Tag Archives: social media

RECAP: How to use LinkedIn in 2025 as a page and as a person

When LinkedIn was taken over by Microsoft a wag joked at how they hoped they wouldn’t change that fun, freewheeling spirit that the platform had.

The joke was, of course, that LinkedIn was the dull older brother of the socials where he hung out with accountants and spoke about his career a lot.

However, for a long time that dull older brother has quietly became a calm haven from the river of abuse that other networks have you wade in. It’s also a place I get a big chunk of my insights and reading from.

Besides, with the world turning upside down many people are keeping one eye on LinkedIn for career development.

If you missed it, here’s a recap on my research on what makes the most effective LinkedIn content for a public sector page. The top ranking thing is a carousel of images.

You can read the full post here. Interesting that the broad findings have been confirmed by the Social Insider blog.

For LinkedIn pages, advice, help, celebrating staff and opportunities work best. 

For your own profile, something helpful or insightful always goes down well. You’ll find Linkedin much more work-focussed than other platforms. But don’t worry, TikTok is great for recipes, the BBC Sport app covers breaking scores and Facebook groups can be good for local news.  

As a platform, LinkedIn has been innovating and I thought it an idea to recap on some of the developments for 2025. Some are tactical and some are strategic. Some are for you and some for your page.

#1 Bring out your people

In 1999, the groundbreaking ClueTrain Manifesto was published and was a map for social media well before Mark Zuckerburg even went to college. It spoke about how some people from companies were cool online and if they didn’t have a tight reign they’d be among the people – not brands – they’d turn for answers.

The people we turn to from LinkedIn from LinkedIn are right there in front of us. So, Heather Timmerman Moller is the named face who wrote the update on how video ads can be made through Canva. You can find her online here. 

It’s not the corporate blog, there’s a name.

So, that’s the first lesson. Have your senior people use their own profiles if they are happy to do so to share the news. 

This makes sense. If the senior accountant is talking about the new accountancy system the organisation is using to help save time and money they are doing so to their audience of accountants. That network will be far stronger with accountants than the corporate page will have. By all means share it to the corporate page too. But that’s not where accountants will be.

What people does your organisation have?

“Say it louder for the people at the back credibility travels through trusted voices.” – Wensy A, creative thinker at LinkedIn. 

#2 Video, video, video, video

LinkedIn has been comparatively late to the party with video. It was only in 2017 that the platform allowed video to be uploaded natively. 

By 2025, LinkedIn has more than caught up and so have its users. In 2025, watching video had increased by 36 per cent year-on-year. In the attention economy where seconds count this is really significant. Your followers are also 20 times more likely to share a video than any other piece of content. 

For a LinkedIn ad, the video should be less than 30-seconds. But interestingly, the non-ad video dropped into your timeline can be maybe up to two minutes, they say. That’s also interesting. It steers away from the 15-minute ego stroke of someone senior talking at length without much purpose.

So, if you are looking after a corporate page, the senior person’s soundbite can work. If it’s you, your own video can work well. It’s something I keep meaning to do myself.

LinkedIn themselves have published some video best practices.  This is hugely useful when this happens. It’s a much firmer peg to hang a hat on. There’s something revolutionary in the notes. Using a mic for sound, subtitles and 9:16 – portrait shaped video – are all good notes.

On top of that there’s some technical specs. This image is especially useful as it shows you the ‘safe’ areas where its okay to add text and other things.

You can read the full video specs guide here.

#3 Proceed carefully with AI 

LinkedIn’s own 2024 Marketing Benchmarking report said that they’d be expecting a quarter of people would be using AI in 2025. I’d say that was behind the curve. Don’t feel obliged to use AI on LinkedIn but do be obliged to learn safely.

For me, there’s the idea creation that AI can bring and the content creation. For content creation, that’s audio, video, music and images. I’m not sure that that’s where public sector AI use should be right now. I think right now, the public are hesitant about AI and while they don’t mind seeing AI help diagnose cancer more effectively there are other things they are less keen on.

Using AI to help sub-title the video clip you may post to LinkedIn would be a genuine timesaver but once again, do check against delivery. AI can’t do regional accents or place names very well. 

