6 reasons why Brighton & Hove Council are right to hire a social media specialist

Disclosure: Our social media agency is currently conducting a piece of social media research for Brighton & Hove City Council, who we are proud to have as a client. We work with them primarily because we care about this city and because we believe this work and this movement matters.

So the background is that our local council is hiring for a new role to join the communications department to "increase visibility, build our brand and learn about our audiences by utilising social media".

The local newspaper, The Argus, took a disappointingly critical viewpoint in my opinion so I felt I had to chip in with a different perspective - one passionately for Brighton, but tempered with experiences in how large organisations are changing with the new digital era.

There are 6 reasons why I think this is a significant and smart step for the citizens of Brighton & Hove, who the council must serve:

1. We are there

The council works for us.
We are spending more time in social spaces and less time consuming and paying attention to traditional media.
To work for us, they must communicate with us.
Simply, they must be where we are - and we are in these new social spaces.

As a crude yardstick the Brighton network on Facebook is marginally larger than the population of Brighton so there is some substantial engagement or opportunity available (though many sections of our population will not be represented there). At the other end of the mass to niche continuum, the work of SCIP and the rest of our digital community has created little clusters of very niche community sites such as Prestonville Postblog and Coldean Residents Association.

We are there. They (BHCC) must be too.

2. Getting value for money

All large organisations carry an overhead in communicating (just internal communications, for anyone that's come across it in a team larger than 20, is gigantic, let alone external comms).

Most organisations are adapting their communications spend from how we used to consume media to how we do today. In our work with our client base we know that the sparkliest, bravest blue-chip brands are only part-way on this journey.

What drives all of these organisations is the knowledge that if they spend more money where we are, and less where we aren't, then they will get higher levels of engagement, better results, and at less wasted communication £££.

Brighton & Hove City Council, like all major organisations, can get better value for money and free up more resources for elsewhere in the city by improving its communications mix.

As citizens, it makes sense to support them in this.

3. Leading the digital way

For me personally this is huge, as someone that grew up here, and who passionately understands the quality and potential of what we have in Brighton and wants to see it succeed.

Brighton is leading, digitally.

Economically, my understanding is that our biggest sectors in the city are public sector, followed by health and financial (a significant chunk of the latter being American Express) and then it is Creative Industries. Our digital community is the biggest chunk of Creative Industries.

Our sector is growing fast. We have more than 800 companies employing more than 8,000 people in digital.

A BBC journalist recently commented to Phil Jones, CEO of Wired Sussex and the man that gave me this information, that he reckoned proportionally we have the biggest digital community in the UK. I agree and hope somehow we can prove this.

We have talent in so many different flavours of digital:

• In mobile
• In search
• In virtual worlds - both of whom's only HQs outside of California are HERE in Brighton
• In user experience
• In social media
• In web development
• In e-learning
• In video games (or is that another sector - I dunno)

Talent enough that in the recent HSBC 'Super Cities' report, which speculated about the tier of cities that would emerge as power-players in the knowledge economy, Brighton was selected as one of the five in the UK.

The work of Wired Sussex and its committed team and board* is all about helping that happen. This is an active work in progress. (* Another disclosure: I am a board member at Wired Sussex).

So we need more attention and recognition from the big policy makers and funders to support this upstart community. To recognise its value now, but its significant strategic value tomorrow.

Gradually that is happening.

To speed that up we need momentum: momentum that is powered by an understanding of the new digital age within our council - a big player in this; within our local media community; within central government.

And across the board, at every 'touchpoint' we need to lead - to demonstrate how the Internet can be harnessed to make real differences to the real world. For me, that absolutely includes excellence and pioneering with Brighton & Hove City Council. It transcends. In fact, it reminds me of how Curtis James invested his time speaking with the management of Brighton Station to see if they could improve their appearance and customer experience, given that it was the moment of arrival for so many visiting our city. It all matters.

Personally, as a citizen, I buy the very smallest riskiest tiniest seed of that for 24,402 - £ 28,353.

4. Change is very hard in big organisations

Other than our work with Brighton & Hove City Council, our work is exclusively for much bigger organisations: from Coca-Cola through to Department of Health, WWF to HSBC.

Working with them, we see how hard change is. The barriers to change are significant.

Even our most pioneering clients find it hard to transition to a social online world. They must bring their legal people along on the journey, their HR folk, their customer service people, their product managers (funnily enough, sometimes the hardest to convince - can be harder than legal). It's not easy.

So what they tend to do is invest in both advancement across the board - where we train their whole press team, their whole marketing organisation, create policies for all employees, encourage participation broadly - and invest in advancement in concentrated ways. During our time working with them both BMW and Channel 4 have created dedicated roles to address social media.

This isn't saying 'oh my, if we hire this one egg-headed Facebook fiend all of our woes will fly away'.

This is saying 'one way to make these changes might be to create an internal expert and ambassador that has the time and space to focus on this and get results by working with their colleagues'.

