Articles and fun stuff
What’s your Comms Impact Score?
Discover where you shine – and what to sharpen. Our Comms Impact Scorecard gives you a clear, insightful look at how you’re doing across five key areas of communications practice: clarity, competence, creativity, confidence and capacity.
It’s for anyone who works in comms: so if you work in-house in a team, you’re a manager, or a freelancer, you’ll get:
A personalised score across each area
Insights into what’s fuelling your brilliance – and what’s dragging you down
Tailored advice and resources to help you level up, without burning out
Social media flow chart for comms pros
A simple flow chart Hel first shared back in 2014 is still getting pinned to office walls today. It sorts audience comments into five types, complaint, attack, query, compliment and chat, so you always know how to respond. Free to download, and just as useful now as it was then.
The comms fire alarm keeps going off, but nothing’s actually burning
Every urgent email feels important, but research shows those two things are often unrelated. Hel Reynolds unpacks the mere-urgency effect, the behavioural bias that makes deadline-driven tasks feel more important than the meaningful ones they keep bumping, and offers three questions to ask before you drop everything for the next “URGENT” ping.
Communications Professional: Person Specification
A tongue-in-cheek job spec for the role every comms professional actually has. Real requirements include translating a 47-slide deck with no decisions into a clear narrative by Thursday, surviving your seventeenth draft, and holding onto the belief that words matter, even on the Tuesday someone changes the headline again. Painfully accurate, and very funny with it.
Free comms creativity course: how to Unboring your comms in 45 minutes
This free 45-minute session is packed with practical creativity techniques you can use in your comms straight away, whatever your role. Watch the replay, grab a pen and paper, and get ready to unboring your work.
What Guinness, clumsiness and great comms have in common
There’s a psychology principle that gives comms professionals permission to stop chasing perfection. It’s called the Pratfall Effect, and it says that competent people and brands become more likeable, not less, when they show a small flaw. Hel Reynolds explains the study behind it, why Guinness turned a slow pour into a selling point, and why your comms might work harder if you make them 5% messier.
The comms glossary
For World PR Day, Zander Mills from Comms Creatives shares a tongue-in-cheek glossary of the language every comms professional secretly understands, from “stakeholder engagement” (informing people a decision’s already been made) to “quick win” (six weeks, two rounds of legal, and someone’s PA). A knowing, funny look at the gap between what we say and what we mean.
When ‘no’ is the most powerful word in comms
We're lucky to have a cracking guest post from Steve Carley, Internal Communications Officer at West Mercia Police, and a brilliant Comms Creatives...
Should my organisation stay on X?
Should my organisation stay on X? What you need to considerIn the last six months, it’s THE biggest question our members and followers have posed us...
The power of social media negativity
Guest blog: Taking a positive approach to negative comments This guest blog post is on one of the hottest topics in comms: how we deal with...
Free webinar on negative social media comments
Free webinar for corporate communications professionals Date: November 14th 2024 Time: 12.30pm UK time Duration: 1 hour As communications...
Download your free guide to effective evaluation
Download your free guide to effective comms evaluationMeasure your corporate communications success, understand your impact, and show your value...
Six creative comms campaigns we love from Down Under
We’re so excited to be visiting Australia in February as part of a trade mission organised by Welsh Government. It means that 2024 is the year we...
Comms Cartoons
Social media interview questions
16 Social media interview questions: prepare to land that dream job Here are some social media interview questions - so you can prepare for before...
The comms approval process
If you've been through the comms approval process a few times, you'll know: the pain is real.Getting through layers of people to edit and sign-off...
The comms unicorn
The comms unicorn exists!This comms unicorn is often the cartoon people remember me for. I drew it because I can't count the number of times people...
Building comms confidence
Building your confidence is as important as developing skills, if you really want to get maximum impact. I can often be found researching and...
Going viral
Going viral - it's the dream of attention and love for our brand. But we comms pros are not miracle workers. If the content is important to your...
Comms is not common sense
I've heard a few people say that communications is common sense. It's not. https://twitter.com/commscreatives/status/1364654765314084866 It could...
How to deal with procrastination?
Ever wonder how to deal with procrastination? Me too*. Here's how procrastinating shows up in my work:...
The ‘commsplanation’: duff advice from the non comms colleague
I made up a word: "commsplanation'. Have you ever been commsplained? It's where someone who is less qualified than you, or less experienced,...
Comms strategy: when dreams don’t match reality
I hope you know that you're not alone if you find your comms strategy dream does not always match the reality. I drew a doodle to illustrate this....
Comms and PR stress, and the workload dilemma
Stress is often seen as part of the job of being a communications, PR and marketing professional. But I don't think the pressure we face is healthy,...