Tag Archives: PR

VERIFIED BIRD: Should the public sector pay for social media verification? Yes, and no

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.

WORK HARD: What Tony Pulis can teach you about internal comms 

I was listening to the radio the other day as Spurs manager Antonio Conte was trying to explain why his side had lost.

The Italian’s response was to almost audibly shrug and blame the fans.  

In football terms, a rule has been broken. The manager is often not long for the chop.

This episode got me thinking to the manager Tony Pulis who took over my team Stoke City over two spells that saw him take is to promotion, an FA Cup Semi Final and a stint in Europe.

It got me thinking to how Super Tone would handle post-match interviews.

There were three phases he’d cover.

  1. Praise the fans. “They were the 12th man today. They never stopped getting behind us. They’re turning this place into a fortress. They know it’s Stoke-on-Trent against the rest of the world.”
  2. Praise the players. “We were terrific. They really worked ‘aard today. X in defence really was immense. He never let Y kick the ball. The attitude of the players was first class.”
  3. Praise and gently pressure the board. “The Coates family have done a magnificent job in charge of Stoke and they deserve full credit. They’re football people who are from Stoke-on-Trent and know what this city needs. When it comes to the transfer window I’m sure they’ll be supportive to help me get that little bit of quality in the final third.”

That’s basically it. 

What was he doing? He was identifying three audiences. The fans, the players and the board. He very rarely deviated from this formula. He may shuffle the pack and deal the cards in a different order and he’d talk about the game, too. But he’d always cover those three bases.

Each audience knew what their job was. For the fans it was to get behind the team. That they had been recognised. For players, it was a reminder of shared values. For those in charge it was an ego stroke accompanied with a reminder of what was needed. After all, you don’t just demand money, you charm money. 

When Stoke were good the three constituent parts – supporters, team, manager and board – all pointed in the same direction. We all knew our job and we tended to deliver. 

Remembering Tony’s post match interview, it got me thinking to how rare it was that people managing big organisations do this. How often does the chief executive thank customers, staff and those in charge? 

If those in charge don’t, how are we supposed to know what our role is and get recognition when we deliver it? 

Gallup studies tells us that 85 per cent of staff do not feel engaged while at work. I can absolutely guarantee that when Arsenal came to the Brit that 85 per cent of supporters sat their on their hands reading the programme. We knew our jobs and this would be acknowledged after the game. 

What Tony did is such a transferable thing in internal comms.

Finally, just for Arsenal supporters two minutes of Rory Delap doing his thing.

Terrific.

GUEST POST: Social media engagement, how to measure it and not care about anyone else

You’ve posted your content, but how well is it working? What can you measure and how does that compare? Lucy Salvage takes a look at what numbers to look at.

When we talk about measuring data, KPIs, benchmarks and the like, one thing that can be useful is knowing what other people are doing and how well they are doing it.

Sure, in a lot of cases, particularly in business, competitor analysis is key to formulating an effective marketing strategy. But what about Local Government? In particular social media? I would argue that when it comes to social media engagement, you should only be concerned with numero uno. 

“Try telling the Big Boss that!” I hear you cry into your gin – and so the next time your Big Boss wants to know how you are doing on social alongside neighbouring councils, here is your argument for why that’s a bit of a silly question.  

It’s a one-horse race

The main reason why it’s more or less impossible to benchmark social engagement against other authorities is simple. We’re not in competition with them. We’re not trying to sell an identical product to the same target market. Thanks to local democracy and the Boundary Commission, you have your territory and they have theirs. Think The Hunger Games but without military rule or a fight to the death, everybody has their own district (or borough). For this reason alone, there is little if any value in regularly spending time analysing what other LAs are doing on social, unless that is they are doing something really spectacular and you want some of that action. 

