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Sometimes, comms opportunities come from the most surprising sources...
by GUEST EDITOR Helen Fincher 
A few months ago I had what some people might consider a mad idea, but one that to me made perfect sense: I want to send my Council Leader to a supermarket.
Not to shop, but to talk to people. I wanted the Leader, Martin Tett, to go out into communities and seek people out to hear their concerns first-hand.
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.
People often ask how social media can help organisations. At Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service it has proved a key way of warning and informing during operational incidents - but the lesser reported success is how it connects the Service with individuals to make a lasting difference to the community.
by Kate Hall
Now the Service is able to share how a single tweet led to a heart wrenching water safety education campaign - and a national award for a volunteer.
Beckie Ramsay became a volunteer for GMFRS in 2012 - and it all started with this tweet sent in response to live tweeting from @manchesterfire about how it was working to keep the community safe:
Infographics are a growing trend and when you get them right they look brilliant and make big spreadshreets come alive. But how do you get them right?
Honestly, you can’t open a magazine or website nowadays without seeing an infographic. It’s the hot word of the moment and plenty of organisations are trying to introduce them into their communications channels.
If you’re in the dark a little, let me elaborate.
The term infographic is hotly debated, but I like to think of it as “information in a visual form”. The current trend is for full page, or long-images that explain a series of statistics using charts, diagrams and illustrations.
They are there when a little boy falls out of a tree or when there is a train crash. Who? Ambulance crew. So, what does the comms look like?
Let’s be honest, paramedics are sexy. They wear uniforms, save lives at the scene of major incidents and race around in cars, motorbikes and other vehicles with flashing blue lights.
It’s this appeal that leads to our first challenge: staying focussed on our corporate objectives when lots of our staff and the makers of everything from Junior Paramedics, to 999 What’s Your Emergency and Soho Blues want us to be involved in their observational series?
Sometimes when things go wrong online it's best just to be honest...
I notice Wrexham Council has got online praise for holding its hands up to a mistake with humour and honesty.
They accidentally tweeted a decision from a key meeting and predictive text said that the 'Pathetic executive' had made a decision. They then apologised straight away and went on to blame their 'sausage fingers' and predictive text.
A Wrexham Council spokesman said:
“We hold our hands (and big sausage fingers) up - we fell victim to the dreaded predictive text. We noticed our error and the tweet was removed promptly.”
It's not writing a press release, it's creating content. And spotting stories to tell as this charity comms case study demonstrates brilliantly.
by Will Barker
Being part of a communications team for a charity in Wales can be difficult at times. Let’s be honest, being part of a communications team for any charity in the UK can be difficult.
We’ve all got great reasons to shout about the work we do and brilliant, inspiring stories to tell, but we don’t always have enough people to tell it to. More and more we are creating our own content and using our own channels as news sources to reach the people that matter to us, it’s not often that you get the opportunity to do both.
If you look after a Facebook page you'll have seen the number of people who automatically get to see your content shrink massively. So, what to do? Quit? Not necessarily. Here are some tips to fight back.
So, I’ve a turbulent relationship with Facebook, haven't you? Over past few years, we’ve gone from a rock steady relationship, where I post an update and it’s get delivered to those that like the page, to a relationship where such a small amount of people see the update in an organic manner. Of course, when it comes to the Facebook revenue model, it’s not a huge surprise.
One of the ways comms teams can be most effectivce is to help the organisation move to more efficient ways that their customers can do business with them. It's often called 'channel shift' but beyond the jargon there are some simple learning points.
Channel shift? Digital by default? That’s gobbledygook to most people. So how do you encourage customers to get online and do it online? You call in the Web Wizards.
At Wolverhampton Homes we don’t have digital inclusion officers or digital champions – we have Web Wizards whose one simple catchphrase is “You can’t break the internet”.
Did you know? You are more at risk of a blood clot after a stay in hospital than from a long haul flight. That's a bit of a headache if you are in the NHS. Which is where this comms campaign came in handy.
We recently launched the Ask about Clots campaign in Wales.
It aims to increase public awareness over the risk of developing a blood clot while in hospital. The campaign’s simple message encourages individuals to ask about their personal risk so that they can be assessed and treated appropriately.
As we know, the major consideration for any campaign is what will actually engage people and motivate them to take the desired action?
