a campaign to tweet realtime murders

The image of Victorian London is a strong one. Pea soupers, Dickens and Jack the Ripper. As part of a campaign to promote a book one publisher is using Twitter to post realtime updates.

by Jamie Wolfendale

It’s been 125 years since Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of Whitechapel, but his bloody legacy still looms large. This year The History Press is proud to announce its follow-up to the award-winning 2012 Titanic Real Time campaign with another social media campaign, Whitechapel Real Time – a digital exploration of Victorian London at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders.

Join The History Press on a historical journey through London in 1888’s ‘Autumn of Terror’, where the Jack the Ripper story will be told through Twitter using real-time tweets from characters both real and fictional.

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how to communicate as a frontline officer

It's true that the best social content can often be from the frontline and from officers who are not senior. But what does that look like? In this case study a town centre officer talks about how with the support of his comms team he is using Twitter and Facebook.

by Jon Burnett

About three years ago I moved over to the town centre management team at Walsall Council to become the regeneration officer for Walsall town centre.

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tweeting godiva

Our friends from Coventry City Council always set high standards across their comms and digital activity. And they put on some pretty mean events too. The Godiva Fesitval 2013 gave them the chance to showcase all of these skills. What Coventry teach us is that Twitter might just be the festival platform of choice.

by Gareth Lewis

 The first weekend in July saw the fantastic three-day Coventry City Council-organised Godiva Festival take place in Coventry’s War Memorial Park.

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seven twitter mistakes we all have to make before we can call ourselves pros

It's a measure of a person and an organisation when they are happy to so freely flag up mistakes. Most would run a mile from doing so but being brave, and human, will pay off in the longer run, especially on social media.

by Helen Reynolds

Of all the experiences we have when using Twitter for our work, blunders, cock-ups and errors of every kind are the stories people seem to want to hear.

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the people using twitter are changing

Think you know everything there is to know about Twitter? It might just be time to think again.

by Guest Editor                                  Emma Rodgers

I’ve always used Twitter primarily for work. It helps me to get ideas, find out news, meet new people and speak with like minded people often doing similar jobs across the UK and beyond. But a crossover as to who’s using it seems to be taking place. Sorry to all those who already knew this but it seems to me that Twitter has become the new Facebook for teenagers. And I find that fascinating.

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make sure you bark up the right tree

How you don't need to just bang out a press release but bark up the right tree and at the right time whatever the channel.

by Alan Ferguson

We are a council. We have no competition. We will build a website and they (our residents) will come and visit.

As if it was all that easy. We are all fighting to get our voice heard in a noisy world, where we are bombarded with communication messages morning, noon and night. Web. Email. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. YouTube. Press. TV. Radio. Where does it end!

You’ve heard the phrase “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got”. How very true.

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hard and fast in local government

Whilst most of us now have £zero budget for most of our communications activity, we can still learn lessons from campaigns which do.

by Julie Waddicor

Hard and fast. I’m not talking about your job or your boss (although I’m sure they’re both).  I’m talking about taking the lessons of the British Heart Foundation’s ‘Hands Only CPR: Hard and Fast’ campaign and using them in our comms.

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being a social media officer

As social media becomes mainstream there is a debate about how best an organisation can do it. Wiltshire Council have a dedicated officer and this is her story.

by Natalie Luckham

I’ve been working for Wiltshire Council for four years and out of uni for six. Since I signed up to MySpace and Facebook back in 2005 I’ve been intrigued by the power and potential of social networking.

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keep calm and carry on

by Kevin Hughes

Hertfordshire County Council has had an open social media policy since early 2010 – around about the same time the communications team began tentatively dipping its toes in the then unknown waters of the corporate Twitter and Facebook accounts.

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wolverhampton parks: a case study in social media

by Dawn O'Brien and Dan Slee

It’s one of the fascinating things seeing how social media grows and develops in unexpected places.

Wolverhampton Parks is one of those places and Dawn O’Brien deserves heaps of credit in being one of the true local government heroes.

She has pioneered digital and made things grow at a time when the authority hadn’t really picked up the ball at all.

She works as a business development officer for Wolverhampton City Council for the parks and green spaces service. They look after city parks, district parks, local nature reserves, farm and country parks.

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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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#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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carry on camping

by Darren Caveney

On Friday 20 January I woke at 4.15am – and for once, it wasn’t because of the kids - to set off for 'the smoke' to attend UKGovCamp. 

A long, long day was in store, a day which helped me to crystallise some thoughts around comms approaches in 2012.

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