Category: Social Media
A councillor without a clue…
Bury Council, in Greater Manchester, last night debated the merits of allowing people to tweet during council meetings. A little late to the debate, maybe, but at least they were having it.
Pete Bainbridge, a reporter at the Manchester Evening News, was at the meeting as part of the title’s commitment to liveblog every full council meetings across its patch.
Reporters have been allowed to tweet, but councillors couldn’t. I imagine this debate has been had all over the country, and judging by Pete’s tweets, it probably followed a similar pattern to other areas – with some for, and some against.
This particular tweet caught my attention though:
Coun Gunther: Anyone interested in what's going on in the council meeting should be in the public gallery.—
Pete Bainbridge (@pbainbridgeMEN) March 28, 2012
Putting aside the rights and wrongs of councillors using Twitter at meetings – and I can understand the argument that they’re there to pay attention during meetings and engage with fellow councillors, not provide a biased running commentary on what is going on – the notion that ‘if people are interested, they should be in the public gallery’ is remarkable.
7pm on a Wednesday might be the best time to hold full council in Bury for the council, but there are a multitude of reasons why members of the public can’t be there – work, for example, or having to look after the family.
Councillors are the first to complain about lack of participation from the public in consultations and local elections, where turnout can often by as low as 30% of the electorate. They need to be the ones making democracy as accessible as possible, as many councils have.
Livestreaming of council meetings is one great example – and the efforts Birmingham City Council goes to to not only livestream, but then archive by theme of discussion in the footage, are just one example of this.
But I find it quite frightening that there are still elected representatives our there who think it’s acceptable to tell the public to fit in with the council’s schedule, rather than embrace tools which take democracy back to a public which does care about the outcomes, even if participating in the process isn’t widespread.
I suspect that councillors will say that Cllr Dorothy Gunther is an exception, rather than the rule. I’m not convinced – after all, councillors across the country backed a move away from a committee-structure – which enabled free debate on all issues before a decision was made – to a cabinet-style system which allows most decisions to be made behind closed doors.
Maybe the tide is turning – after all, in this case, the motion was passed. Let the tweets from Bury councillors commence.
Social media: The curse of corporate speak strikes at even the best Tweeting organisations
West Midlands Police made front page news on Saturday – not unusual in the case of the Birmingham Mail, but not that common if the paper in question is a national newspaper.
The story revealed that West Midlands was one of two police forces looking at getting private firms to run some of the departments they operate. Naturally, it’s a politically sensitive subject, although Labour’s natural tendency to oppose such a move should be tempered by the fact that legislation brought in by Tony Blair’s government makes such a move possible. But then again, short memories do tend to make for long political careers. Just as ‘Lord’ John Prescott.
Now, West Midlands Police is one of the best police forces – in my opinion – when it comes to finding a force which ‘gets’ Twitter. Officers tweet regularly, and they have a number of corporate accounts which are informative and, at times, entertaining.
In the case of the former, I loved this tweet tonight:
And in the case of the latter, the Twitter account for West Midlands Police’s force helicopter team is second to none:
But it appears even the best tweeting organisations can be hit by the curse of corporate speak when trying to put over its points in a hurry. Yesterday, as the idea of privatising police services pushed their way to the top of the news list – only to be replaced by Frank Carson’s funeral at lunchtime on Sky News at least – West Midlands Police’s main account went into corporate speak overdrive:
and
and
and
and
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In some cases, the tweets seemed to contradict each other:
including…
To me, the guarding of a crime scene is probably one of the things members of the public are most likely to see. Although I suspect they were trying to reiterate the point that this won’t lead to security guards making arrests.
Anyway, all of the above could have been summed up quite neatly in one Tweet which said: “Our budgets are being squeezed like you wouldn’t believe. We need to solve crime for less cash.”
Twitter, and indeed social networks in general, have the ability to empower both big organisations which serve the public and the public they seek to serve – but only if they drop their guard, or at very least, their gobbledegook corporate speak. It’s a big leap to take at times – but the times when it’s most important to do so are often the times when it matters most that they do so.
