how to give the smaller people a bigger voice

Know your stuff. Know who covers your patch then get to know them. It's an approach that's as old as the hills but one that continues to bear fruit if done with skill.

by Russ Cockburn

It’s interesting to view how much the economic pendulum has swung since the global recession of 2009.

Back then a large part of the media’s agenda was sewn up with the big boys, the car producers, aerospace giants and the financial powerhouses would regularly adorn the pages of the nationals and the airtime of our major broadcasters.

Stories from SMEs - small, medium enterprises - did get covered, don’t get me wrong. However, more often than not they were neatly packaged away in their own special enterprise section and very rarely did they make it into mainstream news.

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telling the story of srebrenica - offline and online

Some communications tasks are straight forward. Others need careful handling. So, how do you communicate the memory of an event whose darkness musn't be forgotten?

by Tony Moran

Humanity has lived through the darkest of times, but few events have stained our collective soul more than the Srebrenica genocide. Over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered in July 1995 during the Balkans conflict – just because of who they were.

The UN described Srebrenica as ‘the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War’.

Lessons learned from the genocide demonstrate how hatred and intolerance can flourish if left unchallenged - even in a country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina where people of different faiths had lived peacefully together for many years, yet an integrated society disintegrated.

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why your communications strategy might fail without text messaging

Govdelivery's annual UK Public Sector Communications Conference has become an essential part of the September calender. Why? It delivers good content. You can learn more about this year's line-up here. We take a look at one of the key speakers on the role of text messaging in comms.

By Michelle Lee

Look around in a public setting. You will notice more people hunched over a mobile device to communicate or access information than ever before. More than 35 million UK residents own a mobile phone and they’re accessing their devices for an average of 3 hours and 16 minutes each day – the equivalent of almost a full day per week.

Mobile, as a marketing channel, can no longer be ignored in order to succeed in today’s world – especially in public sector communications. Accessibility, convenience, clarity, and universality make mobile an essential channel to communicate with the public.

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other influences make you a better communicator

Every now and then we have a guest editor. They pick five links, write a post and pick a tune and we post them to Twitter. We also ask for a random fact about them that not many people know. Today's guest editor? She was in a team that finished 2nd in the Irish Dancing World Championships in 1995.

by Bridget Aherne

Drawing on other influences is a vital part of being an effective communications practitioner whatever level you work at and that was the thought process behind the random fact I shared today.

Public relations does not exist just to serve itself – it helps businesses perform at their absolute best whether that’s to sell toys or fight fires – so it’s important to soak up other sources of information to understand organisations and those they need to communicate with.

A good place to start is with what’s around us, what culture we’re from, who family members are and, perhaps, what hobbies we’ve been exposed to.

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making video to kill the radio star

Making videos doesn't have to be an epic production as one communications officer discovered on one of our courses.

by Rob McCleary

My memories of making videos at University mainly involved me falling asleep in editing rooms whilst my colleagues did all the work. I always had more of an aptitude (and face) for radio so when I decided to get into video making for my council’s social media page I hopped on a train and headed to the comms2point0 video course only armed with my trusty iphone 4 and a sandwich.

The day long course started off with introductions from Steve from the Film Café whose CV includes working on Dr Who and Torchwood. Our first icebreaker task was, in pairs, to go out onto the distractingly pretty corridors of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and film each other talking about what we wanted to get out of the day.

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the weird and wonderful watching habits of the comms and digital community

The Twitter community is one of the greatest research resources in the world. If you need to know something, just ask Twitter. The results never cease to amaze.

by Darren Caveney

I have watched a lot of TV in my life. And I mean a lot. I don’t mean the middle of the road twaddle that gets served up in the name of entertainment and puts me off ever checking the TV listings. No, what I mean are the real quality TV shows whose watching via ‘boxsets’ has become a bona fide pastime.

I have seen all of the classics. But now I am adrift and in need of something new to get into.

So I was after some recommendations and what better way than to ask the rather marvellous comms2point0 followers to chip in. And boy did you respond, with over 40 suggestions emerging.

And if you also fancy checking out something new this is a pretty great list from which to choose.