Too many variables

Benchmarking social engagement against other local authorities is tricky because of the many different variables that make up each authority. If we break it down in the simplest of terms, most of it comes down to the diversity of our audiences – not one will be an identical match for another. Here are a few variables that make it hard to compare one authority’s social media engagement with another:

  • Geography – some are more rural/urban than others and with that comes varying needs and challenges. For example, a densely rural district may have poor broadband coverage resulting in a higher number of residents unable to access the internet compared to a densely populated urban borough with greater coverage. 
  • Age – areas with a higher percentage of an ageing population will have differing service needs to those areas with a more active younger audience. Age will also determine which social platform is the most effective home for your messaging and if you even use social media at all. Ofcom’s Adults Media Use and Attitudes Report (2022) shows that the percentage of people using social media varies considerably by age, as we would expect. 
  • Gender – each social media platform will have a differing split of male versus female followers. In my experience, audiences tend to mirror the national trend of having a higher proportion of female followers on each platform. This will impact how you position content, and therefore the results you get from it. 
  • Regional ethnic diversity – this will impact content as varying needs and traditions within the community are catered for. For example, content produced by the London Borough of Newham, named as the most diverse local authority in England and Wales, will produce different content to that of the least diverse authority, Allerdale District. 

Each of these variables means that whilst we might be offering similar services to our publics, the way they are communicated and presented will be very different, rendering it a pretty pointless task to try and make social media engagement comparisons between authorities. I realise, even if your Big Boss does not, that you have far better things to be doing with your time. 

How you should be benchmarking your social media engagement 

If you’re accessing your social analytics natively (i.e. for free via Twitter, Meta, or LinkedIn) then it’s likely you’re going to be limited in terms of what data you can collect.

If you pay for analytics via your management system, then you’ll have a lot more at your disposal. The key to utilising this data by whichever means is to be sure of your purpose. What will help you improve your content? What do you want to know? For monthly KPI reporting, I’d choose no more than four metrics to focus on. My top four:

  • Number of followers
  • Engagement (all)
  • Engagement rate 
  • Reach

Whilst the number of followers might appear to be somewhat of a vanity metric, it is still nice to see your following increase each month and confirm that actually, you’re doing something right. It’s also the quickest indicator of things going wrong if suddenly a large number of people abandon ship. 

There are some metrics that I personally find provide little value. These are: 

  • Brand awareness – just because someone doesn’t @mention you doesn’t mean they aren’t engaging with your content in other ways, and if you’ve ever tried to accurately @mention a company in a post you’ll know it takes FOREVER. Nobody has time for that)
  • Best time of day to post – this changes all the dang time day by day, week on week. It’s impossible to keep on top of and a waste of time to even try to. Just use your noodle. You know when your audience is most likely to be online.
  • Impressions – they’re just big numbers that lull you into a false sense of security – always best to choose reach over impressions IMHO.  

Sentiment analysis doesn’t get British humour

I include all engagements in my monthly reporting as I don’t trust sentiment analysis. Whilst management systems such as Sprout Social and Hootsuite offer sentiment analysis as part of their higher-tier paid packages, the technology isn’t as reliable as it could be. The last time I checked, artificial intelligence (AI) is yet to get to grips with British humour, particularly sarcasm.

I got fed up with having to manually check sentiment reports which were so far off the mark, that I stopped including them in my monthly reporting long ago. Until AI is better at recognising the context of a comment, then for me anyway, this data is meaningless. 

Don’t forget to add the context

What isn’t meaningless is YOU. You hold the power. You know your audiences and how they are likely to react to stuff. You are the one ‘in it’ so you are best placed to read the room when it comes to sentiment. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of that when drowning in data. Don’t be afraid to include free text analysis of your observations in your reporting. You can give this context to supplement the inclusion of all engagements in your numerical reporting. 

Engagement is important

Engagement rate is one of the most valuable metrics as it gives you an overall indication of how you are doing and it’s the best way to benchmark against yourself. Only by regularly collecting data on a monthly basis (or more often if you are mad) will you come to know what an expected good engagement rate for you is. Remember, no one else matters. You are only in competition with yourself.

Setting benchmarks by platform

Here’s how I set social media benchmarks (by platform) for 2023. This was following the collection of a year’s worth of data in 2022:

  • I used the data over the twelve-month period to calculate averages for each metric (such as reach, engagement, and engagement rate.)
  • I then used these averages to create my benchmarks for 2023. For example, for LinkedIn I have a benchmark engagement rate of 12 per cent, and for Twitter it’s 4 per cent. This is reflective of the popularity of each of these platforms with my organisation’s audience. 

Your bad is someone else’s good 

To further reinforce the point that comparing your social media performance to that of others is a mug’s game, a bad engagement rate for you may be exceptionally good for someone else. Another reason why it is crucial you find your own ground when determining what is good and bad social media engagement. 