On the platform itself, LinkedIn has offered some AI tools to help recruiters narrow down the right people. There’s also some AI ad tools. Should you just go ahead and use them anyway? I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Experiment on what the tools may be but for me, don’t use them in anger until you have a policy.

Interestingly, LinkedIn themselves have made great efforts to stress that human content is the best content if its AI you are looking at.

#4 Develop a safe LinkedIn use flow chart

A safe use flow chart may be useful for you.

This isn’t from LinkedIn itself, rather my observation of its use in the public sector. This came about from delivering a session to NHS people. They got the importance of using LinkedIn but they just didn’t want to say the wrong thing. So, they went away and developed a sensible use flow chart.

On the chart was advice not to endorse a particular product unless senior people were fine with it. They also wouldn’t say anything about a joint project unless the other people in the project were okay. However, they could talk about industry trends and observations in the abstract. 

#5 Extra tools for pages

While I’ve blogged a lot about encouraging people in the organisation to use LinjkedIn you may also like to know that Premium Company Pages launched last year cost about £50 a month to use. They give bits of marginal additional functionality like a list of people who have seen your page and an AI-powered writing assistant that I’m not mad keen on.

You can already see the absolute basics with the LinkedIn creator pages which is the ABC of content creation.

#6 Live Events

You have the ability to create an event through your LinkedIn page. For me, this is the most under used tool on the whole of the site.

If you are looking to explore these the best tip would be to go and register for some to see how they work and see how the can be improved. The best live events are ones which are created with LinkedIn in mind. So, in other words a 30-40 minute chat on a particular subject with the ability to ask a question. The LinkedIn events page is useful to help you with this.

Since March, you can run a live event through Zoom itself.

Failing that, if you are planning a conference or similar event then adding the date and time to LinkedIn along with a sign-up form is the answer.

#7 How often to post 

If you are not used to LinkedIn and maybe you are exploring it in detail for the first time spend some time on the platform first. Scroll, read and see what you can learn. As you get to know the language of the platform you’ll see how it all works.

Think about commenting on a post first. That’s straightforward. You can add to a discussion or just say ‘thank you.’ 

I’m never that keen on suggesting the number of times to post per week. If its good enough then post it. You’ll get a sense of if its good enough because you’ll get feedback from comments and likes. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work first time. It’s called a stream for a reason. The stream passes and new things come down towards you. Tomorrow is another day.

I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS, ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER, ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.

Creative commons credit: Piccadilly, 1986 by Stella Gardiner.

30 Days of human comms #62: The JustPark app social advert

An elderly couple going shopping may be one of the greatest social videos I’ve ever seen.

The pair go with their son and use the JustPark app as a way to locate and pay for a parking space.

The video is shot POV by someone close to the family so the couple Michael & Teresa behave naturally for them.

The couple look in their late 60s and get into the car. There’s a minor squabble about the number of times Teresa took her driving test. She says two. Her husband Michael says four.

They drive along and Teresa struggles with the idea of using a stranger’s drive to park.

“That’s tresspass isn’t it?” she worriedly asks.

They park. It’s fine. She’s converted.

You can see it here:

It’s a beautiful film filled with warmth and humanity.

You can’t fail to like them both.

It’s also a fast edit that also has a voiceover intro from what is possibly Michael & Teresa’s son.

It’s human, it’s not AI generated and is filled with the rough edges of people’s relationships. There’s a feeling Teresa’s driving test has been discussed before. You are entering priviliged space.

So, could this be replicated?

Well, maybe Michael and Teresa can’t come to your [Insert service here] but what it does open the field up to is for people to capture an experience.

So, what does the family make of the trip to the leisure centre? Open with the excitement of getting into the car, the drive, the heading into the baths, the post-swim drink, the children’s feedback in the car on the way home, maybe.

All this needs the consent of participants, of course.

But spent a couple of minutes on options and there’s a whole vista of experiences.

A shopping trip to the town centre, testing a smoke alarm, putting out the recycling, or whatever.

I love that this captures the lived experience rather than the corporate message or the slick marketing that in comparison falls down flat.

Bravo.

KEY CHANGES: Major tweaks on Facebook and Messenger and what they mean for public sector comms

Hands up if you’ve found it harder to get value out of your Facebook page unless you get your corporate credit card out to boost a post.

