reasons to be cheerful - one, two, three...

by Darren Caveney

Several things hung around in my head in the days after the successful ‘facebook in the public sector’ (#fbps12) event held at my beloved St. Andrews.

First, the sheer positivity with which colleagues from 40 organisations are embracing the opportunity to communicate and engage better with their customers.

Second, a reminder that all organisations have their own individual strengths and weaknesses, things they do well, and things they could improve upon.

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toes in the water

by Ian Curwen

In the last week, much has been written about #localgov use of social media. Some people say we’re focussing too much of our time or resources on it, whereas others think we’re behind the curve.

In this blog post, I look at how Copeland Borough Council, a small Cumbrian district authority, has used social media to improve our communications and engagement work.

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snow champion is, champion

by Claire Bustin

Take 2,500 snow shovels, tubs of rock salt and high visibility vests. Add a band of willing people ready to help their community. Sprinkle generously with snow...

You may have heard about Snow Champions taking to the streets of Sandwell in the bad weather. They’ve certainly been making an impression on Twitter and on the Sandwell Facebook page.

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facebook week and our rather fine facebook event

by Dan Slee

So, Facebook is the biggest platform the web has ever known but has the UK public sector actually cracked it?

There’s 30 million people in the UK using it and there are not masses of examples on how it can be used well.

Look around there’s lots of tumbleweed pages and people scratching their heads.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be talking about Facebook rather a lot, both on Twitter and here on the site.

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what if?

by Helen Reynolds

In January 2011, Monmouthshire County Council gave all its staff access to social media. I work in the communications department and I've championed its use ever since I saw how well people responded to a MySpace page I set up to get the community behind the restoration of Shire Hall in Monmouth: suddenly we had a way for people to talk to the council in a convenient, informal way.

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#lgcommscardiff: the welsh are coming

by Dan Slee

For inspiration William Wordsworth used to climb at night over the Cumbrian hills.

With stick in hand he found through walking inspiration from unexpected places.

Sometimes, talking to comms people can be a depressing experience. Rooted in the past, battered by the present and fearful of the future they fear change as a coatless walker fears bruised clouds that promise rain.

A walk along Cardiff Bay to the Pierhead Building for the LGComms social media session ended in some real inspiration.

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survey: how social is local government?

by Dan Slee

This social media thing. Are we doing it too much or too little? It's an internal argument going on in the head of many comms people.

There's been some useful research done on social media take-up by Ashford Council's Dean Spurrell.

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passing the coronation street ad break test

by Dan Slee

Sometimes a simple idea pings around in your head and nags away.

One such was mentioned at Shropcamp in June held at Harper Adams Agricultural College amongst the summer fields.

'How do we make it really easy for people to take part in the decisions local government make?,' the idea runs.

Don’t think for a second you needed to be a local government anorak to get this. A patchwork of small Town Hall decisions affect your everyday lives every day. Schools, roads, libraries, leisure, parks and 695 other things. They’re all local government.

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to Google+ or not to Google+?

by Dan Slee

There's nothing quite like the launch of a new social profile for the hype machine to swing into operation.

Google+, Google's fourth attempt at social networking, is no exception.  Around 40 million users registered within five months of launch in summer 2011.  You can find out the basics of it via Wikipedia.

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