According to our feathered friends at Hootsuite, a good engagement rate is between 1 – 5 per cent. So, if you are punching well above that anyway, happy days! Your challenge now is to maintain that. For those struggling to achieve 1 – 3 per cent, then I would advise that you need to revisit your strategy to try and get to the bottom of why your content isn’t landing. This is the point where looking at what your neighbours are doing may come in helpful. 

Hootsuite lists six engagement rate formulas (oh look, another variable!). The one I use is ‘engagement rate by posts’. This will tell you the rate at which followers are engaging with your content, however, it won’t take into account anything that goes viral given that reach is not considered. Here is the magic formula you need for the engagement rate by posts calculation:

No. of engagements / no. of followers * 100

This blog from Hootsuite lists some other engagement rate types, such as by reach, by impressions, and by paid-for, which may work better for you (because only you matter remember!). 

You can be flexible with KPIs

Another thing to remember is that you can always tweak your KPIs as you move through the year. It isn’t cheating. It’s not fiddling the books. It’s progress and the best way for you to compete with yourself is by setting realistic and achievable targets that are bespoke to your organisation. 

Only then will you be able to accurately report your brilliantness to the Big Boss. It might be dog-eat-dog out there, but you’re always number one when it comes to reporting on social media engagement. 

Lucy Salvage MCIPR is Digital Content Creator, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and previously worked as Media and Communications Officer at Wealden District Council.

GUEST POST: Seven lessons on handling broadcast interviews on Ukraine from a media trainer turned pundit

Cormac Smith was known to many through his career in local and central government. He’d also been communications advisor for Ukraine government. So when Russia invaded the country he looked for a way to make his experience count… in TV studios.

In early December 2021 I was visiting friends and former colleagues in Kyiv.  Between 2016 – 2018 I had served as special advisor to the country’s Foreign Minister.  Over lunch one day, a number of those present including Ukrainian diplomats suggested I should be speaking about their country on the media back in the UK, because in their words, I understood them.

Storm clouds were already gathering, they knew what was coming, so I said I would see what I could do.  Long story short, I returned to the UK, hit the phones and began pitching myself as an expert on the region.

Over the next 13 months to date I have carried out in the in the region of 150 TV and Radio interviews across nine countries. As a seasoned media trainer and public speaker, the following is a summary of the lessons learned or in some cases, simply confirmed.

1. Media relations can be tough

Despite a strong resume, buckets of determination and over 30 years’ experience of selling in stories and placing interviews it took me over a month after my return from Kyiv to get my first gig.  But I had made a promise to my friends; what was I going to do, except keep buggering on as Churchill once said. Finally, around mid-January, with Putin’s further invasion still over a month away I got my first interview

2. Honest tough feedback is critical

I am fortunate to have a number of professional friends and colleagues, both in the UK and in Ukraine who can be relied on to give honest feedback.  Getting this feedback and acting on it to make improvements, especially in the early days was very helpful.

3. Do your research

Find out as far as possible what the interviewer wants to talk about, then prepare meticulously. Nothing will lose credibility quicker than not knowing your subject. Having said that know when to say; I don’t know.

4. Key messages are critical

Having done your research decide what you want to get across.  Expect the unexpected, always answer or at least address the question but learn how to bridge back to your key messages, and bridge back as often as necessary. This takes skill and practice if you are to keep interviewer and audience happy and not antagonise them.

5. It’s not just what you say, its how you say it

As little as 10% of what we communicate is verbal. Body language and tone of voice are critical if we are to grab attention, be trusted and gain traction. Assess posture, eye contact, hand movements and facial expressions.  And analyse tone of voice and pace as well as strength of delivery.  All of these things combine to make you either likeable and credible, or get them wrong – and you lose your audience.

6. Find the full stop

Despite coaching others for years to be concise and economical with words this was the biggest lesson I needed to learn early on. Prime time opportunities with the likes of Nick Ferrari on LBC will generally see you get between three and four minutes.  Their clock is running and if you talk too much you will be cut off and fail to get your key messages across.  It was when two trusted friends and colleagues, one a Brit and one a Ukrainian diplomat, told me on the same day that I had to learn to find the full stop, that the lesson finally sunk in.

7. Develop relationships with producers and interviewers

As an interviewee part of your job is to add value to producers and interviewers lives by being easy and pleasant to deal with and guaranteeing quality content every time. The other part of your job is to get your message across consistently, credibly and memorably. Be prepared to be strong and hold your ground from time to time, but don’t get confrontational.