In developing Ask about Clots, we focussed on three main areas which we believed were necessary to enable and encourage people to start asking!
LGcomms is on the lookout for the next generation of people who will be shaping the profession and leading public sector communications. Is it you?
Five years ago I thought being a Head of Communications wasn’t something for me. In fact, the idea was completely daunting. When the opportunity came for me to take on the role at the Council I was working for I was lucky enough to have a brilliant group of peers around me to provided support and advice as I took on the challenge.
Last year I was given the chance to get involved with the LGcomms Future Leaders programme which is designed exactly to help and support people in the situation I was in five years ago.
Digital channels are growing but there is a trend amongst young people for 'private' social media. And what does that mean? Especially for customer services?
We’re told that what we thought of as social is going private. Or, if you prefer, we’re being social in private. Sharing one message with a lot of people isn’t the done thing anymore, especially among the younger set.
Chained to the desk? Try getting out. Yes, yes, easier than it sounds but there are rewards to be had.
We’re all busy right? Well we should be. Fewer people, more work. We all know what that’s like.
More work means more desk time and then that diary alert comes up, the one you’d forgotten all about.
It’s that site visit, the meeting with residents, the trip round a building, the thing that was arranged months ago when your diary was emptier than an average political promise.
Wouldn't it be great if people who worked across local government outside of the comms office told their story in real time? Can you help Geoff make this happen?
You may have seen my post last week: Could Twitter be a weekly voice for local government?
Basically I asked what people thought of the idea of a Twitter account curated by a different local government voice each week - if you've seen @sweden and @FarmersOfTheUK, you'll get the idea.
Unconferences are great places to learn new things and network. There's a great event coming up aimed at people from the emergency services. It's also free.Unconferences are great places to learn new things and network. There's a great event coming up where you. It's also free.
You would be forgiven for thinking that data doesn’t have much to do with communications. If you work as a communication professional in the public sector, however, it’s not such a leap.
Data drives everything we do.
There have been some big changes to Facebook of late prompting many to ask why and if it is worth bothering with unless you have a budget to support it. Here is one take.
by Jon King
Having stepped away from local government comms for a year, I’m back in the saddle again at another authority.
Knowing a little about social media helped. And just as I was extolling the virtues of Facebook as a means of connecting with residents I had to remind myself that the game has changed a little in my absence.
So what happens when your passion becomes your work? For one fan a love of a London football team helped her public relations career.
by Karen Jeal
I have been a Millwall fan all my life, so I always jumped at the chance to include the club in everything I did. Every school project revolved around Millwall.
I redesigned match programmes and wrote reports after games. But where it all started was a project where I designed an anti-racism campaign. I got an invite to the ground to meet the press team and from there my connection with the club grew. I was very persistent and ended up working with them on a voluntary basis, until one day I got a job offer. Unfortunately due to timings I had to turn it down. But here's what I learnt:
Some public relations is pretty straight forward. You're an airport, say, and you'd like to tell people when you are open, when you are closed and where you can go. Or a car manufacturer - that's a pretty clear offer. But how about utility networks, the people who bring you things like power?
Here’s a comms challenge. Everyone in your region uses your services – about 5m people – and some people literally can’t live without it. They don’t have any choice to use another company and they also don’t have a choice as to whether or not they pay you.
Most of the time they won’t even realise you’re there – unless there’s a problem. Then they may need to contact you, and fast, but that’s rare.
We all know that employee engagement is important and can bring multiple benefits. But how many organisations really do it well? A recent visit to Virgin Trains opened the eyes of one comms professional.
I was lucky enough to get an invite to the opening of the new First Class Lounge at Virgin Trains, Euston. I thought it would be rude not to turn up and there were canapés and cocktails in the offing.
There is nothing like an infographic to make a big pile of numbers make sense. For the public sector explaining what they do has never been more important. In this brilliant case study one authority has used the web to create something interactive.
by Sarah Lay
I admit it; I’ve never really been one for figures. At best they confuse me, at worst they scare me. So being tasked with leading a project to translate Nottinghamshire County Council’s budget book into a format people could more easily get to grips with – people like me who cringe inwardly at the thought of wading through an accounts spreadsheet – was just the sort of challenge I liked.
And today we’ve released what we’ve created; an interactive infographic taking all the Council’s budget expenditure for 2014/2015 and displaying it in a more interesting, and hopefully easier-to—understand, format.
