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So, you've done the Twitter event. But how do you measure what kind of impact it had? Here's what he people behind one event to look at what changed because of it. The answers are varied.
Last year #Housingday tweetathon reached a 1,000 tweets an hour. This survey looked to find out about the impact of the day. We wanted to hear from those involved, what they thought about it and what the sector could do next?
Socitm Insight’s annual snapshot of the state of development of 432 UK local council websites, Better connected 2014, is published today.
by John Fox
This year’s report includes analysis of a special survey that examined digital engagement.
Engagement is vital to help promoting channel shift, but also for securing citizen focus and encouraging citizen feedback into services. Promoting online services is just as critical as providing online services that work and are easy to use. In fact, marketing is a key component in achieving cost-saving channel shift and ensuring the success of ‘digital by default’ strategies.
Never. In the field of human conflict. Has powerpoint. Badly deployed. Caused so much damage. Of course, Winston Churchill was a good leader. But he was never hindered by pie charts and bullet points on powerpoint. In this post look at where you need to tailor the approach.
by GUEST EDITOR Chris Bolton
Excellent News! Through extensive research* I’ve located a picture of Winston Churchill from June 1940, practicing his Powerpoint presentation of the ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech.
If you squint carefully (its an old picture) you can just make out the Pie Chart percentages of where the fighting will take place: Beaches 45%, Landing Grounds 20%, Fields 10% etc. Apparently Churchill was ready to deliver the carefully crafted presentation when, during a bombing raid the House of Commons projector bulb was shattered by some stray shrapnel. The result was the impromptu, unsupported speech to Parliament, and the rest is history.
Thunderclap? What's that? It's a social platform for making a bigger bang. Here in a case study is what it is and how it works.
by Anna Warren
I first heard of a Thunderclap when our friends at Fire and Rescue asked us to join theirs for the ‘Tick Tock Test’ campaign. Being a social media intern I felt a bit embarrassed that I had never heard of a one before. Luckily, when I looked around the team I realised no one else seemed sure either.
It was clear: we needed to get our hands on this tool and do some experimenting.
If you spend any time at all online and want to know something in a hurry, where do you go? The chances are that you'll log on to Wikipedia, even if you get there via Google, but how much do you know about this vast knowledge base?
by GUEST EDITOR Stevie Benton 
Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Its mission? To share the sum total of all human knowledge with everyone on the planet, for free. That's a lofty ambition and one that can never be fulfilled. But that isn't stopping Wikipedia contributors – Wikipedians – from having a real go at making it happen.
Challenges, challenges everywhere. So what do they look like for a local government communications officer? Here's one perspective.
Like a friendly drill sergeant comms2point0 has asked me to drop and give him five challenges I face. Here they are:
Two blokes had an idea in a pub. 'Wouldn't it be great,' one said, 'if we could watch 'Withnail & I' in the cinema with some mates.' They nodded. They posted the idea to Twitter. The idea grew. It spread. Now, it's a fully blown weekend of cultural activity. All organised through social media.
by Matt Bowsher and Hugh Evans
I think of my smartphone as a giant digital octopus. It can take the most random of thoughts and reach a virtual tentacle out to connect with someone similarly afflicted.
All soc med (but for me Twitter in particular) provides immediacy; the sense of the now. The connections that we make create a sense of the active stakeholder as opposed to the passive consumer. Going to a cinema to watch a film is an act of passive consumerism. Creating the demand to tell the cinema what to screen isn't.
We've always liked the cut of the jib of those folks down in Norfolk. And this post and idea sums them up nicely.
by GUEST EDITOR Susie Lockwood 
It’s crucial to lead on things sometimes; come up with new ideas, be brave, be innovative, make stuff happen. But leaders don’t get very far without followers, people who can recognise a good idea when they see one and can make it happen much more effectively.
So it follows (sorry, couldn’t resist) that it’s important to follow as well as lead, support as well as take the starring role.
Sometimes with social media things go a bit wrong. Something happens that is unplanned and leaves you with egg on your face. So, you're in a hole. How do you get yourself out of it? Honesty and humour, it seems.
The Mission: promote the grand work of Charnwood Borough Council’s CCTV service.
The Tactic: tweet live from the camera control centre on a busy Saturday night in Loughborough.
Opening up to use social media can be tricky. Not least if you are the Ministry of Defence. Which is why this case study shows how one department of the MOD adopting social can lead to some unintended benefits.
by Tony Moran
With social media now so much a part of our everyday lives, it’s easy to forget what life was like without it.
If winter 2014 in the UK will be remembered for one thing it'll be the floods. It was the wettest January on record and not one many will forget in a hurry. But in an emergency how did local government respond? In one Southern council they were stretched to the limit.
by Louise Smith
Since Christmas, Maidstone borough has suffered its worst flooding since 2000, with significant property flooding and at least 36 families being evacuated – some up to four times in six weeks.
The three rivers in the borough have been repeatedly placed on flood warning, with more rain threatened for the coming weeks.
Sometimes, it's only when you stop and take a look back over your shoulder you realise how far you've come. In this personal blog post a Coca Cola comms person looks back to see how far forward his company has come.
by Neil Jenkins
I was chatting to some fellow internal communicators recently about our digital work at Coca-Cola Enterprises, and it wasn’t until afterwards that I realised what a frantic – and fantastic – few years it’s been.