Summary

I have been placing stories and setting up interviews for 30 years.  I did my first interview on national television almost 24 years ago.  I have also been coaching others to go on TV or radio, formally or informally, for 20 years. Nothing I had done compared to the intensity or importance of what I have done for the last year.  Never assume you know it all or can turn up and wing it.  Preparation is key and hubris comes before many a fall.  On the other hand, humility and a little bit of fear will serve you well and keep you honest. 

Cormac Smith is a freelance communications consultant who specialises in a range odf areas including public speaking and media training.

PEACE SPEAK: Nine pointers for public sector social media when dealing with online snark or abuse 

Back in the olden days – 2008 – people didn’t shout so much on social media.

Heck, they were just amazed their council or wherever was using it. 

Then people got a bit testy and then during the pandemic they got full on sweary and abusive. I’ve a feeling that when the inflated gas and electric bills land it’ll get even worse. 

Here’s a round-up of some of the points made in the Public Sector Comms Headspace session on dealing with online snark. Thanks everyone who came or contributed.  

Have a set of social media house rules

Yes, this is the ditch I’ll die in. You need something to say what’s acceptable and what’s not. A line in the sand. Then you need to enforce it and tell people why you’ve enforced it. Give them a warning first if you like but don’t tolerate abuse, hate or racist comments. 

If you want a world-beating set of house rules than I commend the Glasgow City Council version. I also recommend you take a look at Wirral Council’s social media house rules too. For North East Ambulance Serrvice NHS Trust’s rules look here.

Don’t delete or hide comments without explanation

Once you’ve got your rules then use them. But explain how they are being used.

People eventually twig that they’ve had their views removed and can get even more testy. What’s more helpful if you explain the action taken and also the reason why. Having seen that done I’ve certainly seen the burst of warm feelings when it is done.

Support your staff because it’s the law

Support your staff. It’s a nice thing to do. They’ll come back to work again next day and anyway it’s the law.

The Health and Safety Executive guidance on this can be found here which covers violence in the workplace. In particular, the advice on verbal abuse which is classed as verbal abuse is particularly useful to quote verbatim. The HSE download on this is here. 

It’s okay for someone to have an opinion

There’s a difference between comment, criticism and abuse. It’s fine for people to criticise policy. We live in a democracy. I’ve blogged before on how putting reputation management before listening can be damaging. Care providers are now obliged to offer a duty of candour after problems at Mid Staffordshire Hospital were not spotted. This duty may be extended to the entire public sector.  

People not liking a policy is fine. People hurling abuse isn’t. 

It’s always worth challenging

The origin story for many of public sector media was the riots in 2011. An analysis of Twitter at the time showed how some key tweets ebbed and flowed. It also showed the importance of challenging misinformation through a trusted account. The Guardian and LSE produced some landmark research ‘Reading the Riots’ that showed that challenging them in public saw the impact diminish.

Post something contentious when you’re around

Several years ago I remember Aly from Coventry City Council saying that posting about the Pope’s visit at 5pm on a Friday and then going home maybe wasn’t the best idea. When she returned on Monday morning was hundreds of comments playing out a religious flamewar better suited to the 17th century.

Someone made the point in the Headspace session. Don’t post something that you know may be contentious without you being around to keep an eye on the comments. 

It’s always worth challenging over and over 

Every year the urban myth gets repeated that Cadbury’s have banned the word ‘Easter’ from their eggs for fear of offending muslims. They haven’t. But someone challenges this about 350 times a day. If they haven’t, they’d be 35,000 false comments.

People don’t tend to shout at real people

It’s a good tip. A real person – a resident – talking about something doesn’t attract the same attention as a bland corporate announcement. So, include real people in your content. Employes talking about their job also works, too.  

You don’t have to put up with someone swearing at you

Loop back to the social media guidelines. If you’re telling people that you’ll not tolerate racism or being sworn at then after a warning ban them. Just as you’d be banned if up behaved like that in my local Post Office. You deserve to be able to do your job without being the target of abuse. 

SHOT LIST: How to draw-up your own video style guide

The argument for shooting, editing and posting your own content is well and truly won. But how should it look? 

There’s a few things to consider when you are drawing up a video strategy for your organisation. Content would be one. A style guide would be another once you’ve got some confidence.

