on taking the plunge with twitter

June 26, 2012 Darren Caveney

You don't have to have been on Twitter for years to get something out of it. As this comms officer says, once you take the plunge you'll find unexpected rewards and an ability to connect over comms ideas... and moon walking.

by Lisa Green

There's an art to being interesting in 140 characters - I'm still trying to master it. 33 days and 232 tweets, I am a twitter newbie.

I first heard of twitter way back in 2009 when Stephen Fry tweeted about being stuck in a lift at centre point. A friend was involved in the PR for the day and was excited that lots of people were instantly talking about centre point.

Three years on and I've finally set up my own twitter account. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no technophobe, I have Facebook, I Skype my husband when he's away and I tweet for work.

pr is the engine of content marketing

June 25, 2012 Darren Caveney

As the idea of content marketing grows so must understanding. Never come across it? You will and here's a starting point.

by Bill Penn

Everybody is talking about content marketing.

According to a new survey by Econsultancy, 90 per cent of B2B marketing professionals say they are aware of it. But how many really understand what it’s all about?

Another quick look at the statistics tells you that only around a quarter of them are actually implementing content marketing programmes. Draw your own conclusions. The blaggers still rule OK would be mine.

using linkedin to super-connect

June 18, 2012 Darren Caveney

Think LinkedIn is just social networking for grey people or just a glorified address book? Think again.

By Dan Carins

I bought my brother a CD for his birthday this week, King released in 1995 by Belly, featuring Tanya Donelly of The Breeders and Throwing Muses fame. After a sneaky nostalgia-inducing listen, I came across a song featuring the lyric “are you super-connected?”

Maybe Ms Donelly was talking about the new economy, about how networking looks remarkably similar to the way the brain works as it sparks new ideas and potential, and about LinkedIn – but equally this might be far fetched given that the internet in 1995 was pretty much information on clunky websites and a few people using email.

How the world of work and of local government has changed – but thankfully not the voice of Tanya, who's still rocking on.

putting your ear in

June 14, 2012 Darren Caveney

by Phil Jewitt

One of my early posts suggested that to be truly influential, you need to be effective, in both word and deed. I suggested that merely being popular doesn’t necessarily mean you are effective or influential.

I’d also suggest that to be constructively influential you need to have the respect of and respect for others and be trusted to say and do the right thing. On occasions, and as recently highlighted, this also means to not do or say things that don’t help. And we‘ve all done that and regretted it to some extent, haven’t we?

traditional comms? digital comms? or both?

June 11, 2012 Darren Caveney

Civil servant Ann Kempster cuts to the heart of a dilemma. Should we keep traditional comms and digital comms separate? Or united? You can also read the original - and the comments - here

By Ann Kempster

I attended a fab off-grid get-together this afternoon of a mix of digital and press folk in government today. I was very honoured to have been included.

We looked at what is working well, what isn’t and what the perfect future might look like. A lot of interesting discussions and models for the future. Really got my brain buzzing on a Friday afternoon….

in defence of sam masters - we ALL get social media wrong

June 10, 2012 Darren Caveney

by Emily Turner

Sam Masters, a Lambeth Council press officer, has left his post after posting on Twitter that he thinks Streatham, the area he looks after, should be napalmed.

He Tweeted, “Having spent a considerable amount of time in Streatham, my solutions for supporting the High Road mostly involve napalm.”

Local business leaders and MPs complained and Masters quit. But was the end result, the right result? Should Masters have felt he had no option but to leave? Was quitting an appropriate response to the Tweet content? Should it always be one strike and you are out?

What we need to consider is when are employees entitled to their own personal views and opinions, and when is it safe to express them? It is reported that he used his personal Twitter account and his bio did not mention where he worked and stated that his views were not that of his employer.

25 things to learn from lgcomms academy birmingham: day three

June 1, 2012 Darren Caveney

by Dave Musson

Day three of the LGComms event in Birmingham, and there was still plenty to ponder and, even better, learn from. Whether it was starting the morning being dragged into the light with a statathon on local government reputation, through to how tweeting plastic ducks are getting young people into golf, it was quite a spread.

The theme for the day was ‘evaluation communications – understanding audiences’, which, clearly, is key if you want your hard work to serve its purpose.

It was also, sadly, the end of this year’s event, which new LGComms chair Cormac Smith claimed to be the best one yet. It’s also been the second largest.