Got your hand up? Congratulations, you’re in exactly the same boat as everyone who has a Facebook page.

It’s been a long time since posting to a Facebook page alone has meant you reach a decent sized audience. Facebook has made it harder for you from penalising posts from a page with links to limiting the amount of timeline made up of Facebook page content.

Meta have said this throttling of Facebook pages is them listening to users who are more keen on content from friends and family. They have a point. But being a cynic, I’d say this is made deliberately harder to persuade you to crack open that corporate credit card to boost a post.

However, there’s still ways you can get the most out of Facebook and they’ve just announced some key changes that if used wisely can be very much to your advantage.

These measures have been freshly announced by Meta are being tested in the US and will be expanded to the UK in the coming months. Some of the coverage has been around how this is being made to make it more appealing to younger people. I think there’s plenty there to reach over 30s who are a rich audience for public sector people.

Key change: The launch of the Facebook local tab 

This, Facebook says, will gather together local information in one place by bringing together Reels, marketplace, groups and events.

So, the theory is that this will pull together a summary of things for your area. Quite how big the area in question will be hasn’t been clarified but the selection will be through the algorithm.

This is what it will look like…

The local element of this can play strongly to a public sector page but you’ll have to be clever. This won’t pull content directly from your page’s posts.But it will pull things from your events.

The events button is often overlooked by page admin. I can see why. You’re time poor and just asked to chuck stuff out but then clever admin can create an event on the Facebook page. This will be a particular advantage to say, museums, town centre events, open days, fire station car washes or live streams for things like Q&As or how to guides.

Events are now a secret weapon for you. 

Facebook group content is also pulled into the local tab. So, your Facebook group strategy is further rewarded. Yes, I know that there are a lot of Facebook groups and no, you don’t have to connect with all of them but this is where people are and this may be a way that your content can be surfaced on the local tab. 

Key changes to events

So, we’ve already seen that events have become quite powerful tools as they can be picked up by the Facebook events tab. On top of that, Facebook announced even more reasons to put more of your time into them.

You’ll now be able to send event invites via text message and to your Instagram followers. The logistics of this haven’t been made clear but this new step looks like a useful one to explore.

This is on top of the existing ability of users to add Facebook events to their day-to-day calendars be that Outlook, Google or wherever.

Key changes to video

The new video tab will pull together Reels and oyster video in one place on Facebook. 

Again, this is a further reason to take your video content more seriously. This should be mainstream rather than an occasional nice to have. 

This is how that will look…

Key change to Facebook groups 

Facebook groups get a further tweak. The platform will introduce AI tools to help users look for answers to regular questions.

There’s nothing there directly for public sector people but it does underline that taking part in discussions and answering questions can be useful.

Key change: launch of Messenger communities

It looks like Meta are looking to repeat the trick that they’ve already done with WhatsApp.

Basically, WhatsApp communities has allowed people to create a space where people in an organisation or campaign can come together for announcements as well as smaller sub-groups under the same umbrella. This is probably more for the American market which is a lot more fonder of Messenger than they are WhatsApp.

I hope this list helps you think of what your comms needs to look like in 2025.

Training I deliver:

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EMOTIONAL STORY TELLING: Communications lessons from Jurgen Klopp

There are only two types of football manager, the famous line says, those who have been sacked and those who are about to be sacked.

Add to that is a rare third type of manager who calls time on himself.

In that gravity-defying list is Jurgen Klopp who has left Liverpool after nine years with a Premier League, Champions League and five other cups.

He is an astonishingly good communicator but what makes him so good? 

I thought I’d look at two set piece pieces of communication that bookend his time at Anfield. His first press conference and the Instagram post he made before leaving.

In football, there are three key audiences for a manager. The fans, the players and the board of directors. Perhaps uniquely, so much internal communications at a football club is done publicly. Tony Pulis was a master at this. 

The start: the first press conference

The new manager press conference is one of the traditions of football. An introduction to the new man at the wheel and a mix of easy and hard questions. Brian Clough used to talk about making all the hard decisions in the first three months because that’s when you are most powerful. 

Let’s look at what Jurgen Klopp said in his first press conference. 