Social Media: A tale of two tweets which shows why direct communication isn’t always great for the reader
I’ve lost count of the number of times friends and former colleagues now working in PR – especially public sector PR – tell me that one of the best things about social media, and, indeed, the web in general, is that ‘it means we can communicate directly with the public.’ Only, depending on how long they’ve work in public sector PR, people stop being the public, and become ‘residents’ or, worse still, ‘service users.’
And of course, they’re right. But that certainly doesn’t leave the media without a role to play – as these two tweets demonstrate.
Last night, Cheshire Police posted this Tweet on their account:
While without doubt news, it certainly wouldn’t strike many people as being that unusual – after all, police forces do, indeed, investigate deaths.
Fast forward a few minutes, and Sky News put out this tweet:
Same incident, but a headline which gives away much more. This isn’t an ordinary ‘investigation into a death.’ It involved armed officers from Greater Manchester Police shooting dead a car passenger, as the Manchester Evening News reported:
Armed Greater Manchester Police officers shot a passenger dead after the car he was in was stopped during an operation in Culcheth, Cheshire.
Indeed, go back to the link Cheshire Police shared and you’d find a press release which wasn’t really for giving much away:
“At around 7.20pm on Saturday 3rd March, an incident took place near Jackson Avenue in Culcheth, Cheshire, whereby a car was stopped by armed officers from Greater Manchester Police.
During the contact, a male occupant of the car was shot and sustained fatal injuries.
Two men were arrested at the scene and remain in custody. The deceased′s next of kin have been informed.
Cheshire Constabulary and Greater Manchester Police are now investigating the full circumstances of the incident and the Independent Police Complaints Commission have been informed.
Cheshire police patrols have been increased in the area, and the community of Culcheth should be reassured that this is an isolated incident and there is no risk to the community as a whole”
To work out what happened, you have to read between the lines. Cheshire Police would probably argue that their hands were tied by what they could say in a press release.
That may well be the case – but the media certainly weren’t. And that’s why, to me, this is case which demonstrated that while direct access to the ‘public’ might be good for the organisations involved, but it certainly isn’t always good news for the ‘public’.
Social media: The perils of going too far when trying to make a brand interactive
The perceived wisdom on social networks goes that people would much rather converse with real people than brands. That makes sense, of course, but it does therefore pose a problem: How do you get people interacting with your brand?
The solution, in many cases, has been to try and give the brand a personality, or to make the brand interactive and personal – and in many cases, it works. A neat, if simple idea I saw recently was from Northern Rail, which just made sure followers know the name of the person in front of the keyboard today:
Such an approach doesn’t come without its pitfalls, as another rail operator, London Midland, demonstrated at the weekend. London Midland operate trains principally around the Midlands and, as far as Twitter is concerned, is very good – quick to deliver news about delays, quick to reply to users and generally much more useful than sites such as National Rail. It also feels like one of those jobs where the person behind the keyboard is on to a hiding to nothing at times – there are only so many ways to apologise for a service not having enough carriages, after all.
Why should journalists break news on Twitter?
Sky News and the BBC hit the social media headlines this week when it emerged that both were telling journalists not to break news on Twitter.
Or were they?
In the case of the BBC, social media editor Chris Hamilton seems quite clear: They’re not banning reporters from breaking news on Twitter, they’re simply reminding them that their priority should be to inform the newsroom of a breaking news story before they tweet it – if it isn’t possible to do the two at the same time (and BBC technology means it normally is possible to do that).
Social media Advent calendar Day 24: Tweetchat
Tweetchat is a bit like Twinitor, the first tool I featured on this list in that the idea behind it is so simple, yet it makes such a difference when using it.
If you are a reporter covering a council meeting, live event or football match via Twitter and using a hashtag to update, then Tweetchat is the tool for you.
Log on using Twitter and tell it the hashtag you plan to use or follow – in the example above I have used #bcfc, the preferred hashtag for Birmingham City fans. It figures that anyone tweeting about Blues would use this hashtag at the game.
