Snapchat works well with youunger people. But using it as an organisation? How would that work?
Read morefree images for local government
A powerful image can make a point and make you stop and look. In years gone by, image libraries were maintained by most councils. As the cuts bit they often went. Now the Local Government Association has a solution for the sector.
Read morethe rise of crappy marketing. and why it will only ever be crappy.
Crappy marketing. It's a mistake which has been around for a long, long time. But the growth in social media seems to have given us the opportunity to see even more of it.
Read morevideo clips on facebook can show your organisation's human face
It's an important point that still needs to be made. Using Facebook isn't messing about on the internet. It is going to where the people are and talking to them there. Take the excellent Newcastle City Council Facebook page who are mixing video into their updates with good results.
Read moremy favourite app: in praise of uber
Good apps are heart to find. But for one comms person a taxi app that is revolutionsing travel stands out.
by Rob McCleary
Read morepr people, stop talking ourselves into the next recession
A comms person who deals direct with industry has a clear message for comms people. Quit the negative talk about the economy.
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.notwestminster 2016: a rock n' roll democracy event
Good communications is all well and good but how about improving the thing? An event in Yorkshire aims to improve how democracry is done and it's of interest to anyone in or around local government.
by Dave McKenna
While controversial council decisions make their way easily onto the news agenda the day to day of council decision making remains invisible to most people.
Take Council meetings for example. While millions engage with the x factor and strictly hardly anyone is interested in what’s happening in their own town halls. The problem is not the comms but the product. So how can we bring council business out of the 1930s and blinking into the sunlight of the mass media age?
10 things comms should do after an incident
As public authorities work to get flood-affected communities back to normal they will be reviewing what went well and what could have gone better. Here are top ten tips for an effective review.
by Ben Proctor
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1. Do an after incident review.
In the midst of an emergency or even while trying to get everything back to normal everyone will be very committed to capturing the learning. As soon as normality kicks in and managers start demanding the full attention of the beleaguered comms team it can be really hard to get people to sit down and think through the incident. It’s important to do it though.
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.
Be nice: what a free calendar can teach you about community management
What a 2016 desk calendar from Instagram teaches about community management. Nb. Cute animal alert.
by Dave Musson
One of the biggest social networks in the world sent me something nice in the post and I’m instantly falling over myself to praise them to the hills. Is my loyalty really that easily bought? No, actually, there’s a lot more to it. In fact, Instagram offers a fascinating insight into good community management.
Now we’re all into the swing of things again, I can get away with asking this question…how was your first day back at work after Christmas? Good? Hard? Some other four letter word? I hear you.
After toiling through that most Monday of Mondays, I came home to a wonderful surprise; a parcel sealed by tape covered with the Instagram logo! Inside was a 2016 desk calendar, made of up of cute photos of animals published by the Instagram community last year, along with a sweet little note from ‘your friends at Instagram’ – how awesome is that??
what winning an unaward has taught me
It's good to write. It's an excellent creative outlet and can provide a real spark to the thinking process. but there are, understandably, reasons why some people feel uncomfortable in publishing their work - if that's you, then this post aims to allay your fears.
by GUEST EDITOR Emma Rodgers
Recently, I was very honoured to be shortlisted in the comms2point0 UnAwards best guest blog post category. The post was shortlisted alongside four other posts which were all there because they were the most read on comms2point0 during 2015.
All five went forward to a public vote. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I had a hope in hell of winning but amazingly (against the odds in my opinion) win, I did. It made me very proud and extremely grateful to those people who voted for me (thanks if you did).
And it also got me thinking. Of late I haven’t been writing many blogs.
my 15 minutes of fame reminded me of five things
An impromptu party thrown by commuters struck a chord and put one comms person in the media spotlight when it became a good news story. Here's what he learned.
by Chris Lines
“Great idea! Party on a train. I’ll bring sausages and croissants.”
I may have worked in comms for 30 years but, at that moment, I wasn’t thinking comms. I was just chatting with some regular passengers on my daily commute.
Ten days later, as the 8.08 from Abergavenny set off (late) for Cardiff, the party started. Jeremy brought paper chains and table cloths. John shared the crackers which gave us our paper hats. Allan had the bubbly. Sian had all kinds of spreads. Cellan arrived one station later with chocolates. And I indeed brought sausages and croissants as well as some generous sized toasties.
death of a president
History teaches us many things. Not least how we have responded in times of crisis.
"The Lincoln continues to slow down. Its interior is a place of horror. The last bullet has torn through John Kennedy's cerebellum, the lower part of his brain.