“I’m not a genius. I don’t know more than the rest of the world. I need other people to get perfect information,” straight away he was calling from help from those inside the club. 

“It’s important that the player feels the difference from now on. They have to think they can reach the expectations. You have to change from doubter to believer,” he addressed the players.

“It is the biggest honour I can imagine. It is one of the biggest clubs in the world. It is a good moment to come here. How the people live football here. It is not a normal club it is a special club,” straight away identifying the fans.

“I’m a football romantic. I love all the stories and the histories. Anfield is one of the best places in the football world I thought about how it would be. We start to play emotional football. That’s important at Anfield, it has to work together,” he was sealing the deal with fans and those who love the club.

Merseyside is an emotional city. My Mum was from Liverpool, so I know this. It is also a city where community is at the heart. You work for each other not for yourself. Their club anthem ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ underlines this.

A Hillsborough disaster campaigner described their fight for justice as ‘they picked on the wrong city.’ It points to the emotion and working together to support in adversity as well as success.

“I’m the normal one. I was an average player, I was a trainer at a special club in Germany,” in perhaps his most famous line.

Football clubs are weird. Some managers fit and some don’t. I was a student on Tyneside when Kevin Keegan first became Newcastle United manager. His success was built on football knowledge plus the foundation of knowing how the fans thought. They were passionate and wanted a fighting spirit.

Barcelona’s slogan is ‘more than a club,’ because it represents Catalonia.

Same for Newcastle United and Tyneside. 

Keegan got this. Others haven’t.

The end: The Instagram post 

It’s telling that one of his last pieces of communication was an Instagram post on a freshly created @kloppo account. He wanted to create an account to stay in touch, he said, and gained more than a million subscribers in less than 24-hours.

He shot the video as a selfie alone in his office overlooking the training ground surrounded by boxes of things he was moving out. 

“So, here I am. Last day in the office. Last session done. It was kind of strange, I would say. A few coaches got emotional. I didn’t. I told myself ‘tomorrow is a game and then it is holiday.’ 

“Obviously, I decide what I think until I get overwhelmed tomorrow. So, I will leave this place today which is… an interesting experience I would say.”

There is a pause as he dwells on the emotion of leaving Liverpool.

“Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye… See you tomorrow.”  

The audience is primarily those who love Liverpool. He addresses those inside the club but makes it far wider. It’s the merging of the audiences here that’s most powerful. The fans and the players and the board are as one. 

He sets up the game ahead beautifully. He hints at bigger emotions and a bigger message but first there is a football match to play and a job to be done. 

Without him knowing it, Klopp has actually mimicked an earlier Liverpool manager in his pioneering use of communications channels. When he was starting out as a manager at Carlisle United in the 1950s Bill Shankly would use the tannoy to address the crowd to tell them what his plans were.  

For all Jurgen’s Klopp’s communications skills, it’s important to say that he also needed a football brain and an ability to communicate to his players and coaches what he wanted.

The announcement of his departure three months before the event was made by an emotional video.

His last days was a full on communications campaign from long form interview on the club’s YouTube and Facebook to a letter to fans in the Liverpool Echo a last press conference and of course programme notes.  

In his first press conference he spoke about the stories, the histories and the emotion of playing at Anfield and now it has come full circle and he is part of those legends.

If you can learn anything from Jurgen Klopp it’s the emotion and the story telling.

GUEST POST: How an NHS Trust harnessed video through telling people stories

One of their TikTok clips has chalked-up 1.4 million views alone. How is Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust using video effectively? By focussing on people. Anuji Evans lifts the lid.

I’ve always loved storytelling – just ask my nine-year-old kid. In his home made Mother’s Day card recently he wrote a list of things to thank me for. You know, the usual, like tidying his room and making his dinner. But he signed off with “telling me crazy stories”. 

How I do love a good tale – even he recognises that. And so, it’s only fitting that this is what I’ve continued to do throughout my career as a journalist and communications professional. Of course, they’re true stories which I hope will make a difference. 

So how do me and the team at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust do this? Primarily through our social media channels using photographs of real people and/or capturing them on video. Whether that’s a member of staff, or a patient, it’s important to us that our comms content is fronted by faces that people can relate to.

And we are there to guide and support them in telling their stories. 