This would dictate things like the typeface you’d use and maybe where your logo sits.

You are probably used to using brand guidelines in marketing and print. What you do with video needn’t feel as onerous but some basic pointers will make your collective output look much better.

Here are some things to think about. You can use as much or as little as you like with this. Certainly, as an extra task it’s going to add some time onto the end of your workflow but you need to ask yourself if the process adds any or takes away.

Certainly, there’s sometimes where speed is of the essence.In that case maybe it can all go to the wall. It’s up to you. 

The steps here aren’t that hard and can be replicated using a smartphone and an editing app. I’ve used Kinemaster here.  

I’ve editing some editing points in italics showing you the steps I took. 

Video isn’t print

First things first. Breaking news: video isn’t print. The idea of picking up your brand guidelines and dropping them lock stock and barrel into video is a really, really bad one for me. What’s been developed for print works best in print.

The NHS brand, for example, is a thing of wonder with a clear typeface that directs people around the hospital. It immediately reassures people that they’re getting health information. But a sign isn’t video.

For me, the starting point may be your brand guidelines but you’ll need to start with a spirit of flexibility. BBC News on TikTok, for example, has some broad pointers that identify it as BBC but it doesn’t drop in the opening music of a news bulletin, for example.   

A typeface

Video editing tools give a variety of different typefaces. If you’re using something like Kinemaster you’ll get some free. If you upgrade to Pro you’ll get access to plenty more which is where the value of Pro pays dividends.  

If you’ve got a font you use but you’re maybe not clear on what the font is called there’s a great website called whatthefontis.com. Drag and drop a piece of content and it’ll tell you what the font is and a number of close matches. Then look for the matching font that’s available to you in the video editing app.

Making your typeface work

Once you’ve got your typeface you’ll need to think of a size for the title, maybe you’ll need to use the editing tool to create an outline for the title to make it stand out. 

A title

You’ll maybe think of how you’d like titles to appear and depart the screen. Using an editing app it’s very easy to create an in-animation and an out-animation. Fade is a pretty standard one but having one makes your content look that bit better.

Here’s a title created using Kinemaster Pro and uses Plus Jakarta Sans Bold downloaded from the shop. 

Text on screen 

This is the part where you want to tell the story using text on the screen maybe with some supporting footage. 

This uses Plus Jakarta Sans Bold.

A caption 

This is the additional information that maybe shows the name and the job title of the individual in question. It’s sometimes know as a lower third. What would you like your template to look like? You may want this to be part of the family of typefaces you’re using for the title. 

I’ve created two separate lines. For the first one, the name, I’ve created a text layer, enabled background colour, changed the colour to red, changed opacity to 100 per cent. This creates a solid block of colour. If I wanted it to be really opaque as a background I may knock this down to something like 30 per cent.  I’ve used Plus Jakarta Sans Extra Bold. The default text colour is white. I’ve then duplicated this to create a second text box. I’cve switched the typeface to Plus Jakarta Sans Light. I’ve changed the colour of this second textbox to red and I’ve changed the background to white. In other words I’ve flipped it round entirely.  

A sub-title

This is the accessibility-friendly part of the video where you’re adding the what the person on screen or voice is saying.  

There’s two ways of doing this. Yes, you can do this on Kinemaster. Yes, you have to do it letter by letter. No, there’s no shortcut. I’ve changed the typeface here to Plus Jakarta Sans Extra Light. It’s part of the Plus Jakarta family of fonts I’ve downloaded but it’s lighter so more suited to a sub-titling role.  

A logo

You may be watching something like Al Jazeera English and you’ll see a logo in the top left or maybe top right corner of the screen. This is really useful as it reminds the viewer the source of the information. It plays a supporting but helpful role.  

Here I’ve emailed myself the logo and I’ve added it as a media layer. I’ve changed opacity to 75 per cent. Feel free to experiment with your own. My own logo is white text on an orange background. You may feel that white is less obtrusive. Go with what works for you.  

A style guide

All of this builds up a style guide. Mine may look like this…

Title: Plus Jakarta Bold with fade for in and out animations.

Caption: Plus Jakarta Sans Extra Bold for the name and Plus Jakarta Sans Light for the job title.

Sub-title: Plus Jakarta Sans Extra Light 

Logo: Orange logo top left corner at 75 per cent opacity. 