Once upon a time there was a local council in need of an organisational narrative. But how do you go about creating one? And what can be learned along the way? One communications officer at Swindon Borough Council shares their experience.
by GUEST EDITOR Kate Steel 
When the now-familiar policy changes and funding reductions first began to bite at the heels of local government, we needed to make sure our employees were equipped – and inspired – to deliver our priorities with our residents and it became apparent that we needed a clear, consistent story about how our organisation was changing and why. So what did we do?
So what are the issues facing a creative agency? In this insight a team who specialise in creative internal comms ideas reflect.
by Alan Oram
We’re a pretty robust bunch of guys at Alive. We’ve even chosen to adopt a moose as part of the team. A splendidly powerful, determined creature, seeking supremacy, commanding respect and all that good stuff. It’s one of the ways we’re approaching life in a competitive industry in order to achieve success, become a super-profitable creative agency and smash our goals.
Admittedly it goes a little deeper than downright dogged determination, but it’s a good place to start!
Mistakes. We all make them. But many of us shy away from talking about them. One comms pro took a different view and created a massively popular post last year about making mistakes on Twitter. And now she's gone and written the follow-up...
by GUEST EDITOR Helen Reynolds 
With the 'first seven mistakes we have to make' post last year I started a club for those of us who have learned the hard way and cocked up on Twitter at some point.
Here are seven more 'mistakes': if you have done more than six of the fourteen you are a VIP member for the 'Twitter pro club'. (Rule 1: talk about Twitter pro club. We're communicators aren't we?!)
Last year the Government Communication Service - or GCS - announced reforms to professionalise government communications. Part of this reform aims to create excellent Internal Communications across government. Victoria Ford, Head of Communications at DVLA, has been leading a project to deliver a toolkit for internal communicators to support this aim.
Can I let you into a secret? *whispers* I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for internal communications. When challenged by my Head of External Comms I would deny it, but with a background in operational delivery and change management it’s inevitable I should realise its importance. So, when I got a call back in October from Russell Grossman, SRO of the Internal Communications Excellence project, asking if I’d lead a piece of work to deliver an online toolkit to support internal communicators I was always going to say yes.
For me it feels like internal comms takes a bit of a back seat. It is the area of comms everyone thinks they know best about and the one everyone thinks they can do themselves. I think there has been a real lack of investment in the profession and the people who serve in it. That’s why I loved the idea of bringing together what is now known as ‘The IC Space’ – a site for internal communicators to learn, share and borrow from.
What I wasn’t expecting was the huge amount of enthusiasm and support I have received from communicators across government who believe in the product and wanted to do all they could to bring The IC Space to life. The result is a truly collaborative, cross government effort. From Whitehall departments, to devolved government and agencies, I have received not only insight, experience and wisdom, but the skills and creativity of film makers and designers to make this happen.
So what’s the result? Well it is a resource that, although aimed at government communicators, is open to those outside government as well with an interest in internal comms. It is a place to find best practice. What I want it to become is a community, a place where internal communicators can seek advice and share their experiences. The site we are launching today isn’t the finished article. It isn’t meant to be. It is a site we are hoping you will go into, have a look around and let us know what you think. It is being delivered iteratively based on feedback from the people it has been designed to help. We’ll add what you want to it, just tell us what that is. So over to you. Go and take a look. Let us know what you think and, you never know, you may end up with a soft spot for internal comms yourself.
You can take a look at the new toolkit for internalcomms here.
Victoria Ford is head of communications at the DVLA.
As one organisation looks to take on new staff their head of communications and engagement sets out a little of her own comms journey.
This blog has been written to support Helena’s latest comms recruitment campaign. I wanted to talk about how comms as a career can really open doors for you and will do this by reflecting on my own experiences. It’s fair to say that Comms has and always will be my passion, regardless of where my career takes me. It has been an amazing journey against a backdrop of changing comms practices, channels a go go and a technological revolution.
Blogging has come a long way through the early days of the internet. But for one veteran blogger he can see that things have changed...
by Mark Allen
Remember way back in 2005? It was only a decade ago.
We started to realised the true horror of the tsunami, George W Bush was stating his 2nd term in the USA, but social media as we know it today was just a glint in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye.
Social media was just for geeks and ‘blogs’ and ‘citizen journalism’ were the next big thing (despite having been around for years)
Well I shall let you into a secret. Blogging probably saved my life. But even I think it is past its sell by date in 2014.
There can be a lot of frustration as a comms person. Here are a few ways to count to 10 breathe, relax and work out plans to make your job easier.
While flicking through Twitter yesterday lunchtime I was drawn to an article by Eddie Coates-Madden, Assistant Head of Services, Communications and Marketing at Hull City Council - @pseudograph.
Eddie has created a great blog post about the wonders or perils of working in comms which he referred to as -the comms team credit matrix, aka damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I responded on Twitter by saying that over the years I have developed some coping mechanisms and a few frustrated comms people asked me to share them with Twitter so here goes.
In the array of channels and platforms facing a comms person sometimes the online community gets overlooked. What's that? It can be the web forum and the place where people with a shared interest come together. But what makes them work? What ingredients do you need if you are thinking of setting one up yourself? Or what makes them tick if you want to understand them more?
by Richard Millington
If you’re new, here’s a background primer on successful communities.
Successful online community building is connecting a group of people online and making them feel a part of something special. This 'something special’ element is the overlooked bit.