As cliche as it sounds, the three hospitals, GP and community services run by the Trust is our patch and we build contacts constantly, working with them to raise awareness of services that will benefit patients, change the way the NHS works and save lives. 

The Bowel Screening Service is a great example. The team have a giant inflatable bowel. And why wouldn’t that be a great opportunity to create video tour of the bouncy back end? Yes, the bowel was impressive, but even more so was Anna, an enthusiastic bowel screening practitioner who took us on the journey, explaining the importance of the test. The video was a hit – worldwide.

Millions on TikTok

It’s currently at 1.4 million views on our TikTok channel with more than 1,100 comments such as “She’s (Anna) wonderful at explaining”, “I have a kit at home, I’m definitely going to use it” and “bowel screening saved my mum. If you have this kit use it.” Anna is originally from Ghana and we saw a sharp rise in views and comments from her motherland.

TikTok: ‘Welcome to our giant inflatable bowel.’

Content to us is about spotting an opportunity to tell a story and seizing it. We’ve been doing that for a while now, just in different forms so that we continue to move with the times. 

We began with filming our videos in landscape – but when TikTok suddenly started to soar, it was the boss who pushed us towards the portrait platform. Yes, it came with challenges. Would we have film the video twice, in landscape and portrait? Would the content have to change completely for the different audiences? How much extra work would it involve for our small team?

A hit in Bengali

But we made it work without too much extra graft. After some careful scrutiny of the data, it soon became apparent that audiences on our other channels liked the snappier and shorter films. The inflatable bowel video enjoyed a higher than usual engagement figure on our Facebook page, as did our measles symptoms explainer videos in English and Bengali. Both are doing well on all platforms and there are many others.  

Reels: Measles advice in Bengali.

We now post our TikTok vids as reels on Facebook and Instagram and change the aspect ratio to square for X (formerly known as Twitter) and LinkedIn. So yes, we do two different versions but only with minor edits. And yes, it still takes time, but it’s worth it for the results we see.

Not all our videos go across all channels. And it’s not all about the reels. We use static imagery of our people and patients on Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn. The accompanying posts explain the narrative and the engagement continues to grow as do our followers.

Our latest campaign incorporating our Trust values and strategy is all about the different characters working within our organisation. We share a photograph each week of someone who has made a difference and give our audience a snapshot into their working life. It’s simple yet effective, as the data again is showing us.

Storytelling can be done in many different forms. Generic campaign material, with assets using text does have its place somewhere, but for us we must never lose sight of the most important part of our content – the people.

You can follow Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust on Facebook here and on TikTok here.

Anuji Evans is external communications manager at Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust.

AI OMG: Strengths and weaknesses of Open AI’s Sora text to video for the public sector

Every week I’m reading, listening and updatunbg my knowledge on AI tools that public sector comms people can use.

Up till now I’ve not been that impressed by the video production tools I’ve come across.

They can be clunky and tend to miss the point.

However, OpenAIs new tool Sora looks truly astonishing.

It takes text prompts and turns them into video.

First, I’d like to show you some and then I’d like to weigh-up the pros and cons.

Example 1: a Tokyo street

In this clip, the prompt is quite detailed.

Prompt: A stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street filled with warm glowing neon and animated city signage. She wears a black leather jacket, a long red dress, and black boots, and carries a black purse. She wears sunglasses and red lipstick. She walks confidently and casually. The street is damp and reflective, creating a mirror effect of the colorful lights. Many pedestrians walk about.

It’s amazing isn’t it?

Example 2: A spaceman in a knitted motorbike helmet

While the first example hung back from the subject the second goes close in.

Prompt: A movie trailer featuring the adventures of the 30 year old space man wearing a red wool knitted motorcycle helmet, blue sky, salt desert, cinematic style, shot on 35mm film, vivid colors.

Again, astounding.

Example 3: Reflections in a train window

I’m sure that some things are easier to produce than not. The difficult of replicating reflections in a window I’d imagine is towards the top of the hardest list.

Prompt: Reflections in the window of a train traveling through the Tokyo suburbs.

And it achieves the look beautifully.

Example 4: Grandma’s birthday

While the other examples have dealt with people in different ways this looks at a group.

