Great turn out at the event in Manchester.
I did my usual grumpy view of social media 🙂 and was followed by Marshall Manson from Edelman who gave a great overview of the changes ahead.
I loved his description of walking into a party and starting off talking to a stranger by saying “For immedia release…” (That’s a PR-Social Media gag folks).
Marshall was followed by Simon Wakeman.
Simon had a really interesting talk about the adoption of social media in local government, the challenges and the opportunities.
They surveyed 82 communicators across 61 local authorities:
- Nearly 50% of local authorities in the UK are using blogs!
- Over one third are using podcasts
- Social networks, Wikis and Video are being used by 20%
- Over 55% of councils have used social networks while 42% have no plans and the balance are not aware of them.
Simon’s authority have launched Mixit – a mixture of blogs and podcasts aimed at younger people.
- The objective was to create two way communication and get young people involved. The young people are actively involved in producing the podcasts
- The secondary objective was to help Medway learn about podcasting as a communications tool
- Originally set up as a six month project. Operating cost was GBP200 but the people cost was a lot more expensive with 14-15 hours involved in planning and producing each episode.
- 300-400 people have downloaded the content
Murphy's Law 