A couple of times a year I’ll slip in at the back at journalism conferences. It’s the most valuable learning I’ll do all year.
I used to be a journo back in the day. But I don’t go to reminisce or trade war stories. I go to learn what the future of public sector communications should look like. I use the word ‘should’ deliberately rather than will.
AI summaries have had an impact. Bread and butter content, such as listings or lifestyle, is better produced by AI. So news titles are moving away from it.
The great and the good are using their own channels or sympathetic content creators. The need to only speak to a journalist is a long time gone.
News titles are identifying what they can do better. Human stories, investigations and on-the-ground reporting will see more focus.
People are consuming more news from creators rather than titles. We don’t wait for the 9’O’Clock news. We may see what a news commentator is saying.
There will be less ‘service journalism.’ These are listings or advice to solve everyday problems.
There will be more focus on original reporting and on-the-ground investigations has value. Here. the human beats AI.
There will be more video. YouTube is the particular focus with TikTok and Instagram following.
There will be less focus on Facebook. As it becomes harder to generate link clicks this is not a surprise.
There has been no amazing breakthrough with AI. Jobs have not been created or lost as a result of tools.
Traffic from search is down and will continue to fall. That’ll be AI summaries.
What the public sector can learn from the report
We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. I keep saying there is more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years. It’s still true.
Media relations remains important. The skills of the old-style press offiocer are still needed.
More video. I run courses that show comms teams to plan, shoot, edit and post video. Of course, I’m going top highlight this. But with titles focusssing more on video the bright media officer would be well served to add video to the text of the press release and the image. These may well be B-roll footage the journo can re-work.
Facebook. Two thirds of the UK use Facebook and two thirds of them use Facebook groups. The platform retains a central position in the conversation. It is harder to produce clicks, sure, but that shouldn’t be a central driver of a public sector comms team.
Content. As media titles have identified routine announcements as being their bread and butter stop expecting them to cover routine announcements. If they must be covered, use you own channels.
The webteam. The whole issue of AIn summaries cannibalising traffic should be a canary in the mine for the web team. I await with interest what the public sector’s response will be. Remember SEO? The web team need to be looking at AEO – answer engine optimisation.
Fascinating, isn’t it?
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
Well, it’s been quite a week for AI in the public sector.
First, West Midlands Police admitted a controversial decision to ban visiting supporters of an Israeli football team was in part based on an AI hallucination.
Second, a map published to show railway investment in the northern of England bore no relation to geography and thought to be riven with AI hallucination.
As we know, a hallucination is an AI result which has been entirely made-up by AI.
No doubt, there will be an investigation where lessons to learn are available.
All this leads me to a timely analysis of my AI public sector tracker survey which I published last week in the Essential Public Sector Comms Playbook 2026.
It’s timely to go through that data and reach some conclusions.
The public sector is using AI but not always fessing up to it
In the survey I carried out in Autumn 2025, 80 per cent of public sector communicators say they are using AI either daily or weekly. Yet, little more than half of this figure – 44 per cent – work where there is an organisation-wide policy. Not only that, one in 10 have a comms team AI policy.
All this represents a stunning safety gap.
Using AI without guard rails means you can produce content that is flawed. Trust is in short supply at the moment and the sure way of burning through a chunk of it is to do something that people are not aware or in support of. Like, for example, using AI without being transparent.
With an AI policy you can build in safeguards and oversight.
Without it, it’s a free-for-all.
If I was ahead of comms in the public sector I’d by lying awake at night about this.
Not only that, but organisations are concealing how they use AI. In the survey, 45 per cent don’t admit to using it. Less than 10 per cent of public sector comms mark each piece of content that has involved AI in the creation.
All this is understandable. Telling people you are using AI may lead to criticism and awkward questions. A good media relations advisor would say that it’s wiser to choose the time and place to have that conversation rather than have it uncovered through an FOI request or some such like.
AI in the public sector is about ideas not images or video
It’s clear that the public sector is remarkably consistent in the way it uses AI.
Using AI for idea generation is used by 84 per cent of people. That’s an increase of eight per cent on the previous survey three months earlier.
Using AI for press releases is the second most single popular use with 39 per cent. That’s a rise of two per cent compared to the previous poll.
