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
Is it ever OK to respond to a breaking story about a mistake your organisation has made – with a joke? A BBC story about… Read More »A comms guide to the ‘sorry not sorry’ statement
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
Facebook can be a hard place for brands. It’s a lot like a wedding: friends and family gather to have fun, catch up and talk… Read More »Seven tips for using Facebook if you work in the public sector
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
Broadcasting meetings to residents live on the Internet needn’t cost the earth, as Monmouthshire County Council has demonstrated in recent weeks. The council has bypassed… Read More »Livestreaming council meetings on YouTube
(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
If you’re a chief exec or a leader, you’ve probably given Twitter, blogging or even Facebook a go. Maybe you love it. But are you… Read More »Three ways leaders can get more from social media
* 09/01/21 Social media flow chart – updated for 2021! When I first posted this chart 7 years ago (and more than 52,000 downloads ago!),… Read More »Social media flow chart for comms pros
‘Rumour Cascades‘, a joint study from Stanford University and Facebook, provides some fascinating insights that can serve as advice for public bodies on halting the spread of misinformation. This… Read More »How to respond when rumours start to spread on Facebook
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
This post will look at five ways Google Glass (and the inevitable other brands’ wearable devices) may change our understanding of how to protect vulnerable… Read More »Google Glass could make the world better – is social care going to be revolutionised?
Free use of social media across a whole company – it’s not a concept everybody agrees is productive. But where I work, it’s helping us… Read More »Unrestricted staff access to social media – case studies from a local authority
Digital agency Coup Media asked to interview me this month for their blog – they’re doing very cool things so I was honoured to chat… Read More »Interview: six social media ‘dos and don’ts’ and the role of the social media manager
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
I just came across a great piece in the Guardian from an anonymous council officer who talks about how overly cautious social media policies do… Read More »A message to the secret council officer
ParticipationCymru do great work to achieve better public engagement in Wales and I was fascinated to read the latest results on how public sector organisations… Read More »All Wales public services internet and social media survey 2012
I work in digital communications. In the public sector. If there’s one obsession both disciplines share, it’s the quest for ‘engagement’. It’s often said about… Read More »Organisations need to learn how to party: why digital engagement needs to be more social
A year ago in 2011, I blogged about an inspiring guy I work with, 20 year-old youth worker Dan Davies, and how he uses Facebook for… Read More »How to do Facebook REALLY well in local government (part two)
I’m just going to come straight out with it: I’m pretty interested in online influence scoring tools like Klout and Peerindex. I think they might… Read More »The future of Klout: how can we use online influence scorers like Klout and Kred?
This month I was honoured to be interviewed for a new book on blogging available now on Kindle. Author of ‘Your Blog Voice‘ the fabulous… Read More »Finding my voice – why I blog
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
Some very clever people I’ve learned lots from over the past few years have let me publish guest posts on their blogs. They are all… Read More »Making mistakes and giving staff access to social media
For public sector types starting to tweet, it can be a bit daunting making a start. So here are some basic tips for getting started… Read More »Beginners’ tips for the new public sector tweeter
I’ve noticed a bit of Twitter debate on what the return on investment (ROI) is for social media in the public sector. Unfortunately this isn’t… Read More »ROI of social media in public service
[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)
Today one of our council twitter accounts made the news for tweeting an inappropriate comment on a serious incident in one of our Monmouthshire towns.… Read More »Sometimes we fluff up
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
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
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 summary of how/why we do our live Q&A Twitter session with cabinet members. I would love any suggestions on how we can improve… Read More »Live Q&As – getting people talking to their council on Twitter
One of the hundreds of things that are great about using social media is the capacity to build communities – it’s one of the useful… Read More »To follow or not to follow on Twitter? Are you part of a community or are you aloof?
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?
As a public relations officer for a Welsh council my role is about, of course promoting and maintaining the reputation of the authority, but our… Read More »My waffly first blog about Opentech 2010 & being a PR amid techies