Two videos from Colchester Borough Council, and an offer of support

There’s been some discussion today about a couple of videos produced by Colchester Borough Council: one about Food Waste Recycling, the other about ‘social media’. Given that I create online content for a living I thought i’d offer some constructive criticism, along with an offer of support to Colchester Borough Council [1].

The two videos:

First, things first, I think the fact that these exist at all is a good thing. It means CBC have crossed from talking to doing, and that is a scary step. It’s also really important to say that I wouldn’t have approved either of these videos for release to the public, for one important reason.

I don’t understand what they’re trying to get me to do.

Video is an excellent online medium, and it is seductively easy to feel like you’re doing something good with it when perhaps you’re not. Any content you create needs to answer a really simple question: “What’s the story I’m trying to tell, and what do I want people to do once I’ve told them it?”

The ‘Binlings’ video is a great idea on paper, but I know from bitter experience how expensive and time consuming it is to create something that involves good character animation and which feels warm and fuzzy.

I think an alternative might have been to show the real impact of not recycling our food, and what happens when we recycle it: think piles and piles of landfill contrasted with neatly rotting compost or biogas.

My real beef is with the ‘Social Media video’. This is perpetuates so many myths about the modern internet which are just false. Social media is not:

• The future. It is the present.
• Cost effective or cheap. Done properly it is expensive and can be inefficient. Done properly it will also transform what you do.
• About young people. The fastest growing age groups on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are those aged 45+ [0]
• New. Is what we’ve been doing for years (talking to people) its just using a new channel (the internet).

A social media strategy is not ‘post 3 times a day to Twitter’. It is thinking deeply about how you will use these immensely powerful tools to have a proper connection with the people you serve — in this case everyone in Colchester.

So, my offer of help: I’ll gladly donate some time to help CBC write a proper social media strategy, and to understand what it could actually do for them. Anyone else in?

[1] This isn’t the first time I’ve offered. Back in March myself and some other interested folks met up with the council, but sadly nothing progressed. I’d love to do more. https://twitter.com/ColchChronic/status/310012191849992192

[2] Source: Global Web Index: http://blog.globalwebindex.net/Stream-Social