So what did we learn?

Well we learned that Paul Masterman’s favourite shows are Bullseye and Nogin the Nog. Well, “you can’t beat a bit of bully”.

Seeing the Brummie classic, Crossroads, on the list was a tad unexpected.

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influence needs context: lissted & and a top 250 twitter list

Everyone loves a list. A regional newspaper published a list of the most influential Twitterers. We're in it. Woohoo! But what were the metrics? And what was the behind-the-scenes story?

by Adam Parker

Last week the Birmingham Mail and its sister titles published a list created for them by us at Lissted of the Top 250 West Midlanders* on Twitter based on their significance to the rest of the UK.

Reaction to the list has been great, with lots of people getting involved, highlighting the appearance of people they know, or sometimes a bit of self promotion! The list has also generated a number of questions from people about the rankings and who’s on the list and who isn’t.

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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.

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using buzzfeed to create a buzzing community

Buzzfeed is one of the world's largest social news websites and one of the most shared on Facebook. It's known for pioneering 'listicles' which are lists of facts more easily digested and shared on the web. However, it also allows you to create your own content. Here's what happened when one comms officer did so.

by Karen Jeal

It’s that time of year again at Gravesham where we get all green fingered and the town looks blooming marvellous as part of our efforts to scoop the top prize for Gravesham in Bloom.

Although this year is different. The stakes and stems, for that matter, are higher. We won Gold last year so expectations are at an absolute max to grow for gold once more.

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the hidden secret to digital transformation

Every organisation is looking to transform what they are doing. There's a major role for good internal comms. Did you know?

by Kane Simms 

There’s one thing that’ll guarantee digital transformation success… and it’s not what you think.

It’s not the:

  • Digital design
  • Integration
  • User centricity
  • UX design
  • Data and analysis
  • Agile methodology
  • Lean processing
  • And so on

Long lasting digital transformation hinges, like everything else in life, on people. It depends on your staff.

Your staff have the service area expertise needed to design epic digital services and their enthusiasm and involvement is critical to solutions being adopted. Without your staff’s investment, you’ll be short-cutting back to old habits quicker than Paul Gascoigne leaving rehab.

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being the clip art and comic sans police. and why it matters.

Brand identity is hugely important and many comms folk will relate to this post on the subject. It's an instant classic. Print it out and put it on your office wall today...

by GUEST EDITOR Ben Capper

comms2point0 is one of my favourite websites.

There are loads of interesting ideas and a great community. There’s stuff on here that helps me to find solutions to issues on a daily basis.

Not very colourful though is it?

Don’t know about you, but sometimes I think it’s crying out for a bright splash of pink, maybe with some orange writing on it.

And that typeface. It’s OK for some people I guess, but surely something friendlier, some more hand-writing-ish would make it look, you know, just a bit nicer.

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video for comms is now way beyond youtube

More than 70 per cent of the internet is predicted to be video by 2017. If you are a comms person it's a challenge you need toio have an answer to.

by Albert Freeman

Online video is becoming more important all the time. There are an exciting and growing number of ways that we as organisations can use it, and ways that people can use it to engage with organisations.

Video is now big news on Facebook

In no time at all video has become huge on Facebook. Organisations need to adapt and take advantage of this. It is no longer enough to simply publish your video on YouTube, and share the YouTube link on Facebook.

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launching the UK government's comms plan

There are launches and there are launches. The launch of the UK Government's Communications Plan is worth a look. The Government Communications Service has set some high standards in recent years and how they go about their business should be of interest to everyone involved in the field.

by Alex Aiken

This is our communications plan for the year ahead. It sets out the main campaigns that are designed to help deliver the priorities of the Government and the ways by which we are going to improve our professional practice.

The Government’s One Nation narrative provides a clear focus for our work, providing the framework for Government policies and programmes to help working people, spread opportunity, bring our country together and secure Britain’s place in the world. There will be major campaigns to improve public health, get young people into apprenticeships, encourage the right to buy, recruit to our armed forces and explain pension provision. In total this plan contains 77 communication campaigns, from encouraging blood donation to reducing tax avoidance.

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