Image generation is the third most popular use with 20 per cent a decline of three per cent. Webpage creation (13 per cent) is fourth highest with editing video fifth (nine per cent). Creating audio accounts for just four per cent. That’s a fall of two petr cent.
The survey was carried out in Autumn 2025 with more than 320 people taking part.
What to do
The one thing not to do is ban the use of AI outright as a matter of principle. But I would be holding fire somewhat until you had a policy in place. This needs to be a set of principles on how this will be used.
As a first step, a Blue Peter knowledge of AI is needed by everyone in the comms team as a minimum. Beyond that, a policy that helps shape your approach would be essential.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
This is the one that’s the overview. It tackles the media landscape in 2026 and who is consuming what and where. It also looks at comms planning and evaluation.
There are six sessions to the workshop delivered over a number of weeks.
They start:
#69 20.1.26 LIMITED PLACES
#70 16.2.26 LIMITED PLACES
#71 17.3.26 NEW DATE
“Dan’s training gave our team a really good overview of the current digital comms and media landscape.” – Caroline Rowe, Head of Communications and Engagement, NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board.
This gives you the basics to understand AI and how to use it safely in a public sector context.
There are five sessions delivered over a number of weeks.
#12 20.1.26 SOLD OUT
#13 17.3.26 SPACES
#14 16.4.26 NEW DATE
“I wanted to get on and use AI – but didn’t know where to start. Actually, I did know where to start, I was just waiting for Dan’s course to come along and then book up quickly.” – Will Conaghan, communications manager Stafford Borough Council and Cannock Chase District Council.
This gives you tips, strategies and confidence to pitch to a journalist and deal with media queries.
#10.2.26 SPACES
“Dan’s courses are awesome – they’ve been vital in helping keep the knowledge and skills of me, and those of my teams, up-to-date and relevant for the job we need to do.” – Bridget Aherne, head of comms, Bury Council.
Picture credit: Alamy.
Drop me a line for a chat, for more information or to book.
Here it is. The Essential 2026 Playbook for Public Sector Comms written with you in mind.
It is a 23-page document with a snapshot of useful data and approaches for key challenges we are all facing.
There are things that can help shape your work today and I hope it does.
It’s the download that I would have wanted if I was still working in the public sector. I hope you find it handy even if you are in a neighbouring sector. It’s also a taster for the training I offer.
In it…
Social media stats for the UK.
Original research on what public sector content works for TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
A helpful new flow chart for how to deal with comment, criticism and abuse online (yes, because sometimes people shout).
What good looks like for public sector content.
What an AI policy looks like.
Insight and analysis from the benchmark AI survey to see how you and your team compares.
Every week I’ll read dozens of sources and also go through piles of data to improve the training and advice I offer. Every week I’m reshaping and updating. I thought it would be a canny idea to share some of that insight.
Some of it is drawn from obscure Ofcom datasets. Some of it is from original research I’ve carried out.
I hope you find this useful and an entry point to the training I offer. The download is the tip of the iceberg.
Why that look in particular?
The future’s a bit scary at times, isn’t it?
In this download I’ve gone back to the 1970s and 1980s with old pictures. In particular, duotone. That’s the cover images that are black and orange. I wanted something familiar and reassuring rather than futuristic. The school textbooks I remember were often like this.
It’s like the mafia, just when you thought you were free it pulls you back.
It’s winter, so of course I’m fascinated at how the public sector is communicating gritting and transport problems. Isn’t everyone?
Going back more than 15 years there was a group of us who used Twitter to tweet grit updates. Twitter Gritter was new stuff. We found that when we tweeted in real time that the team had gone out some people felt informed.
Other people would make the same range of comments. Is my street gritted? So, we created a grit map and linked it in a stock response. Have you even been out? We told them what time and when.
We got a bit bolder and would say things like:
Grit is not fairy dust. It will not make the roads behave like they do on a warm summer day and turn cars into bumper cars.
In January 2026, snow and ice has hit parts of England, Wales and Scotland.
So, I was drawn in to see how one channel in particular has been performing and what tactics have been working.
I looked at some metrics on Facebook so I could compare and contrast.