You may want to add to it as you go along using this as a starting point. Maybe your style guide may include something like resolves – how each clips bleeds into each other – or other things. That’s all fine.

Remember that all these things are part of the language of film. It’s fine to play around with them from time to time.

The bottom line is with a bit of teaching being able to do this isn’t hard. The results outweigh the effort you put in. 
For more on video, I deliver ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED on planning, editing, and posting video. You can find out more here. I also deliver ESSENTIAL PORTRAIT VIDEO FOR TIKTOK & REELS. More on that here. 

SOCIAL MEDIA REVIEW: Using radio station data in your review

I blogged a short while ago about the importance of running a social media review. One thing to do while doing this is to look at radio data, too.

Ofton radio stations are not juist a radio station but they’ve also got a social media footprint, too.

A key tool in assessing the importance of a radio station are RAJAR figures. You can find 2022’s 4th quarter figures here for example.

Local to me is BBC Radio WM, for example. In an area where 2.3 million live they reach 239,000 or 10 per cent of the population.

That’s great for listeners but they also have a Facebook page here with 49,000 likes. Scroll through and tyou’ll see the kind of content that they’ll post. Here, there’s 23 Facebook updates in seven days. That’s roughly three a day. Way behind something like the Birmingham Post & Mail – or Birmingham Live online – who post up to 60 times a day. Much of WM’s content cross promotes what is on BBC Sounds, rather than fresh news. As a comms person, I’d place them on the map online but I’d be keener to influence the radio schedule.

But who is the audience? For BBC Local Radio 58 per cent are aged over 55. That can really help you pin down not just the radio station’s audience but the potential audience you can tap into.

Always, look at things afresh rather than do things because you’ve always done it.

For more information about SOCIAL MEDIA REVIEWS head here.

CHANNEL DATA: UK TikTok user stats for 2023

There comes a point where the stats become so compelling the argument for using a channel is easier than against.

That’s certainly the case for TikTok in the UK which has broken out from being a hot platform for young people to a hot platform for more demographics.

Ofcom data show that 23.3 million people in the UK are using the platform.

But for me, it’s the demographics that are most interesting.

For under 24s, 75 per cent are using TikTok in the UK. That’s a huge chunk of people.

For 25 to 34-year-olds, there’s a majority of people using it.

The buy-in falls to just over a third for 35 to 44-year-olds and a quarter of 45 to 54-year-olds.

It’s only when over 55s come into the equation that the user numbers fall.

TikTok is a channel that has become a real contender to reach people but it’s a channel that’s unique.

The advice ‘Don’t make a video, make a TikTok is good.’ You need to make something for the channel rather than shoehorning stuff to tick a box.

You can find out more about the ESSENTIAL TIKTOK & REELS workshop and sign-up here.

NEWS AGENTS: How to get local media coverage in 2023

I often find myself reaching these days for a film quote to sum up a tricky scenario.

I have a whole lexicon of well-worn cinematic phrases to celebrate the good, the life or death and call out the awkward.

One in particular phrase I’ve been using quite a lot of late.

“Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

It’s a homely pair of slippers of a line. It’s from 1939 Oscar-winning movie ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ A timeless phrase said by the character of Dorothy who has just been swept up by a tornado and plonked down with her dog in a different world.

This week, I saw a hugely helpful webinar organised by the Midlands CIPR ‘Meet the Media.’ Two senior editors from Reach plc’s regional titles Graeme Brown and Natalie Fahy joined the UK Press Gazette’s Charlotte Tobbitt.

I started in newspapers when they were print-led and the main show in town. In 2023, they have truly evolved. No longer calling themselves ‘newspapers’ they are news brands who have a print offering but also are online and available via a website, email, Facebook and TikTok.

If news is breaking they want to be online within minutes. The idea that people will wait until 4pm tomorrow for the next edition to come out is as obsolete as silent movies.

Newsbrands have content editors, agenda writers and data analysts.

To an ex-journo like me Truly, Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.     

Here’s a summary of the advice…

News brands are not papers of record anymore

The paper I worked on sent a reporter to every council meeting and went to every court and inquest every day. That simply doesn’t happen anymore. There isn’t the resource or the interest. The public sector, therefore, can’t commend an expectation of coverage. It has to be earned.

News brands are digital first 

This is not new but it bears repeating. In the riots in 2011, my local paper couldn’t tell their stories until the next day. That wouldn’t happen today. It would be straight on the website and across social media. 

