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When your organisation is on the receiving end of a bit of satire there’s a temptation to take the whole thing very seriously. This post emphasises the importance, and benefits, of having a sense of humour.
By Adam Keating and Michael Sargood
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Sometimes it’s actually quite useful to have a good old fashioned rant. Get it out, move on - it might just make you feel better about your lot. This new post is a rant at some of the less than perfect social media behaviours we’re seeing right now.
By Dave Musson
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Cuts, restructures, organisational change. Our working worlds have never been more full of challenge and change. You’re resilient, you get by. But are you properly supported through these tough times? Possibly not. An all-new workshop aims to change all that.
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Local elections season is just around the corner so if you work in local government your mind will be turning to them any time now. This new post identifies some top tips to create greater understanding of, and engagement in, local elections.
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Everyone wants their website to look great, right? But we often see organisations forget about the content. Not so at one local authority which has invested in improving the content it shares with its customers.
Read moreSomeone online has said something critical. How do you respond? Here are some ideas.
by Emily Taylor
Read moreWe can all easily get distracted. Emails. The phone. Twitter. But how can we stop flitting and focus?
Read moreSnapchat works well with youunger people. But using it as an organisation? How would that work?
Read moreA 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.
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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 moreIt'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 moreGood apps are heart to find. But for one comms person a taxi app that is revolutionsing travel stands out.
by Rob McCleary
Read moreA comms person who deals direct with industry has a clear message for comms people. Quit the negative talk about the economy.
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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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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??
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.
