Video is becoming increasingly used by people to consume media. Blame the smartphone which makes it easy to shoot and watch video. But are people watching content from their council? In Birmingham, yes they are.
by Geoff Coleman
Read morewhatsapp for elections
A few years ago it was considered revolutionary to use Facebook to tell people election results and now its expected. Now it is experimenting with messaging app WhatsApp that is the latest frontier for one intrepid council.
At the risk of incurring your wrath, can I mention the election? I know, I know... we're all probably getting a little fed-up with what feels like the longest campaign in history. Personally I'm taking the opportunity to experiment.
I work at Birmingham City Council and in recent years we've gradually built-up our election coverage and the combination of web updates, tweets, videos and more always attracts a decent audience.
My boss Janet Priestley is always encouraging us to experiment with new platforms and channels and recently challenged me to build on our previous election coverage. So this year we're sharing voter information, candidate lists results and other election news via mobile messaging service WhatsApp.
In part this was inspired by Shropshire Council's experiment with WhatsApp late last year.
putting online advertising back on the agenda
Many a council comms officer has been given a daft income target for web advertising at some point. Few have achieved significant returns. But a new initiative might just be the answer to this oft debated issue.
Many local authorities have considered carrying advertising on their websites before and decided that the time wasn’t right. The most common issues have tended to be that it wouldn’t deliver enough revenue to justify, 1 – hiring staff to implement the technology and manage relationships with advertisers, and 2 – the perceived compromises in carrying advertising; and also concerns over the types of advertisers to which they want to expose their audience, and to which they want to associate with their corporate brand.
could twitter be a weekly voice for local government?
Could a Twitter account passed between local government people help tell the story of their sector? One switched-on comms person thinks it could.
In December 2011, Sweden launched what it called 'the world's most democratic Twitter experiment' when the Twitter account @Sweden was born.
If you're not already a follower I can highly recommend that you check it out.
Basically, a new Swede takes over the country's official Twitter account @sweden every week, sharing their daily experiences and opinions and generally celebrating their nation.
facebook – pointless for councils?
Facebook's darling is fading. Is it time to re-think how we use it as comms people?
Attention council Communications Teams. Nobody wants to be your friend, especially not your residents. Don’t feel unloved – what we do is vital to our organisations – but we need to work smarter.
Digital and social media has been heralded for years as the way forward for comms, and it is. But the world moves fast, and we need to keep up.
Facebook, the original social media darling, is faltering. Share prices are dropping, expansion is stalling, and it’s becoming clear that, while Facebook is a primary tool for social interaction, it’s not the place people go to for local information.