"...at first there is no blood. And then, in the very next instant there is nothing but blood...Gobs of blood as thick as a man's hand are soaking the floor of the back seat..."
I recently read The Death of a President, William Manchester's brilliant unflinching account of the events leading up to and the aftermath of the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963.
You can see the Wikipedia entry about the book here.
Everything is in here, from the paintings on the wall of the hotel room where Kennedy spent his last night alive to the layout of the emergency room the president lay in at Parkland Memorial Hospital as doctors tried vainly to save his life.
#nhs4xmasno1: a powerful message is not just for christmas
An NHS choir are making themselves heard through song. It's a campaign to show timely support. There's plenty to learn from this.
Over recent weeks I’ve been watching as word has spread about the campaign to make ‘Bridge Over You’ sung by the choir from Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust the Christmas number 1.
It’s a simple enough message – show your support for something you believe in and help others by downloading the song. It doesn’t cost much and you will feel good afterwards. What’s not to like?
star wars: content, brand re-boot and how to recover $4.1 billion
It's been hard to avoid it online, on TV, on the radio or in the school yard... there's a new Star Wars film. But this buzz isn't an accident and there's a lesson to learn.
A word of warning before we begin: if you haven’t seen ‘The Force Awakens’ and intend to, stop reading now. I am probably going to ruin it for you. These aren’t the droids you are looking for.
If you are still with me, you’ve either already seen it or aren’t going to, either of which is fine for our purposes. I saw it recently, and enjoyed it. I wouldn’t describe myself as a Star Wars fan, but I’ve seen all of the films, appreciated the original three and hated the more recent trilogy. I have bought a range of merchandise over the last month for the man of the house who is a fan (more of his opinion later). So, I went to see ‘The Force Awakens’ with no particular axe to grind nor any desperate need for it to be brilliant.
how shooting your own star wars video delivered a safety message
There are huge numbers of people who like Star Wars as the launch of a new film in the franchise shows. So how would they react if a fire and rescue service used the force to deliver some safety messages? Rather well, it would appear.
by Mark Roberts
Kent Fire and Rescue Service is rethinking its approach to digital communications, with a new strategy already being worked on to coincide with the launch of a new campaign calendar for 2016/17.
As the resident sci-fi nerd in the Comms team, I managed to persuade the powers-that-be a Star Wars parody would be an interesting and fun way to do a smoke alarm safety message - which is often a hard sell due to audience complacency - capitalising on the huge exposure generated by the release of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.
notiz - a new neighbourhood app for residents comms
A new app has been developed which enables councils to send neighbourhood alerts on a whole range of service information. And, importantly, with very precise targeting abilities.
By Simon Jones
Imagine if there was a form of Twitter where at a touch of a button you could decide if the message went to a single house, street, neighbourhood – or even an entire town, city or county depending on the need.
It would revolutionise comms around things like bin collection changes, road closures, school closures and planning apps – right?
Think about the savings of never having to produce a direct mail again – let alone the reputational value of keeping residents informed.
united we stand
Managing a team can be a tricky business. Balancing egos, personalities, ideas, grafters, blockers and dodgers. The best teams usually boast a natural leader. Or two.
by Phil Jewitt
There’s a film called The Damned United which tells the story of the managerial partnership of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Together, they successfully led Derby County and Nottingham Forest to football glory in the 1970s but not so successfully* after they went their separate ways. For those too young to remember or not remotely interested in football, you can replace Brian and Peter with Ant and Dec, The Hairy Bikers or any other successful partners.
It’s probably fair to say none of them would have achieved the success they jointly have without the relationship they created and maintained and their understanding of each other and their teams.
Recent posts by Darren, Paul and Simon explained similar experiences of being a Head of Comms. Relevantly, they all talk about relationships, supporting and being supported by their teams.
the periodic table of internal communication
The periodic table was created in 1869 to bring together all the known chemical elements under one roof enabling them to be studied, discussed and understood. Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev also predicted the discovery of other elements, and he purposely left spaces open for them.
We’ve recently worked with Chuck Gose, Corporate Communications VP, speaker & host of the internal comms podcast, ICology to replicate this original idea for internal communicators. And with hundreds of downloads from comms pros worldwide, it’s already proving to be very popular…
The Idea
The idea was to create a table of terms that would bring together all the elements of internal communication under one roof. We split the table across seven categories: Strategy, Objectives, Themes, Audiences, Formats, Channels and Metrics and populated each category with a number of common comms terms. From there, we’ve built the Periodic Table of Internal Communication, which you can download here.
A cracking response
The feedback so far has been fantastic. We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive responses…
