Everyone wants their website to look great, right? But we often see organisations forget about the content. Not so at one local authority which has invested in improving the content it shares with its customers.
Read morehousing magazines – do they have a future?
snapchat for mass communication: a case study
Snapchat works well with youunger people. But using it as an organisation? How would that work?
Read morewhy faceless civil servant is never a good look
We've come a long way, baby, as country singer Loretta Lynn once sang. Once, the idea of using social media in the public sector was bold and revolutionary. Now it is common place. Perhaps the greatest thing about this is that it puts a human face onto civil servants who are human too.your chance to learn from the unawards winners. for free
The UnAwards15 were my highlight of 2015. Having the opportunity to see the passion, creativity and results from some of the brilliant work taking place across the UK and beyond was quite a privilege.
The UnAwards ceremony was a belter – well, I swear I heard someone say that on the day.
It was a unique event which placed an important spotlight on our industry and in a way which was accessible to everyone regardless of budget or grade.
After the event, many of you asked for the chance to see and hear more about the winning work.
So, with just one shake of a billy goat’s tail, we have organised an UnAwards Winners Masterclass.
Actually, that’s a lie. We have organised three. This gives us the chance to take the Masterclasses around the country with regional events taking place in Leeds, Birmingham and London.
it’s the most wonderful time of the year: unawards 2015
There was real celebratory feel about the UnAwards15, which we’re pretty pleased about because that’s exactly what we hoped to achieve.
The UnAwards15 saw 140 colleagues from across the industry descend on the very cool Everyman Cinema in Birmingham last Thursday. The mood was one of big event excitement - Christmas party meets trip to a posh cinema mixed with lashing of great communicators celebrating one another’s work.
Holding the UnAwards at Christmas is deliberate too – we wanted to add a little festive sparkle to the proceedings.
We’re a tad biased but we felt the whole day was a little bit special.
Sitting watching the fabulous Planes, Trains and Automobiles with what felt like a great big group of pals was pretty amazing. The film had a whole bunch of relevant messages and takeaways (and if you have ever watched the movie remember – ‘never assume you are cuddling a pillow’)
snapchat: here today, gone tomorrow… but see you again soon
Wondering if and where Snapchat might fit into your comms mix? This great case study from a leading social media manager in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office sheds a very helpful light on a platform you may not have yet used.
By Steven Hardy
Snapchat - some stats:
- Approximately 50% of users 18 or under
- Real-time images and videos that disappear once viewed
- Messages that only allow 37 characters of text
At first glance Snapchats vital statistics do not appear the ideal fit as tool to communicate the nuances of diplomacy but its relentless growth encouraged some further examination.
#unawards15 – the shortlist
Well that was fun.
Yesterday saw the end of our public vote and the announcement of the #UnAwards15 shortlist. I went slightly bog-eyed watching it all unfold but we now know the runners and riders in all 15 categories.
Over 140 entries poured into the UnAwards15 from across the UK and from as far afield as Norway.
Central government, local government, NHS, Police, Housing, Fire, Higher Education, third sector and the agency world all took part and our 14 external judges have had quite a task in getting down to our final shortlist.
The standard of your entries this year has been high. We know this because some of our judges are hard to impress, But impressed they were.
Our love and respect for this fabulous comms, PR, marketing and digital community, which we all exist in, just grows and grows and thank you so much for supporting the #UnAwards15.
prints not dead: what launching a print magazine taught a digital native
Print is dead, right? Maybe not. On the day the NME became a free sheet available at train stations and TopMan, Louder Than War expanded from their success online and launched as a glossy magazine. Editor of louderthanwar.com Sarah Lay shares her experience of growing from digital to include print.
by Sarah Lay
The first issue of Louder Than War magazine featured the Stone Roses on the cover and was titled ‘I Wanna Be Adored’. In truth it could have carried another song title from the band, ‘I Am the Resurrection’, and been just as fitting for Louder Than War’s bold move into print.
That’s right, as the increasingly hysterical cry of ‘print is dead’ resounds and on the day that stalwart of the music press NME moved to become a free sheet given out in train stations, Louder Than War made the dauntless move to swim against the tide and launch as a glossy, paid-for, magazine. While that sinks in let me introduce you to Louder Than War properly.
5 reasons why you should review your communications. And one reason why you won’t.