Prompt: A grandmother with neatly combed grey hair stands behind a colorful birthday cake with numerous candles at a wood dining room table, expression is one of pure joy and happiness, with a happy glow in her eye. She leans forward and blows out the candles with a gentle puff, the cake has pink frosting and sprinkles and the candles cease to flicker, the grandmother wears a light blue blouse adorned with floral patterns, several happy friends and family sitting at the table can be seen celebrating, out of focus. The scene is beautifully captured, cinematic, showing a 3/4 view of the grandmother and the dining room. Warm color tones and soft lighting enhance the mood..Prompt: A grandmother with neatly combed grey hair stands behind a colorful birthday cake with numerous candles at a wood dining room table, expression is one of pure joy and happiness, with a happy glow in her eye. She leans forward and blows out the candles with a gentle puff, the cake has pink frosting and sprinkles and the candles cease to flicker, the grandmother wears a light blue blouse adorned with floral patterns, several happy friends and family sitting at the table can be seen celebrating, out of focus. The scene is beautifully captured, cinematic, showing a 3/4 view of the grandmother and the dining room. Warm color tones and soft lighting enhance the mood.

Weakness: Simulating complex interactions between objects and multiple characters is often challenging for the model, sometimes resulting in humorous generations.

Interestingly, OpenAI have also set out the weaknesses of such an approach.

Conclusion

The quality of the images are astounding in their quality. They look like video wheras previous tools didn’t quite ring true.

The visual clues you may look for, like reflections on windows, easily confound the brain.

That’s real, isn’t it?

Only, it isn’t.

Right now OpenAI are pulling a blinder by teasing amazing content but regulating the use of the product. People are talking but not able to use it right now but this will change.

As we can’t use it we can’t see how hard it is to experiment with good content.

The pitfalls of Sora AI video

For the public sector, the flaw isn’t yet cost or even a pathway to start using it. UK Government have released some guidelines to encourage the use of it.

I feel like looking a gifthorse in the mouth when I say this but the issue for the public sector maybe that right now the content is too generic.

A campaign for a commercial could do something enlightening. Filmmakers I suspect will make something useful with this.

I’ve seen an AI how to video made by a council neasr me with a generic English accent and I hated it for its insincerity. I was left feeling played.

One issue with web content for a council, NHS Trust, police force or fire and rescue is that generic content doesn’t do so well. As I’ve blogged this week people pictures work really well. They are both real and of people. They also capture the area. So, generic shots of Tokyo, yes. Shots of Dudley in the West Midlands, probably not.

Right now, shooting your own content of people and landmarks tops it. But can AI-made content be used to supplement it? We wear futuristic artist impressions of new developments. Will we go for AI-made content of a new town centre development? Or what a new hospital ward would look like? I’m guessing yes.

Of course, such is the onward pace of AI this hurdle may well become surmountable. What I’ve just written may seen laughable quite quickly, I accept that. An interface with Google Street View and Google Photos could be one way to do that, I’m speculating. But wouldn’t Google be building their own equivalent?

Oh, heck, my head hurts.

LONG READ: Yes, Threads is worth a look but no, it won’t be a like-for-like Twitter replacement 

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. 

Stephen Fry was broadly correct in 2016 when he called Twitter ‘a secret bathing pool in a magical glade that had become stagnant.’ 

Threads isn’t the silver bullet

Is Threads worth looking at? Absolutely. 

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. 

The riots of 2011 shaped so much of the last 15-years for public sector Twitter. The Government of the day, you may recall, wanted to haul Facebook, Twitter and RIM the makers of the BlackBerry in for a grilling. They also wanted to ban Twitter and Facebook in an emergency. Saner voices prevailed when it emerged putting your own content there as a trusted voice was the route.

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.

TWEET LIST: Here’s Twitter’s algorithm

There’s been no denying there has been changes at Twitter since Elon Musk took over.

This week, Twitter’s changes to reward subscribers come into effect. Where once the platform was a democratic real-time platform you could speak to famous people directly its morphed into something else.

I’ve blogged here on whether or not its worth paying for better access. But in the meantime here’s excerpts from a thread that analyses what algorithm now looks like.

There you go.

Act accordingly.

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.

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. 

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