meta themselves are making.
Here’s some help with making sense of video.
Types of video on Facebook
There’s three types of video you can post to Facebook. Each one has a role to play.
Short-form video
Firstly, you can still post longer video to Facebook. Soon, you’ll have to do this as portrait-shaped as opposed to landscape-shaped. Facebook have said that you can re-purpose existing content for this but it is unclear as to how this will take shape.
Landscape footage can still be posted with a button to convert the clip from a portrait viewing experience to landscape.
Optimum length: Ten years ago, Facebook went from 16 seconds to two minutes for optimum video to encourage ads popping up mid-way through clips. Now, more than 90 seconds is the new optimum length for shortform.
Reels
This is where I’d be putting time and effort. Reels is Meta’s TikTok equivalent that they are pushing strongly.
Recent research on public sector content put Reels head and shoulders above other content. When Reels was first launched it came as a laboured version of something that should be fun. You could see what they were trying to do but it was limited spark. That’s got better although the search algorithm still has some way to catch up with TikTok.
Be creative. Start with a hook so a teasing intriguing question or arresting footage. Keep it short. People work best because people connect with people.
If you are not creating Reels then start now is Meta’s advice.
Optimum length: Between 15 and 20 seconds is best.
Live video
Live video has pulled in huge numbers but often the public sector is a little hesitant.
Upright live video may be challenging but it’ll be interesting to see how tools like the landscape video tool Streamyard can sync with it. This tool that takes people’s webcams and adds them to a desktop studio where they can give guests name titles, add banners to the screen with questions and add the title of the discussion. I’m a huge fan.
Alternatively, you can take the Spudman or Max Out in the Lake District approach and go live direct from your mobile device.
Optimum length: 20 to 30 minutes.
Facebook’s tips on creating video
There’s aa few pointers that Meta have made to give people a steer. This is so much better than the earlier days of Facebook where people were left pretty much to guess.
If you’re making video then pay attention.
Record in vertical video 9:16
The 9:16 format is portrait-shaped. This content will be rewarded.
Engagement
This is a big one.
In their update, Facebook have been keen to stress engagement. That means comments likes and shares as well as eyeballs where people are watching. So, the question to ask yourself is how you can encourage this. Is it asking a question or maybe questions?
“Focus on engagement: Our recommendation systems favour videos that have a lot of engagement,” is the guidance.
“Beyond plays and watch time, this also includes interactions such as reactions, comments and shares.”
This on its own should encourage people to play around with live video.
Storytelling
Being able to tell a story with a who, what, when, where and why. Meta’s own guidance is that authentic storytelling is more likely to perform well, regardless of whether it’s a Reel, medium length or long video.
Authentic
Meta still want you to be authentic. If you think you need special effects, slow motion, drone footage and exploding space rockets then you can relax a touch. Rough around the edges has a place on Facebook.
Use Meta’s editing tools
The advice with Reels is to still finish off using the tools that Meta provide. So, use their music and their text on screen. If you use the Reels editing tools on Instagram you can add subtitles that use the AI tool to make a stab as to what they say. You still need to check that out to avoid inaccurate subtitles.
If you’ve found this useful you’ll like ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED training to help you plan, shoot, edit and post effective comms and PR video.
Instagram has often baffled the public sector yet with some fresh thinking it could work well for you.
The worst examples I’ve seen of corporate Instagram are a receptacle for every piece of artwork or campaign regardless. The sense of box ticking is as strong as the tumbleweed, frankly. Just because something been posted doesn’t mean it’s worked.
So what does work?
Well, firstly, it’s creating a filter around who your audience is. Who is likely to follow you? Who is following you? Instagram is most popular amongst under 30s. It’s visual and increasingly video. Half of all time spent on Instagram is spent watching video, so how can you tailor something?
The days of Instagram being a place solely for landscape pics, fashion pics or shots of your breakfast have long gone.
Here’s three examples of good Instagram use to inspire you.
Alderhey Children’s Hospital
A few years ago, this children’s hospital on Merseyside was involved in a high profile court case involving a baby and medical advice that pointed to switching off the life support machine. The case was traumatic for all concerned and led to a rethink by the hospital on how they use social media.