There’s nothing new in saying that we should review and evaluate work to see what works. It’s obvious and it’s important. The problem is that many of us don’t do it often enough.
The chances of there being a comms person out there today who doesn’t think that reviewing and evaluating their work is important will be tiny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah – we know it’s important, but when there are 10 people asking for my help, three comms plans to write, the phone ringing off the hook and the impacts of a comms team which has been cut in half it’s a lot easier said than done.
Sound familiar? Yep, me too.
Amongst the many things I learned in 10 years of leading comms teams it’s that standing back and taking a good hard look at your work is 1. Absolutely vital, and 2. Something of a luxury to do often and well. Like wanting a brand new car but settling for paying the bare minimum to get the old car through another year’s MOT (and that sounds familiar too)
With the consultancy work I have been doing with comms2point0 I have had the incredible opportunity to review a dozen organisation’s communications activity in microscopic detail. This is fascinating work and I thoroughly engross myself in the detail of these reviews. They tell stories and give clear indicators to the ‘what should we do next?’ question.
how a charity challenge can help you get to grips with social media
Before social media, comms was traditionally done by a small team within an organisation. Could a charity challenge help to encourage your staff to use social media?
By GUEST EDITOR Dyfrig Williams
In September, the Staff Charity of the Wales Audit Office took on a mammoth task – to walk the entire coast of Wales in 24 hours. And we did it, all 870 miles of it. Whilst the undertaking of the task was an impressive feat in and of itself, I was also impressed by how our staff used social media to communicate their trials, tribulations and ultimately, their success.
Sign me up!
I may have been the other side of the country, but by following #audittrail15 I could see how staff were getting lessons on using Twitter. Encouraging people to use social media in a hectic work environment can be hard work, but the challenge provided a safe environment for people to try out new technology. The informal aspect also gave the opportunity to try out some different social media tools, like using Vine to share the sights of Ceredigion.
the real reason why you should enter the UnAwards
There are several reasons for us running the UnAwards 15. Celebrating the work and efforts of colleagues across comms, PR, marketing and digital is right up there amongst them, of course.
But for me it runs a little deeper than that.
We run the UnAwards to support and – in our own way - fly a flag for folks across the UK and beyond who are working in difficult circumstances and still delivering day after day. To sing for the unsung, to recognise the unrecognised.
I hear – and I hear it way too often, I’m afraid – of some less than great behaviours by some organisations and the way they are treating staff. To a degree this is to be expected with the enormous and ongoing cuts to the public sector – with 350k people leaving local government alone in the past five years there is unprecedented change taking place.
But this doesn’t excuse shoddy behaviour.
Lack of recognition has been a theme in much of the staff survey feedback I have seen over the years too. Sometimes your achievements will be appreciated by others, sometimes they’ll not be. That’s a fact of comms life, as it is in life.
And for me, part of the UnAwards is flying back into face of this and celebrating what you do and do well. We’ve been at, and are, at your coalface so we know.
So the real reason that you should enter the UnAwards is to celebrate you.
an epic twitter chat – what we learned from #idealcommsteam
We thought it would be interesting to begin hosting a couple of Twitter Chats each month on key challenges facing the community. We kicked off with this great session on the 'ideal comms team' - it sparked a flurry of tweets and over 1.1million potential Twitter impacts.
by Ben Capper
You can always count on the comms2point0 to pitch in with ideas and thoughts when you ask them.
Last Wednesday's #IdealCommsTeam lunchtime Twitter chat was a true example of this.
The expertise, the experiences (good and bad), the challenges and the triumphs came thick and fast during a cracking hour of discussion in response to my comms2point0 post on the Ideal Comms Team last week.
Just as a reminder, there were a few key rules to the questions we asked during the conversation:
5 tips for getting more from your webinars
Public services constantly have to change and adapt, so it’s no surprise that the way we share learning has to too. Here’s how you can make the most of your webinars
By GUEST EDITOR Dyfrig Williams
Anyone who’s run an event will know that they’re expensive things. So to complement our shared learning seminars, the Good Practice Exchange at the Wales Audit Office have been running webinars on a range of topics that affect public services. Here’s some of what we’ve learnt so far.