Although I wasn't involved in BHCC's thinking on the matter, I'd guess this was part of their plan. Not to silo and ghettoize Social Media, but to appoint a gardener-in-chief to help others with their nurturing and growing.

Again, I buy that as a citizen.

5. Supporting change within the council

In my contact with the council I have found that they understand the possibilities of the social web, and have the appetite to harness them as much as any of our clients.

These are the people I have personally met and talked with that seem to get the opportunity that social media presents them to engage and do the Council's work better:

• Council leader Mary Mears (who mentioned her 'much more au fait' colleague Counciller Ayas Fallon-Khan, who is I have heard a big digital advocate)
• John Shewell, Head of Corporate Communications
• Jake Barlow, Head of Marketing
• Yvette Bordley, Senior Marketing Officer
• then Acting Chief Executive Alex Bailey
• Anthony Zacharzewski, Acting Director of Strategy & Governance

If these guys, a tiny cross-section representing the leadership and the communications team, can lead the vanguard and help their organisation listen and engage and empower other parts of the council to also move with the times, then I buy that.

More importantly, we should support them. Change is horrifically hard. Change inside public organisations is generally thought to be even harder. More power to their digital elbows I say.

Our public servants are trying to move with the times. I want to help them with that.

6. To rise above the one-eyed perspective of The Argus

My intent has been to keep this as positive as possible. As a supplier to the council I am very badly placed to provide a credible riposte to one of their challengers. I also believe in the role and duty of the media to interrogate society's organisations and keep us all on our toes. We need more of that - not less.

But I wanted more from The Argus on this story, especially given that their Web Editor Jo Waddsworth has done such good work bringing their content to social spaces...

You'd have thought it would be hypocritical to criticise the very same investment of resources and decision-making, but not this time. Irritating and disappointing, given this context.

Some kinda positive summary :-)

This matters.

Brighton has an incredible opportunity. It has a magnificent digitally-enhanced future available to it. Let's pull together and have a group hug and get behind it. If the City Council are up for it, it's one more force for good, and one less barrier in the way.

SUPERRRRR CITY.

Comments

[Ayas Fallon-Khan]

Hiya
Good blog. Like your style. Trying to turn the culture of the organisation to a customer focused one where the residents help set the agenda and we are responsive to their needs. Much better than saying 'here's how we've always done it,you buy into it'.
It should be 'we are here for you,you are the customer,you work with us as a dual entity.'

By bringing in a Social Media Officer, we are responding to huge swathes of people who want their information online,who want quick information,and who want to participate in frank,open and transparent conversations.
I want this to be one of the best cities in the world and we want the city talking and engaging with itself.
It is cultural,artistic,innovative and sexy - we want it to progress to greater heights and I want anyone living here to never want to move.
All the best
Ayas
Deputy Leader of the City Council.

[Tom Roper]

Why not talk to the libraries as well? If any part of the council should be in the vanguard, it's them

[Will McInnes]

Ayas - marvellous. Absolutely love the vision, the appetite for progression and the very fact that you're online and engaging. Please keep going!

[Will McInnes]

Tom, thanks for commenting. Can you explain more about what you mean please? I'm interested but need more of your perspective to fully understand. Thanks.

[Tom Roper]

Of course, as the experts on information organisation and use in the council, the library team are ideally placed not only to use social media to engage with users of their services, and to bring in new ones, but to lead the organisation in taking up and exploiting the potential of these things.
It's more developed in the States, naturally, which I think is simply a function of that country's size, but there are some interesting examples of work here.
See the excellent Christine Rooney-Browne:
http://libraryofdigress.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/society-of-chief-librarians-conference-public-libraries-recession-web-2-0-social-media/

[DK]

Good stuff Will and a fantastic dissection of the debate / positives... looking forward to seeing the new role demonstrating their worth :-)

[Orla Kennedy]

Good post. It's a brave step for Brighton & Hove City Council and they need to be supported. Adding to the above social media has environmental benefits because it reduces the need for vast quantities of printed information. It also assists social inclusion.

[Pete]

Hey Will,

I agree with the benefits this role will bring to the council.

However, the biggest sell needed is inside the council I suspect. This stuff needs rolling into the wider public communication effort and I suspect that will be the hardest thing to do. I wish them luck though.

[Cormac]

Good post. Agree with it totally. Having been to Brighton as a tourist and stayed there for 3 weeks, I was really surprised by it. It's got great potential and should lead the way as an IT/Digital creative centre. Of course, the Council should have a Social Media position.

[Bernie Goldbach]

I think taxpayers may want their councils to take social media initiatives in baby steps, starting with having their council managers accept the fact that council employees should be allowed to see and participate in places like Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Funding a social networking position before other civil servants are politely nudged into actually using those networks may lead to a little too much organisational turmoil in those local authorities I'm working alongside.

[Dan Wilson]

Possibly an opp to respond to this luddite?

http://www.theargus.co.uk/yourargus/letters/4640734.Do_we_really_need_another_Twitterer_on_the_council_/