News brands are driven by data

A few years ago, I heard a Reach plc person talk about how some content in the print edition may have been read by almost nobody but it was impossible to tell because there was no Google Analytics for page six of the paper. Insight now drives what stories are covered. In basic terms, if there are clicks in it there’s more chance of coverage.

News brands are worried about news avoidance

Avoiding the news is an active lifestyle decision for many people. Let’s face it the news has been pretty rubbish for more than a decade. We’ve had austerity then we had COVID. Then we had three Prime Ministers in a few months and war in Ukraine. It’s enough to make anyone stop wanting to go out to the paper shop and buy a 50 page edition and pay through the nose.  

News brands are defensive about ‘clickbait’ 

One criticism that was brushed off was that news brands use clickbait and plenty of it. ‘Click bait’ they maintain is a headline that doesn’t marry up with the story. I can see this argument. I think the criticism goes deeper than that. I think of the nine stories in 24-hours on Birmingham Live when Phil and Holly jumped the queue at the Queen’s Lying in State at Westminster Hall. That nudging forward of the story may not fulfill that definition of clickbait, sure. But this is not the local news content that people have grown to expect from local newspapers. I don’t think journalists can  

News brands don’t need PR people to fill space anymore

As newsbrands are heading to be digital first there’s less opportunity to fill column inches with content that isn’t all that. Which begs the question about what is wanted. ‘Don’t tell us, show us,’ is one approach.

Reach plc titles are ‘proudly mainstream’

The audience for local news, Reach say, is mainstream. So much so that ‘proudly mainstream’ is a slogan amongst the editorial hierarchy. This means they’ll be keener on content that works in the mainstream rather than something niche. 

What content works #1: Don’t tell us, show us

This is fascinating. One of the Reach plc people spoke about how in the olden days an inflation rate announcement would have made a page lead in the business-focussed Birmingham Post. They don’t do that anymore. Instead, they’ll cover the story by sending someone out to buy a basket of supermarket goods and tell the story through the 3p on a pint of milk.

Apply that ‘don’t tell us show us’ approach elsewhere the grant for the football team isn’t words but images, footage and quotes of the kids playing with the news goals in their new kit. In itself, this isn’t new. Back in the day, this would be gold standard. Now, gold standard is more minimum standard.

What content works: #2 building a relationship with reporters

Hearteningly, the personal relationship is just as important as it ever was, the session said. I always found relationships with reporters a fine balance of fear and ego. Fear, because as a reporter you didn’t want to miss out on something. Ego because every reporter wanted the front page or a byline. That’s the public credit for a piece of work.

Interestingly, the feedback from the news profession was that they are more likely to listen to someone they have a relationship with on the issue of a representation for more time to pull together a statement. That certainly chimes with the old ways of doing things.   

What content works: #2 building a relationship with Local Democracy Reporters

The BBC scheme sees 165 reporters working to help fill the gaps left by declining news rooms. Their brief is to work more off diary and steer away from press releases. This is potentially rich ground for the public sector.  

What content works #3 Solutions journalism

This was really interesting. What’s meant by this is that newspapers – sod it, I’m calling them that – are looking at the issue but also ways to solve it. So, worried about fuel bills at winter? Here’s what you can do to save money. That’s a really interesting take.

What content works: Useful things for people to do

This is something the public sector can really excel at. 

News brands are reversing from Facebook towards email newsletters

Facebook has announced its intentions to move away from news. No doubt in part because of demands from news brands that their content deserves paying. Facebook have already closed down their journalism projects in a clear sign the romance is dead. The clock is very much ticking on news on Facebook. 

Interestingly, they also have a clear view of their audience on Facebook. It’s female and aged around 40. 

One place news companies are looking at in more detail is email newsletters. In the West Midlands, Reach now have more than 40 newsletters people can sign up to. Certainly, email lists means that they are not at the whims of a tech company’s algorithm. That’s not just important for comms people to know as its illustrative of how people consume news. It’s also potentially a direction of travel for the public sector’s own.

Sport is a separate thing 

Sport is ‘content vertical’ at Reach plc. This means that sport reporters in Stoke report to regional sport editors rather than the Sentinel and Staffordshire Life editorial team. This is itself doesn’t mean much to public sector comms people. It is, however, interesting to see how sport spins off from the news Facebook pages. So, there’s a Manchester Evening News Facebook page with a million and a million following their Manchester City coverage on a dedicated page and another million following Manchester United.