Start small
Doing things differently is always nerve racking. I haven’t been as nervous as the first time I clicked the ‘begin webinar’ button for quite some time. Helen Reynolds has blogged about how she’s finding her feet with podcasting and isn’t actively promoting her efforts with Ben Proctor. Similarly, our first webinar was a pilot webinar with twenty attendees from an IT seminar. If it went wrong, it wasn’t the end of the world, but fortunately it didn’t.
top tips for success in the UnAwards 2015
We know many of you are working on your entries and nominations for the UnAwards 2015. We thought it would be useful to share some top tips on giving you the best shot at success this year.
You have six weeks to work on your entries. Sounds plenty of time doesn't it? But the deadline will be here before you know it.
We’ve all left award entries until the last minute in the past due to other competing work demands. But is that what your best work this year deserves? No, course not.
So use the time wisely and have a think about which of the 15 categories are a best fit with the activity and projects you are most proud of. Grab a coffee, sit somewhere quiet for 10 minutes with a pencil and a piece of paper and begin sketching out your ideas or a small mind map for your entry. Focus on the best way to make it stand out from the crowd.
10 years of being a head of comms and what do I have to show for it?
10 years in communications is a long time. 10 years being a head of comms is a really long time. Lessons are a plenty so here’s a post which attempts to capture the key ones.
Well here’s the thing. I woke up this morning and for the first time in 10-years I am not a head of comms. This is a good thing because it means I have moved on to an exciting new phase of my career.
It’s an obvious time to reflect. Has 10 years of being a head of comms made me a better comms professional? And would I recommend the role to someone else? Here’s my take on it, my top tips and answers to these two simple questions.
I have had some fantastic opportunities. Worked with some brilliant colleagues. Won over a dozen industry awards with them and learned way more than you could ever capture in a single post. I have also sat in some dreary meetings. Had to argue the case for comms, over and over and over and over, and crossed swords with some quite unpleasant people. The rough with the smooth. You know the score.
the UnAwards are open
The comms2point0 UnAwards 2015 are now officially open. How can you enter? how can you nominate and how can you attend them? Here’s the lowdown…
So you’ve delivered some great work this year which has made a difference. And you might just feel like it deserves a little smidge of recognition. Well you’re in luck because the comms2point0 UnAwards have arrived giving you the opportunity to show off your best work.
It might be a social media initiative which delivered amazing returns or it might be a shiny new website which has made your online business purr. How about a campaign which has made a difference to your residents, patients or customers. Or a good old fashioned piece of great storytelling.
Whatever you’ve created this year there’s almost certainly a category amongst the 15 in this year’s UnAwards.
the UnAwards are back
Following their huge success and popularity in 2014, the comms2point0 UnAwards return on 3 December 2015, even bigger and better than last year but still remaining true to their original ethos.
The UnAwards are our opportunity to showcase great work and celebrate a hugely creative and dedicated community.
Why ‘UnAwards’, you ask? Well they’re a deliberate alternative to the £300-a-pop, black tie, swanky London hotel event awards machine which exists in our industry.
That’s not a slight on these events – if you have been to one of them, and won an award in the process, you’ll have felt pretty good about the whole thing.
But for many the cost has become prohibitive. This is making the awards landscape a bit, well, ‘exclusive’.
That’s not how we like to do things. We’re more Sundance Film Festival than Oscars Ceremony.
The UnAwards are accessible to the entire comms, pr, marketing and digital community and, importantly, will recognise the contributions of colleagues across the sectors for their creative endeavours over the past 12-months.
are emoji’s a fad or a new language?
Emoji's. Here's a very timely and helpful post on the little blighters ;-)
Some of you may use these friendly little icons in your messages, some of you may hate them with a passion…but as Sony announces they’re making a movie about them I decided I had to blog/acknowledge their overwhelming existence.
Whatever you think about emoji they’re growing in popularity at a rapid pace and more marketers are using them to communicate with customers and team members alike.
more popular than eastenders: a university graduation week
What was more popular than EastEnders? The University of Warwick’s graduation week on social media. It is a landmark week in the life of a student. It's a landmark week for a University too. Their acclaimed social media officer lifts the lid on how they did it.
by Dave Musson from University of Warwick
Working at a University, there are plenty of great things going on all year round, but arguably the best time to be on campus is during graduation week. There’s an almost magical buzz in the atmosphere, with happy graduates, proud parents and flying mortarboards in every direction you look.
But what about transposing that buzz from real life to online? Here’s how we did at the University of Warwick, armed with little more than a hashtag, some mobile phones and plenty of enthusiasm.
