Government Public Relations in the Age of Web 2.0 Presented by Nick Jones, Director of Interactive Services, COI, UK Government 18 February 2014

Introduction to COI and HM Government The Challenge of Transformation 2.0 in the public sector The challenge of 2.0 to communicators 2.0 and the anti-fraud domain Agenda 3

Where Im coming from Central Office of Information, UK Governments centre of marketing communications excellence for over 50 years Annual turnover of £391m, benchmarked savings of 47.7% Interactive Services responsible for digital policy, strategy and delivery of digital sites, creative, campaigns, presences; through a 100 agency procurment framework Turnover of £35m, 30 staff, 90 clients, 300 jobs, 491 campaigns, 350k keywords, 7.7bn impressions… Policy on web convergence, site rationalisation, web standards for finding and using online information and social media… COI 4

The challenge: Transformed public services Turning the citizen and government relationship around. To give the citizen greater control over the way they interact with public information and public services

What do we mean by transformation? Focus on the user be it a citizen or business. A much stronger focus on professionalism and skills Join up, dont duplicate

Some of the things we dont do well. Finding it. We have too many websites, we dont address the right things to the right people and we dont label our content well enough. We dont think about the design of our services upfront; were still converting the old brochure into a website, rather than thinking about the tools that people use and how we adapt our services to these tools and techniques (for example a widget that sits on your PC to help you search your local area for services). Culture: a better dialogue with the public and to give people a say in our public services. Sharing and reusing.

Our plan should be to… Deliver information and services to citizens and businesses in a joined up way. Use a limited number of websites, TV or mobile routes Create a consistent high quality experience through higher standards Share and reuse – public sector information, people and infrastructure. And then came 2.0…

What is 2.0? A philosophy to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web Manifests itself in social media and netoworks. A space where people can have a voice, express themselves and connect with other people A conversation economy

Much more than MySpace, Facebook and Bebo…

France 4m Italy 3.4m Turkey 2m Pakistan 0.97m Czech 0.6m MEXICO 4.1m China 43m South Korea 9.7m Taiwan 4.2m Philippines 2.4m BRAZIL 7.6m Spain 4.5m India 8.7m Japan 14m Hong Kong 1m USA 26.4m CANADA 1.6m UK 4.5m Greece 0.3m Australia 1m Germany 5.2m Romania 0.5m Denmark 0.3m Poland 1.1m Netherlands 1.6m Switzerland 0.5m Austria 0.4m Hungary 0.1m Russia 2.4m Its about creating content % Write their own blog 60%+ 40% -60% 30%-40% <30% Active Internet Universe Estimates Source: Wave 3 surveywww.universalmccann.com

Italy 3.9m Germany 8.2m Switzerland 0.9m USA 43m Spain 4.7m France 4.2m Japan 12.4m Czech 0.8m Denmark 0.6m Austria 0.6m Greece 0.5m Turkey 3.3m China 39m India 11.7m South Korea 9.4m Romania 1.4m Netherlands 3.7m CANADA 4.2m UK 11m Australia 2.6m Hong Kong 1m MEXICO 5.1m BRAZIL 11.4m Pakistan 1.8m Poland 2.7m Taiwan 3.9m Philippines 3m Hungary 1m Russia 6.1m Its about connecting and sharing % joined a social network 70%+ 60% -69% 50%-59% <49% Active Internet Universe Estimates Source: Wave 3 survey

Government forays into

Insights: Networks Rich content sharing Action: Where is my audience now?

Insights: networks, experience, conversation, community Action: how do I prepare my organisation for conversation?

Insight: Advocates Rich content Action: Change job descriptions

71% saw it as a serious problem before the campaign, this rose to 90% after the campaign. Insight: peer-to-peer is a powerful behavioural change driver Action: What content is valuable enough for them to share?

Insight: tools and widgets are valued. 393k users. Knowledge in organisation may be used outside Action: Identify frontliners who have the knowledge

Insight: community will appear in the strangest places. Action: blend-in!

The challenge of 2.0 to you Where are we on this? Where to start? How to behave? 21

Start by understanding the spectrum of engagement Passive monitoring SignpostRespond Discuss Debate PassiveActiveEngaged

Prepare to go on a journey

Empower staff: Principles for participation online Be credible Be accurate, fair, thorough and transparent. Be consistent Encourage constructive criticism and deliberation. Be cordial, honest and professional at all times. Be responsive When you gain insight, share it where appropriate. Be integrated Wherever possible, align online participation with other offline communications. Be a civil servant Remember that you are an ambassador for your organisation. Wherever possible, disclose your position as a representative of your department or agency

How others are preparing: 1 Social media is an opportunity to drive new levels of engagement Brands should be creating content or services –Consumers are – brands are no different Brands can help connect consumers with premium content There is a need to be open and honest –No secrets in the world of social media Let consumers create and distribute your content freely and without control Social media is globalising media consumption –Consistency of brand message is essential

How should brands behave? Be honest Be transparent (whats in it for you?) Be useful Give me an experience (not a bag or something) Dont try too hard

From 2.0 to 2.1: the challenge of evaluation Novelty will run out Business cases for investing in 2.0 activity The need for evaluation 27

Impressions Reach Clicks Awareness Message recall Changes in perception Repeat website visits Tell a friend Dwell time Number of pages visited Leads generated Change in behaviour Ad interactions We will measure success in many different ways…

2.0 and the Anti-fraud domain Search for fraud on DG and BL 29

Distribution

Insight: connections generate leads Action: how do we investigate? Digital shoe leather? Who do they turn to online? Who has the authority to respond?

Who has the online authority? Who has your confidence? Who is impersonating you out there?

In conclusion Go listen Then converse Understand the spectrum Prepare for organisational readiness