Instead of using Instagram as a general bulletin board they asked a simple question: ‘What are we about?’ The answer was they were a place that had inspiring staff doing amazing things for amazing child patience. So, they decided to use Instagram as a place to posting inspiring stories of staff and patients and nothing else.
This remarkable approach has generated some truly magnificent content that has been picked up by news outlets across the globe.
For example, here’s 13-year-old Ellie who appears in this video ringing the end of treatment bell.
It’s an emotional video that shows video ringing the symbolic bell then hugging her Mum. It’s beautiful.
Then there’s this which is a quick staff profile of Linda a catering assistant.
Both build a picture of a hospital with real people doing a fantastic job.
Leeds Plus Social
This isn’t public sector but its absolutely a channel to learn from. Leeds Plus is a news outlet that exists on social media that focuses on the positive.
Scroll through and you’ll see stories from across the city with more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. That’s an impressive number.
The platform divides its content into seven nicely curated categories including news to food & drink, new venues, local heroes, back in time and events. Want more food & drink? Hit the category at the top of the channel. The lesson here is to focus on what people want and curate it for them.
As you scroll down the timeline you get a layer which gives the title of the video. Click through and it uses subtitles to run through the story. Here a £250m tram proposal is being explained in the caption but also the video which tells the story in text on cutaways of Leeds streets.
Or this which tells the story of the Mr Whippy Vans departing the city park.
It’s clear that news stories can be covered on Instagram if they are created for uniquely for Instagram and from the ground-up.
Yorkshire Dales
While video is a driver there’s still room for good photography. Every area has its share of people who celebrate the area with good pics. The trick is to ask them for permission to share them and then credit them.
Here, a shot taken by amateur photographer Andy Kay is used to celebrate the view. What I also love about this are the comments. One person recognises it as his father-in-law’s land where he first started to dry stone wall. So, connections with the community in an unexpected way.
From a more day-to-day call to action perspective this shot of the museum flags up the museum as a place to go for events.
What good looks like
Anton Mosseri, head of Instagram, recently posted that follower numbers were less important than likes and views per post. This makes loads of sense and navigates around the legacy impact of previous ways Instagram were used. An account may have 20,000 people, for example, but if the content is poor this week it’ll lead to limited engagement. A couple of likes for this is not a great look.
The other good thing about this is that it can be understood with a basic grasp of maths rather than buying an external tool. Adobe put ‘good’ at four per cent engagement. So, two likes amongst 20,000 followers at 0.01 per cent is demonstrably poor. To reach four per cent for 20,000 followers would need 800 engagements.
Summary
Instagram is its own channel with its own filter needed to weed out the content topics that won’t work. Will it appeal to under 30s? Is it visual? Can it be video?
Consistently, what doesn’t work are pieces of graphic design messaging. The numbers for these are consistently poor.
Well, it used to be pics of landscapes back in the day, didn’t it? But what works well on Instagram today?
It’s true that square pics of fashion, landscapes and pics of your dinner were ‘Gram staples when it was bought by Meta for a billion dollars in 2012. But the platform has evolved into a channel where the Meta portrait-shaped video format Reels now dominates.
Instagram has long evolved away from being just pics. You can just post pictures but also, you can post a carousel of pictures which means multiple pictures in the same post for people to browse through. You can also post conventional video as well as Reels video.
In this piece of research I’ve also added artwork and toolkit as a format. Basically, toolkit content is that made by an organisation and then shared across a number of organisations with a request to share. An NHS Scotland Measles campaign shared with NHS organisations across the country would be an example of that. In addition, artwork is something designed in-house for a specific reason. Like a Happy Easter image, for example with a shot of an egg, text and a logo.
What the results show
Reels video is head and shoulders the most successful format of posting for the public sector, the survey showed. It’s not even close.
The engagement rate for Reels was a bumper 3.37 per cent well ahead of any other format.
The second most engaging format is a carousel of photographs at 1.3 per cent engagement with a standard single picture third at 0.82 engagement.
Artwork engaged 0.2 per cent and toolkit content connected with just 0.12 per cent.