There is so much change and it’s fascinating to watch.

LICENCE FREED: What comms and PR can learn from how the BBC use TikTok

TikTok is surging in importance as a comms channel and a new study shows journalism as an unlikely hothouse for developing how to use it.

According to the UK Press Gazette data news brands have been experimenting with the platform and the clear trailblazer? The BBC.

It may feel counter-intuitive but it’s entirely in keeping with the corporation’s pioneering use of new technology.

The BBC leads the field in the survey with a 2,000 per cent increase in follower numbers in the eight months to January 2023.

Interestingly, the top 10 leading news TikTok embracers include a mix of traditional broadcasters and new media – such as LadBible, Huffpost, CNN and ITV News.

There’s no representation for UK local media companies such as Reach or LocalWorld in the top 30 list. Combined, such companies pack a fierce punch on Facebook and with their websites. A lack of resource, a focus on e-mail newsletters and the scattered nature of their audience may explain their position. 

But, still.

What can public sector comms people learn from this list?

A fair amount. 

What you can learn from the BBC on TikTok

National content is vertical as well as landscape

Firstly, people looking to pitch to national media now have the additional route of vertical video. With the BBC’s main account @bbc they have 3.8 million followers and 2,170 videos. Their main focus is to refocus and tease their iplayer content. However, @bbcnews has a news focus with almost 800,000 followers and 442 videos.

Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFobyYRm/

Not one channel but many

The BBC is a big organisation with lots of content. It’s quite right that it has a number of accounts as well as identifiable journalist accounts. This gives an additional route to the audience.

The BBC TikTok style book need offers tips

Often, people are nervous of TikTok for its dances, memes, trends and creativity. I get that. But there’s a very strong argument to embrace that approach to fully embrace the platform. South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue do this brilliantly.

But what BBC News does offer is storytelling that’s with more of a straight bat.

Here’s a few things you can learn.

  1. Branding

In training, I often talk about the need to park-up traditional branding approaches when dealing with social media. That’s true of TikTok too. But what BBC News have is a translucent BBC logo in the top left of the screen along with a translucent red strip down the side. Scrolling through their timeline, it’s immediately clear to the viewer that this is from the same place.

A logo jpg added in the edit before uploading to TikTok can do this for you. 

  1. No bongs

The BBC News content doesn’t start with BBC News Titles or theme tune. Nor should it. That works on terrestrial TV. It doesn’t work on social media where the scrolling subscriber is met with the same five or 10 seconds of intro they already saw twice that morning.

  1. A title

Each clip starts with a clear title with black text on a white background with red and black edging. You have a headline summary, literally.

This looks as though its been added in the edit well before the upload. You could alternatively add a cover in the TikTok editing tool itself. This is certainly helpful if you’re scrolling through old video. 

  1. A strong opening three seconds

The law of social video is to startly boldly with either eye catching footage or an eye catching quote from an interview. BBC News manage this quite happily. 

  1. Cutaways are king 

Cutaways or B-roll is the footage which helps paint a picture. It’s shots of the picket line or cars sounding their horns passing the picket line. Over this you can add a voiceover or text to tell the story.

Like this clip of Thor the walrus:

  1. And voiceovers are fine

Much of the BBC News TikTok content is fairly anonymously presented. There is content with a reporter asking the questions and reacting but for the most part there is no recognisable news anchor. Authority comes from the branding and the blue tick not the sight of the newsreader.

This is a good example for comms people not seeking the limelight.  

  1. About a minute or less

Timing is also key. BBC News don’t have space for lengthy content. The days of hour long interviews between Robin Day and Margaret Thatcher couldn’t be further away. About a minute is the length of most of their video.

  1. Understand the complex and tell with simplicity

This is not new. The journalist has always had to get their heads around the complicated and then explain the story clearly to their audience. It’s jargon free. This chimes with public sector comms’ need to do the same. 

9. Avoid copyright issues

I’ve written about this before, but having a standard account as an organisation is dangerous. You need a business account. This limits the sounds you can use but means those available to you are safe to use. BBC News do this, too.

In summary

So, in summary, there’s lots to learn from BBC News for public sector comms. It’s not the only approach open. But it is a good template to see how to cover news and sensitive topics when you need to avoid a trend.