In advance of my session at the CIPR North conference in Leeds tomorrow, I thought now would be a good time to repost my top ten tips for social media.

This first appeared in corpcomms magazine. Hope it’s useful.

Ross Wigham, service manager for communications at Northumberland County Council, offers up some advice on using social media to promote local, public services.

1. Try to think customer not corporate. This sounds pretty obvious doesn’t it but for too long we were focusing on what the council wanted to tell people, rather than thinking about the conversations that we should be having. Social media for councils and the whole public sector is a real game changer when it comes to engagement and that starting point should be thinking about the stuff residents want to talk to us about. It’s meant to be a conversation, so make sure you’re listening as well as talking. From a population of 300,000 we’ve now got more than 26,000 people signed up to our networks, despite being a predominantly rural area. Continue reading →