What was potentially surprising was that conventional video performed particularly poorly. Just 0.03 per cent were engaging with this type of content. However, this option is being phased out.
Conclusions
The drive to Reels video is absolutely reflected in the numbers. While the Kardashians may not be happy at the drift to the video format the data doesn’t lie. The popularity of carousels isn’t surprising when you stop and think about it. Formats that mean people spend longer on the platform are almost always rewarded because time spent is such an important metric for social media companies.
About the survey
For the survey, 14 public sector channels and 135 posts were selected at random.
Content elected included NHS Highland, NHS Lothian, London Ambulance Service, Swansea University Health Board NHS, Belfast City Council, Manchester City Council, Lewisham Council, Essex County Council, Police Service Northern Ireland, Merseyside Police, Scottish Fire & Rescue and Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue. If you found that useful, I run social media reviews as well training to give you the skills to create better content through ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER training.
When I was a kid I’m sure I was delivered a lecture on how a reputation was so hard to build and so easy to lose.
Maybe it was for something pretty minor although – full disclosure – me and eight of my mates were suspended for a day in the VI form for drinking alcohol on Cannock Chase while we were running an orienteering checkpoint.
I told my kids this a few years ago and they were both – again, full disclosure – ASTOUNDED.
A quick look at the AI Register shows just three projects. Included in this list is a tool that shows how vulnerable children may be to exploitation and a virtual concierge assistant to help you choose the right tool for blind or deaf people to take part in civic society.
The benefit of being transparent
Back in the day, Tom Watson MP was a junior Minister responsible for the Civil Service (full disclosure: Tom was a very approachable contact when I was assistant chief reporter in the Express & Star’s Sandwell office).
One weekend, Tom crowdsourced what should be in the first draft of the civil service social media guidance. This included a suggestion to declare your connection to the Civil Service as you used social media in connection with a civil service matter. I’ve always thought this broad approach was a good idea.
If you’re declaring how you are using AI this can only build trust. There is no ‘gotcha’ moment but there may be a debate about the methods you use. But if you can’t justify it then should you even be using it?
Why setting out how you use AI is a good idea
For me, yes a comms team should set out how AI is used.
Indeed, Meta has already required that content created with AI are labelled. So, images and video created with AI tools need to be identified. But so too must text that’s been shaped with a tool like ChatGPT and posted to a Meta platform such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads or Instagram.
Not only this but in the UK, uploading deepfakes without the owners’ consent is already a crime. I cannot sensibly think of a time when a public sector comms team would create such a deepfake without the subject’s permission. However, the state of political campaigning in America is another thing entirely.
A couple of months back I was invited to become a partner of a social media management tool. After brief reflection I declined in part because I didn’t want to be hobbled in the independent advice I give.
Are social media management tools a good idea? For me, maybe. But never always. There are some tough questions to ask first before you sit through the sales pitch and commit to the dotted line.
Q: Will posting from your social media management tool inhibit my reach?
At a time when algorithms are making life hard it’s important to squeeze every ounce of advantage. Back in 2011 Meta confirmed that third party tools would harm social media reach. However, the picture today is far less clear. You can find posts from several social media management tools assuring people that’s not the case anymore. But there is a real lack of independent academic research in this area. A trawl of Google Scholar which searches academic papers draws a blank.
Q: Will the social media management tool have access to all of the new tools and functionality the platform develops?
Famously, Facebook as a platform is in permanent Beta. This is a geek way of saying that it is never ever finished. It will always evolve. New tools are constantly emerging. Some are tested in a handful of key territories, refined, rolled out or dropped.
There’s no realistic way that every tool is passported through to every social media management platform. After a successful trial Meta, X, Google or whoever are likely to attach a price tag on the latest must-have tool. Meta’s social media tool Business Manager on Meta doesn’t have every available tool so why would third parties?
This is a key question because platforms want new tools to work. Therefore, using new tools is often likely to be rewarded. Posting natively using them is likely to have the advantage.
Q: Will the social media management tool monitor who is posting from the account?
