Story telling is important in all fields. The Local Government Association are looking for some around the essential task of being an elected member.

 by David Holdstock

In case you don’t know, it’s Local Democracy Week this week and the LGA will be continuing to promote our successful ‘Be a councillor’ campaign.

In the run up to Local Democracy Week I wrote to communications colleagues asking for case studies of how councils are encouraging people to find out more about how to become a councillor. I got some fantastic examples back but also quite a few responses along the lines of, “Sounds great, do you have any support materials we could use?” (we do by the way – more on that later).

Whenever we talk about encouraging people to become a councillor we often use phrases such as “engaging in local democracy” but what does that actually mean to people who may not be involved in local politics let alone national politics? 

Back in the olden days journalists would rub shoulders with PRs for boozy lunches. It was called networking. Today, networking - online and offline - is just as important. Only there isn't the same cocktails.

by Ross Wigham

Networking has always been a powerful buzzword. Back in 1999 when I moved South to work as a journalist in London it meant boozy lunches with PRs and long nights on the town with their clients.

I was literally partying like it was 1999, often in work time with my employers blessing.

But even back then the 'Mad Men' approach to meeting colleagues and contacts was in its dying day – ‘you just missed out on the good times’ some of the old hands would tell me with a smile.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and if your job is anything like mine the opportunities to meet, talk and think with like-minded people, are a rare treat.

Back at work the summer holiday is but a memory. But what do those holiday cliches teach you about your career? Quite a lot, actually.

by Lindsay Narey

Great news, autumn’s here! That season which likes to call time on your holidays, and fancies itself as something of an official landmark for going back to work/school/college.  

Whilst this might be an exciting prospect for some (students - I remember Freshers’ Week), for others the thought of a return to the office may sound a deafening klaxon of doom.  If you’d been feeling stuck in a career rut before your holiday, chances are you’ll feel a whole lot worse when you get back from a week or fortnight of gorging yourself on olives and ouzo.

Before the #ourday Twitter campaign across local government came a Scottish initiative to give people an idea of what they get for their council tax. Here's what one comms officer learned.

by Jenny Scott

One of my first tasks in my new role as Communications Assistant for Falkirk Council was to work on their Twitter 24 campaign.

As a newcomer to the working world of PR and Comms this seemed like the ideal opportunity to ease me into the combined world of social media and local government. 

Overall I believe the exercise was a great success. Of course there was the odd #mycouncil is useless - and worse - but in terms of engagement with the general public it seems, at least to me, to have broken the ice for many tweeters. The levels of engagement were higher than usual and hopefully that is a trend that will continue. It’s all well and good having thousands of followers but if they aren’t engaging with you either passively by reading your tweets or actively by directly contacting you what is the point in having them at all?

It can be varied looking after Birmingham City Council's social media events covering everything from artsfest to the visit of the Jamaican London 2012 Olympic Games team.

by Guy Evans

I am the full time social media officer for Birmingham City Council (UK), this involves looking after the corporate facebook, twitter and google+ accounts which have been up and running since January this year.

It is on any given day, exciting, challenging and rewarding, as we come to terms with social media becoming a front line tool for engagement and a channel for customer enquiries.

Top tip - use the Michael Grimes (aka citizensheep) flowchart taken from the US Air Force and redesigned for public sector UK as a standard for handling online criticism and responding. Endorsed by LG Communications and available in their guidelines for social media.

I also look after various social media accounts for council events.

It's easy to be creative these days. Or is it? Because it's not simply enough to have a flair for writing a press release. Good design skills and some knowledge of technology is needed too.

by Matt Bond

I signed up for and started to populate a Pinterest account earlier today. I’m not sure if I’m late or early to the party on this one but hearing some figures which state the content sharing platform is now the third most popular social media site it’s looking very much like the former (I’ll skip over the fact that they were saying this about Foursquare not too long ago – what is happening with that?)

Anyway, I digress, while populating the 200 character profile information section I found myself writing that I’ve got ‘a creative mind but not always the creative skills’. For some reason, this resonated and made me contemplate my creative ‘self’, creativity in general and where it all may be heading as we see much more democratisation of content.

Now, I’m certain that there will always be a special place for that highly skilled photographer, filmmaker or designer, just as there will always be a place for a highly knowledgeable coder, engineer or programmer but for everyone else, those who fall somewhere in between the two (a creative mind without the creative skills perhaps?) we’re going to have to start segueing ourselves somewhere between the two in order to really maximise our own knowledge and therefore the success of our content.

Where are you on your social media path? Just started? Or a veteran? Here are some tips to see where you are on your journey. 

by Jonathon Fitzgerald

Do you remember your first time? That toe-dipping moment when you tested the waters of social media?

Perhaps you watched from the shallow end to start with, learning by observing some of the ‘big fish’. 

The question is – have you looked back since to evaluate your progress and maturity?

Whether you’re still progressing up the pool and wearing armbands or fully immersed in the deep end and performing the equivalent of backflips and tricks

Here's an idea. Looking for a really useful internal comms resource? You're in luck. A new one has been launched.

by Rachel Miller

Do you have a quick question that you wish you could ask other internal communications - or IC - professionals for help with? Do you know who to talk to about certain aspects of Comms? Who has case studies to share on enterprise social networks or communicating with remote workers? Where can you find other internal comms professionals?

On Monday alongside fellow Comms pros and friends Jenni Wheller and Dana Leeson, I launched The IC Crowd.

Essentially it’s a community and a place for people to connect and communicate. It exists already, and alongside Jenni and Dana, I’m bringing it together. There are lots of brilliant people around, specialising in and with experience of a variety of areas including change, social media, intranets, stakeholder relationships, branding, employee engagement, strategy, union relations; the list truly is never-ending.

Our channel of choice is Twitter. The IC community is thriving there and with so many connected and inspiring comms pros around, it makes sense to be the vehicle to gather the crowd.

LinkedIn is a brilliant comms channel to talk to business. So long as it's two way. Danks Cockburn PR look after the communications for one of the largest public - private platforms in the UK - the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership. In this refreshing post they talk of where they are.

by Mat Danks

 Before I dive headlong into this, I first offer an apology. If you’re looking for solutions and best practice here, I’m sorry. This is more of a mild tale of woe and perhaps a call to arms for local government and social media types out there.

LinkedIn and Local Enterprise Partnerships: in theory, it’s the perfect social media marriage.

On the one hand, we have the relatively new concept of LEPs, with heavy emphasis on the ‘partnership’, with an evolving network of public, private and third sector organisations.

On the other hand, we have LinkedIn, the moderately clunky, highly earnest social media platform based on an evolving network of public, private and third sector organisations.

Here we have a melting pot of everyone we want to talk to. Partners, politicians, journos, local authority staff, charities, you name ‘em, they’re likely to be there.