Empathy is one of the core elements to getting your social media content and tone of voice spot on. First off, knowing who your audience… Read More »Empathy – the secret ingredient in social media engagement
Take The 31 Days Of Creativity Challenge Unleash your creative side in under 15 minutes a day Our gift to you: an easy programme with… Read More »Take the 31 Days of Creativity Challenge
It’s National Punctuation Day! So I thought I’d share five more-interesting-than-it-sounds trivia about punctuation. Because I KNOW you comms creatives have a sneaky obsession with… Read More »Punctuation: five fun facts
I’m sharing some advice for a career in communications as part of the second #CommsCreative challenge: to blog useful tips for other communicators (read more about… Read More »My advice for a career in communications
Busy UK housing communications professionals rarely get time to meet other comms teams to compare teams and work experiences. So in early 2018, I asked… Read More »2018 survey: Comms in the UK housing sector
Yes, public sector tweets can be exciting and interesting! In the public sector, we often have small, or no, budgets for social media. But our… Read More »The top 10 of UK public sector tweets of 2017
Posting text and video bilingually to social media sites is possible, but not simple! This is a practical post on posting to social media for audiences that… Read More »Posting text and video bilingually to Facebook and YouTube
In my opinion, modern and professional communications has nothing to do with spin, lies and propaganda.
This is my idea of what we do.
Do you want to cry when someone asks if they can have an app? Do you shout for mercy when a colleague tells you to… Read More »Let’s play comms bingo
Have you ever wandered over to your head of finance and told them how they should interpret the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill of… Read More »Standing up for the skills of the expert communicator
Most are not serial killers – in fact psychopaths are more likely to find their way into politics, boardrooms or media organisations than be jailed… Read More »Just how social is your social media?
A few weeks ago, I made the trip to London to do a podcasting course at the Guardian offices – this meant driving from South… Read More »Some tips for new podcasters
Which qualities are most desirable in a social media manager or communications employee? I think the most valuable trait is bravery.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with people doing some pretty important, serious stuff. Social work, policing, health, public finances, planning, housing, community safety: it’s all critical work.… Read More »The public sector has no obligation to be boring: tweets that show the funny side of gov
A great report from business advisory and accountancy firm BDO, Direct Message, has been released this week, showing results of councils reported use of social media. According to… Read More »Council social media: forget about the price tag
(Or, ‘How social media helped me get my heart back’) I’m going to keep this quite short considering this is post about obedience, public sector… Read More »Public sector comms: how to not be evil
Here’s an article I wrote for the IC Space, sharing three social media tips for internal communicator. You can read the original posting over on… Read More »IC Space: three social media ideas for internal communicators
[Photo by Pete Prodoehl] I learned the other day that Homebase don’t refer to their employees as ‘staff members’ or ‘colleagues’. They call them experts.… Read More »Your organisation doesn’t need a social media expert, it needs its experts on social media
The brilliant Comms2point0 guys let me post on their site earlier this week about messing up on Twitter. I’ve republished here but if you get… Read More »Seven Twitter mistakes we all have to make
Lots of councils experience just how important social media is when the weather gets extreme. A week or so ago, Monmouthshire people received and shared… Read More »Twitter and Facebook to the rescue during heavy snow
Here’s a post about using video to communicate a budget consultation. A bit of experimentation and help from all sorts of people have helped us… Read More »YouTubing a budget consultation and how a great blogger improved our work
Last week when the awesome Nick Atkin of Halton Housing and I talked to some clued-up housing sector professionals* we looked at social media in… Read More »Seven social media headlines of 2012 and what they teach us
On the whole, UK councils are doing a nice job of using social media – possibly we caught on early because we’re used to making… Read More »Influence, not ROI, matters for local government social media
[Photo by Andalib.] Here’s a case study from 2011 about how Monmouthshire County Council‘s youth service has used Facebook to revitalise the way it communicates with kids and… Read More »How to do Facebook REALLY well in local government (part one)
Our foster care team is always looking at ways to give foster carers information to support them and here’s summary of what we’ve done to… Read More »Social media for social care: Monmouthshire foster carers support each other with Yammer
Today’s the deadline for social care professionals interested in the vacant post of Head of Children’s Services to apply for the post – hopefully those… Read More »Social care recruiting using social media – how a council recruited a senior leader using YouTube
In my work as a communicator I’m always looking for examples of good practice and tips on how to be more effective at work. I’ve… Read More »Thoughts on productivity and being boring
Below is an essay from collected stories, essays and poems of Hilaire Belloc. I can’t find it anywhere else on the internet so I thought… Read More »‘A Guide to Boring’ by Hilaire Belloc
There are still a load of people out there who dismiss social media sites like Twitter as being where young people LOL and ROFL and… Read More »Twitter: more than talking about your breakfast
Anyone who works in PR has probably come across unflattering assumptions that our job is to cover up bad stuff and pump out good news.… Read More »Public sector people – do you want a place to talk social media?
Here’s a guide to responding to customers or stakeholders in social media for corporate use. Essentially, these are just principles that make good PR… Read More »Someone’s talking to my organisation using social media – what do I say back?
I’m aware this might make me sound like a very grumpy woman, but is there any need for anyone to tell someone to ‘go away’? … Read More »‘Go away’ and social media