This is something the tool can usually do well. An integration with the platform means that certain people can post and some can’t. When those people can post they leave a trail behind them. You can see who did it. This can be useful. Business Manager on Meta can also grant and restrict access centrally to Meta tools. LinkedIn as a similar approach. It may be worth comparing and contrasting what the social media management tool can do against what is freely available. Is this valuable to you?
Q: Does the social media management tool have AI skills?
This is a new front in the battle. Many platforms say they use AI to help you write content. Whether or not using AI to create content is a good idea is one for you to reflect on. The research would urge you not to blindly rely on it. A clumsily-written post can undo plenty of hard work. However, using AI to create content can make the most of limited time so long as checks and balances are in place. Dilemma time.
Q: Will the social media management tool evaluate everything?
Often, social media management tools are really good at producing a report on demand with pie charts, numbers and other useful things. There’s no doubt these can look visually attractive. But are they the complete answer? For me, they’re part of the journey. Clicks, reach and numbers are useful as a broad metric. They can help you refine and learn from content. But will it tell you how many clicked on the job ad? How many ended up applying and how many are still engaged in the process? No. You need HR for that. Their data is the acid test as to whether or not your recruitment campaign is a success. There is no substitute for this.
In football terms, looking at individual metric data alone will tell you how far the player ran and how many passes were completed. It won’t tell you the final score. That’s the bigger picture.
Q: Will the social media management tool encourage corner cutting?
One thing I’ve learned from the last few years closely researching algorithms and effectiveness is that social media is changing and evolving. All social media algorithms penalise links. Why? Because the longer you spend on the platform the more attractive you are to advertisers. Does ITV tell people to go to the BBC mid-way through a peaktime drama? The heck it does.
The most effective content is created bespoke for a specific platform and tells the story on the platform. On Facebook, it can also be posting a link into the comments or on X, formerly Twitter, build a thread of tweets to tell the whole story.
With that in mind, I’ve lost count of the times people guiltily admit to cutting and pasting the same thing just to get the thing out of the door. We’ve all done it. I have in the past.
Posting the same content is also a bad idea. The most I’ve seen is 17 identical posts in a 24-hour period. Reader, the algorithm did not reward them. Fewer crafted posts are more effective than repetition.
Q: Can you use the social media platform on a mobile phone?
If you’re out and about and some news breaks can you use your mobile to post an update?
Q: Can you hit pause on the social media platform in an emergency?
Or if a key piece of news happens, can you quickly pause what you are about to send?
Q: How much will the social media management tool cost?
This is a big one.
How much?
If the questions you ask lead to answers you are prepared to pay for then knock yourself out.
But balance the figure you have against the free tools the platforms already provide.
A good social media policy like reinforced does the heavy lifting out of sight and can be juist as useful.
I’ve been involved with several and know they can be a bit of a devil to draw-up, agree, get signed off and then stick to.
So, I thought it useful to blog some examples which date from the last few years.
A good social media policy sets out how staff can use it and also how the organisation will use it.
You want iyt to be simple, clear and easy to follow. You also want it publsihed so people can see it. I’m puzzled at how so often people will bury theirs like an unwanted Christmas jumper.
Reading through the examples – and there are some fine examples for 2023 it struck me that there are a couple of things a robust policy needs to include.
Set out how the organisation will broadly use social media
You want this to be some clear basic principles.
So, we’ll use the best platform to reach the right audience is good.
We’ll use MySpace for the kids and Twitter for BeBo for customer services will really hem you in.
Set out how staff can use it and not use it
Again , broad principles are good. For the most part linking your code of conduct to also include social media does most of what’s needed.
The General Medical Council’s policy is aimed at how doctors can use it, for example, and they pull in existing good medical practice guidance before adding some other things around confidentiality and boundaries.
I also like University Hospitals Dorset’s policy as it covers how the organisation will use it but also staff out-of-hours too. They quote human rights legislation to defend their right to a voice but also spell out what will get them into trouble with codes of practice.
Beefing up the support
One thing I did see missing from some of the polocies was robust support for those using social media for the organisation.
There’s been talk of a Twitter replacement for so long now it feels like an over-spun line from a tired parent.
