On visibilityMark Ritson The idea that brands have this crystalline brand image that will be smashed if it’s not perfectly delivered is an idea straight out of the 90s ... I think one of the challenges of the 21st Century is being a little bit more flexible and a bit more open - trading some control for visibility and presence is a good lesson. On using the platformsNicole Parlapiano It is our job to be in all the places, and maybe you don’t need to interact but you need to be there to see how people are interacting… When you get lazy in your own media consumption and you’re not willing to be on platforms because you feel too old or you feel it’s inappropriate, is where you lose your edge. On humourChris Gaylord For us humor is a gateway to the message. It's a way to create scroll-stopping moments, as they say. The battle for attention is already tough no matter what kind of organisation you are, but for us - nobody's like, ‘what's going on with Bonneville Dam? What's up with that concrete structure stretching across the river?’ No one's really thinking about us. The way I often put it is: we can't take it for granted that anyone's going to care what we have to say. Humor isn't us making fun of the things we communicate about - it's a delivery method, it's adapting to the communication landscape. On using your voiceVerity Johnson If you’re writing comms or social media, never change your voice to make it more palatable to who you think your reader is. People do this all the time. It’s why no one reads LinkedIn posts - because people write in their “LinkedIn voice”. Which is like when your grandma answered the phone, she had her telephone voice. As soon as you do that, people tune out. What they want is your actual voice. One of the biggest things about being noticeable or making a splash or whatever is doing it in your voice, not anyone else’s. People think, “I’m writing something smart, so I have to sound smart”. But no one reads that. On memesWarren Kagarise Memes turn messages into emotion. Research consistently shows how meme-based marketing inspires positive emotional responses and makes audiences more receptive to the underlying message. Memes also simplify complex ideas into familiar formats and plain language. Familiarity lowers the barrier to engagement, something we cannot take for granted as government communicators. Often, what we’re tasked to communicate about initiatives, policies, or services can feel distant or technical. Memes remind the audience a real person is behind the account. So, while memes help with reach and distribution, a deeper, enduring value is how cultural fluency humanises institutions and makes information feel approachable. On letting our audiences decideMichael Corcoran There's a place for councils and governments and politicians to win if they find that little hook. But the one thing they have to be able to do is be open to failing and failing fast. To be willing to test and learn and to let the audience decide, because that is the most important thing. Otherwise you'll be dead by committee, over-engineering it, overthinking it, or over-polishing it. On qualityGeorge Saunders If we deny ourselves the crappo version of our story, a better version will (we aspirationally assume) present itself. To refuse to do the crappo thing is to strike a de facto blow for quality. If nothing else, at least we didn’t do that. On getting staff on cameraTalia Brogden Momentum plays a huge role. Once other staff saw their friends and colleagues getting involved - and saw that they were being cared for in a fun and safe way - they were really keen to join in. During the election campaign, almost every day I had more people coming up to me saying, “Did you know so-and-so would actually be keen to be in a TikTok?” These were people I never would’ve expected. You genuinely don’t know until you ask. On the power of placeDonna Elkins We're essentially connecting people to place. We have a pretty small geographical area that we're covering in the City of Sydney - it's just over 20 square kilometers. And people have really different connections to, and experiences with, that local area. There are people who live in the city, there are people who have previously lived in the city, there's a really big worker population, then there are visitors, and all of those people have different needs. So we have a real people-first approach, because we want whoever receives our content to feel like it's for them: that it's relevant to them, that it includes them, and that it's accessible for them. Part of that is around familiarity of place - seeing a place that you have spent time in, that street that you know well, or a space that you love. And that, we believe, drives connection to the City of Sydney local government area, which in turn builds a stronger community. On engaging with young peopleGreer Forde-MacNaughton People don't always want to engage with us, and they don't always have to. We don't live in a world where everything's mandatory. Some young people might not feel connected to the issues right now - they're worried about exams, moving out of their flat or whatever. But we need to be seen as a trusted place where people know they can engage if they want to, and social media plays a really important role in building that.
The fun content matters. It can pique interest, and then when you start layering in educational content - ‘this is what councils do, this is what we work on’ - you're setting that foundation of trust. On reusing contentMatthew Turner My motto: It’s always new to someone! Posts on social media can be fleeting. You scroll today and it’s gone tomorrow. The shelf-life of a post, even if it goes fairly viral, doesn’t last forever. Reusing a popular post, revisiting and adding to the text, or even changing out a photo is a great way to repurpose or reuse. On AI and automationScott Newman Start small. Look at repetitive processes that could be automated. You don’t need AI for everything - simple automation tools can do a lot. Everyone wants AI, but we need to ask ourselves: do we actually need it? Is the thing the AI is doing worth that time and money? Or could the process be automated by something like Power Automate or Zapier? If it's processing emails, or building automated reports - you don't really need AI to do that. On opportunities in the commentsKendall Masters One thing about people who moderate in an organisation like this one is they fairly quickly build an acute awareness of, a) contentious issues, and b) how content or messaging will be received. They see the comments every day, so I think they are extremely well placed to evaluate the risks presented in a comment section. The struggle is more often getting the motivation to wade through all the negativity to recognise where the opportunities lie. On managing expectationsLisa Glass If you do someone a favour when they really need it, they value it more than when everything’s fine. Emergency response is the same. If we do a good job, it’s valued more highly than it would be in BAU. But if we let people down, that lands harder too. That’s why I’m big on expectation management. It’s a slightly clunky phrase, but it matters. Be clear about what we are and aren’t doing and what people can expect. I try to set a pattern: a big update at 7am around breakfast time, then probably not much again until midday unless something dramatic happens. It also gives people a small piece of structure when they often have very little. And if you break that pattern, the loss of trust is greater than it would otherwise be. On fighting misinformationBriar Edmonds I’d say it's almost an art and a science dealing with it. Part of that is putting out content that's accurate, obviously, because people can see that it's from Health New Zealand, which hopefully they trust. And the other part of it is addressing misinformation that we can see coming from people who don’t have a clear agenda. The art part is knowing when to jump in and when to not jump in, because it can just become a dumpster fire. People are absolutely allowed to have their opinion, there's free speech, but info has to be accurate as well. So it does feel like quite a fine line that you're dancing, so having experience on the channels and knowing how and who to respond to is crucial. But it can get really murky. We've found sometimes it's better to ask people to DM us, and then we can have a bit more of a discussion there or find someone they can talk to. On decompressingTommy Livingston Social media is probably quite unique because it's very difficult to put boundaries in place. The whole point of social media is that it grabs your attention and keeps your attention. And when we talk about boundaries, we're not talking about distance. People often think when we start talking about boundaries, it's like, how do I create distance from my work? When we talk about boundaries, we're actually talking about connection. So how do I stay connected to my work in a healthy and long-term way? Everyone has to figure out what that is for them, but the relationship you have with your phone is a key indicator of your well-being, and that's something I'll always ask: what is the relationship you have with your phone? Because if you're unable to switch off, if you're unable to put it down, if you feel like you're grabbing it every two minutes to check stuff, it's not going to be good for your nervous system. You're not giving it any time to decompress and regulate.
|