It then brings up all the Tweets relating to that hashtag, with a text box at the top where you tweet – it automatically adds the tweet you’ve chosen. You can reply to the tweets dropping in, set the refresh speed, change the font, and block people whose tweets you don’t feel you want to respond to. You can also set it up so that you only pull in tweets containing hashtags from people you choose – which can make it a handy tool for newsdesks on a big job, and much quicker than setting up a standard Twitter list.
Of course, some of this you can do on Twitter, but the lightweight-feel of the site makes it much more usable on the move, which is crucial for covering live events. In short, rather than just adding information to the hashtag – which is often what reporters find themselves doing – you are part of the conversation from the hashtag, all on one screen.
What’s this Social Media Advent Calendar all about then?
Social media Advent calendar day 23: Kurrently
I’ve blogged about Kurrently before, but I’ve decided to include it in this list again, not because I’m running out of tools in this advent calendar (honest), but because I’m still convinced it’s a tool journalists should know about and use.
There are plenty of social network search engines out there, but I think this remains one of the most useful, largely because of its simplicity.
It is produces results in chronological order for both Twitter and Facebook – an essential factor for journalists looking for information on an on-going news story and also opens up the chance to search via other search engines.
One everyone journalist should have bookmarked.
Social Media: Is your brand just a bot on Twitter?
In the social media Advent calendar yesterday, I featured Twitcleaner, a tool which goes through the people you follow on Twitter and suggests people who might have traits which might make you think twice about following them again.
One category of account which stood out to me at the time was the section called ‘not much interaction.’ Within that section were sub categories, including one marked ‘bots.’ In other words, the brand was on there, but not doing anything other than pumping out headlines or links via an automated service.
I asked the question: “Is there any greater failure for a brand online than being mistaken for a bot?”
Si Dawson, creator of Twitcleaner, left a comment on the post explaining the thinking behind the ‘bot’ category:
Social media Advent calendar Day 22: Tweriod
Here’s a simple question: When’s the best time to Tweet? Type it into Google, and you’ll find many posts talking about, generally, the best times to Tweet. There’s also a lot of advice on repeating Tweets to catch different timezones as they log on in the morning.
But tools which just tell you when you should tweet – which is where Tweriod comes in. It analyses the last 200 tweets of your followers and notes when they were online, producing four times of day when you should be tweeting to stand the best chance of catching them. It also breaks it down by day, so you get different times on a Saturday to, say, a Sunday.
The times it gives you are based on the timezone set for your Twitter account.
You can get regular updates for free, but much beyond the basic service and you’ll be asked to pay a subscription. A simple, but effective, tool all the same.
PS – it’s also the only Twitter tool I’ve seen so far which explains its name: “Pronounced as Twe – roid A service that improves the performance and effectiveness of your twitter posts.”
Social media Advent calendar day 21: twitcleaner
How much do you know about the people you follow and are you getting as much out following them as you thought? That’s the question which Twitclean seeks to answer – and the results can be quite fascinating.
It goes through the people you follow and assigns people whose traits it is worried about to certain categories.
So for example, people who get put in the ‘dodgy’ category include those who push out mainly app spam, post identical tweets, repeat the same URL or post nothing but links.
Of the 1,333 people I follow on Twitter, 32 (2.4%) are labelled under potential dodgy behaviour – and Twitcleaner gives me the chance to select through those people and unfollow them.
That said, looking through the list, many of the accounts listed I want to keep following because I want to see the links they are sharing, so Twitcleaner is just a starting point, and I then decide whether to take its reccomendations.
Other categories include ‘no activity in over a month’ – which then begs the question whether they’re worth unfollowing if they’re not cluttering up your timeline in the first place’ .
The one which catches my eye the most is the ‘hardly follows anyone’ category. A lack of people always suggests to me a brand or person isn’t fully bought in to the point of Twitter, but even then, some of the links are interesting. This was by far and away the biggest category of people I follow – 16.5%.
It was also interesting to see a number of media brands I follow were confused as ‘bots’ by this service under the ‘not much interaction’ section. Can there be any greater failure by a brand to be so unresponsive as to be confused as a bot?
An interesting tool, and an established tool, but one which needs your decision on the value of a follow in the end.