Just keep waiting, it’ll soon be here. Not long now.
From just round the next corner, it feels as though it’s finally here.
First, Twitter put a cap on the amount of content people could see and announced plans to put the useful Tweetdeck tool behind a paywall.
Second, Meta announced their long awaited Twitter rival they’re calling Threads.
Surely, Threads is the answer, right?
If you’re hoping for this as an outcome, it won’t. But it won’t be good news for Twitter.
Here’s why.
What Threads will be
News is sketchy but the low down has been that will look a lot like Twitter, or should I say, old Twitter, and it’ll be linked to Instagram.
It’ll also be free, Meta say, and there will be no limit on posts that can be read. Because it hooks into an existing channel there’s no need to start on the bottom rung with zero followers. That’s going to be a powerful incentive to organisations that have spent time building an existing following.
In addition, the benefit of this is that people can escape the undiluted craziness of the Elon Musk era with a platform that’s not safe to use, is rolling back on safety measures and in short has become something of a weird pub fight.
The tempting thing is to hope that Threads will be an easy like-for-like swap. All of your Twitter followers will magically reappear on Instagram. Bingo. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
It didn’t happen with Mastodon, TruthSocial or BlueSky. Even with the advantage of being connected to Instagram I don’t think it’ll happen here to the same extent. It replicates an existing network rather than builds a whole new one.
For the UK, this means that the prime Threads via Instagram audience is potentially under 30.
Ofcom data shows 91 per cent of 13 to 24-year-olds use Instagram and 82 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds. Almost two thirds of 35 to 44-year-olds use the platform, too.
Every single age demographic has Instagram used more than Twitter in all age groups except over 65s.
On the face of it, it’s a smart move to relocate those text-based messages to the ‘Gram. But hold on a second. Go and look at your Instagram insights. That’s your actual audience.
In practice, if you look at your corporate Instagram insights you may see a different group of people staring back at you. What that won’t be is a reflection of the whole of the audience that you’re looking to serve.
An aside on the changing nature of Twitter
Here’s one unscientific example of the changing nature of Twitter from my own experience. In 2009, England played Australia in the 1st Test of the Ashes. Their last two batsmen Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar had to survive 88 balls to scrape a draw at Cardiff. I followed the bulk of that on Twitter from the passenger seat of the family car with my wife driving and five-year-old son in the back.
Following on Twitter meant I could see every ball, the joy of the English reaction and the despair from Down Under.
On Sunday, I also followed an Ashes Test. This time I did it on the BBC Sport app without thinking the decision through. Why? Because that was the place I headed too without thinking knowing it would give me the best experience. It was only on reflection that it wasn’t Twitter.
Everyone who has loved Twitter on any level will have a different experience.
What the demise of Twitter and the launch of Threads means for emergencies
There’s no doubt Twitter has been a powerful tool to use in an emergency.
When an incident happened, people headed to Twitter and saw the relevant organisation providing real time updates.
In truth, posting to Twitter in an emergency was the last important reason for having a public sector Twitter account. With the limit on tweets and the stripping of blue ticks from organisations that last reason has been eroded.
Will Threads be a route to communicate in an emergency? Maybe. But I don’t think it’s a like-for-like and it shouldn’t be the only route.
How to communicate in an emergency post-Twitter
The route to communicate in an emergency is already with us. There is already a complex ecosystem of platforms, tools and channels. In the UK, as a population we tend to use five or six platforms. And there’s email.
For me the communicating in an emergency is creating sharable date-stamped content on a range of different platforms. Why date-stamped? Because the algorithms may not show the update for several days by which time the incident has moved on. Showing that the update is 10am on June 3 2023 builds in obsolescence.
The answer may be to post the same message to the corporate Facebook page, a WhatsApp community channel, Threads, email and he website. Yes, this is more work.
What communicating in 2023 is resolutely not is trying to drive traffic to a website. Platforms penalise links. To reach people, you need to put the text of the update onto each platform rather than link back to the website. By all means update your website too. Just don’t think that people will navigate to it from Facebook, Twitter or Threads for that matter.
Can you invest time in building an email list for people in an area prone to flooding? Of course you can but it’ll take time. Email is an important channel.
Journalists and Twitter
Journos have loved Twitter for years. Its influence far outwerighs its audience largely because journalists were there for the breaking news. Not only that but the decision makers could make an announcement in 140 characters without having the fuss of organising a press conference. Or answer questions.
There may be alternative ways to message reporters day-to-day and Threads could be a useful place to point journos to in an emergency.
Twitter won’t disappear overnight
Before Facebook there was MySpace. In 2008, it was the largest show in town and pulling in huge numbers. A series of wrong turns led it into decline. It still exists as a platform but its been a good decade since it was big enough for Ofcom to count it as a channel in the UK.
Twitter will do the same. It’ll decline. It’ll find new direction. It may even have new leadership. History tells us that once decline sets in that’s it. It’s all a question of time.
You absolutely need to make a social media review
What about the other days of the year when you are looking to reach people with a shopping list of tailored messages?
The answer has to be look to run a social media review on yourself to freshen up your position. I’ve blogged about this before. Much social media architecture was developed in 2010. Time has moved on. Those people have left.
Have a fresh look.
The simple Janet and John of a social media review is to look at your audience, your current channels, UK data around who is using what in 2023 and you’ll start to see the patterns emerge.
Bottom line… educate the client
The line I come back to again and again is to educate the client. This is the chief executive, the middle manager, the person you work with to communicate. If you’re having trouble keeping pace spare a thought for them.
Public sector comms people in the next few days will have to make a decision over Twitter… to pay or not to pay?
The question is being forced on people by a move to scrap verified blue ticks and replace them with a paid for version.
The blue ticks have long been a Twitter-verified hard won badge of trust that singles public sector organisations out as being trusted.
Twitter’s model
Under the new model, organisations can apply for Twitter Verified Organisations at $1,000 dollars (£810) a pop. It also charges $50 dollars (£40.50) a month for further affiliate accounts. So, an organisation with 10 Twitter accounts will be paying $500 (£405) a month.
The advantage, Twitter says, is longer tweets, longer video and your content in the Twitter For You page which Twitter has quietly introduced as a landing page which you’re served when you you navigate to the page. This serves what Twitter’s algorithm wants you to see rather than your friends and followers as happened in the earlier days of Twitter.
Individuals can take out Twitter Blue at £84 a year. You get longer tweets and tweets shown to more people.
Meta’s model
Over at Meta in the UK a verified programme has also been launched. It gives a verified badge for Instagram and Facebook and access to support at $15 a month for an account. You also get proactive account protection.
To pay or not to pay? Yes and no
And here’s the rub. Yes and no.
Twitter feels increasingly like a broken platform whose every decision is framed around irritating existing users. Elon Musk has clearly overpaid in a moment of hubris and is frantically trying to wring cash out of the platform. Blue ticks gave an element of trust to the platform. It’s tempting to think you’re paying for what you had with these moves but the reality is that you won’t be. When anyone can pay for it, including potential bad actors, the trust is devalued.
The wider issue is Twitter as a platform. As the recent BBC Panorama investigation showed, it is no longer a platform that can guarantee people’s safety. The question should be not should you pay for it but should you even be on it?
As a strategy, a gradual easing away from Twitter is the sensible way forward. Twitter was always useful for reaching journalists and for a crisis. WhatsApp may be a better way of messaging a hack. So too is a newsroom on the website. For an emergency? It will be interesting to see what channels are used in the next terror incident. In the Manchester Arena attack, Greater Manchester Police established a trusted voice within minutes and then filled in the blanks. Would people be looking at something like Facebook if something like that happened? I’m tempted to think so. The pandemic certainly showed us that other ways of reaching people exist.
Which leads to paying for Meta. Frankly, Facebook’s own customer service offering is so bad and so opaque that paying something a month for the ability to reach them represents value for money.
We’ve sometimes thought of social media as a free channel for some time. The truth is it’s never been free. It takes time and resources to produce organic content that works. It costs to boost a post to make sure it reaches people. These moves to pay for verification just brings the cash-hungry nature of social platforms into the open.