This isn’t exhaustive by any means.
Here’s what I learned.
If you take away grit bins people will kick off
In Dudley, where I live, the council decided to remove more than 300 grit bins to save money. I’ve long thought that the Holy Trinity of local gov comms is gritting, potholes and dog mess. Mess with gritting and you are asking for trouble.
No shade on the Dudley Council comms team, but almost 10 per cent of comments made on Facebook were negative. There was very little evidence of replies to those comments. Even a link to the comments and complaints page would have been an idea. I get why people are reluctant to engage. I do.
Open the door and customer services walks straight in
People are making observations about areas where grit is needed, roads are icy or action needs to be taken. There was little evidence of this being gathered and sent through to the teams where this could make a difference. As a resident, this must be frustrating.
Switching off comments is an option
One council, Highland Council, turned off commenting entirely. There’s absolutely no way that people can have their comment overlooked if they can’t make one. I won’t be harsh as I don’t know the reasoning for this. I wouldn’t rule it out on principle.
Dealing with comments is also an option
ScotRail in particular dealt with comments as they came in. But they’re a rail company and rail companies have historically have the resources to be brilliant at this. If you acknowledge people they will like it. There was little negativity on this page.
If you communicate in a timely manner people will thank you
Aberdeenshire Council’s page showed positive comments outranking negative four to one. That’s not always the way.
Communicating everything is an option
One council posted 44 times in three days. They cover a large area so this is understandable. But what this has the benefit of is creating within that hyperlocal content which is then sharable. People from that particular community can relate to that particular road closure.
Content which shows what you are up against flies
The stills from the cab of a gritter lorry facing snow drifts is compelling.
Shares… just look at the shares
Once again, this small snapshot shows that Facebook isn’t about the page. It’s about ther page creating sharable content that can be shared across Facebook. Groups are a big part of this. An update on an issue in a particular community will see that content shared in that particular community.
Snow and grit is a mental health issue
This isn’t shown in the numbers directly but the level of abuse and criticism does take a toll. Those closest I came to losing it was after a 36-hour period monitoring social channels I needed to just close my laptop, pass on the duty to a colleague for a few hours and get some balance. I worry that isn’t happening. This should be a team game.
Snow and grit is a planning in advance thing
I’d argue that everytime you plan to launch something you know is going to generate opinions a planning exercise needs to take place. What are they likely to say? What bullet points shall we create to help us push back if we need to? Ask yourself these questions.
For snow and ice, the answers are here’s the grit map so you can check your road. We don’t treat every road, we don’t send 14-tonne waste lorries to collect refuse on icy roads because its dangerous and more beside. Have these bullet points close to you.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
It’s the time of year when I like to think about where we are headed and this I’m going to cite former football manager Tony Pulis, Albert Einstein and Taylor Swift.
The former Stoke manager has spoken about the need for today’s manager to be better at ‘managing up.’ That’s the art of bringing the club’s board with you.
That skill in public sector comms will become absolutely critical in a year of crisis and change for reasons I’ll set out.
Einstein struggled at school but made time to learn in his own time. The leaders of 2035 will be learning in their own time too. The very bright team will encourage regular learning.
Taylor Swift?
“Long story short, I survived.”
There will be change, redundancy and re-applying for jobs. There will be short term pain I don’t minimise. I can only offer my own experience with time and perspective.
How did last year’s predictions work out?
68 per cent I got wholly right
16 per cent partly right
16 per cent wrong
Predictions I got right
The media landscape did continue to splinter.
Algorithms did continue to edge out friends and family as the driver of traffic on social channels.
Good content did beat churning out noise.
Teams did start to have input into the corporate AI policy as well as have one for their comms team.
BlueSky did continue to be niche.
Staff face were facing perma-crisis fatigue so brighter heads of comms invested in them.
Vertical video did break out into the mainstream.
Mass readership local news will look even less like what local newspapers used to be.
Teams did struggle to reach people without ad spend.
Teams have been siloed in a Microsoft AI landscape ignoring the better tools out there.
Legacy tech in an AI world has been a problem.
Teams have been trapped in a Gen X landscape and have not taken on Gen Z people fast enough.
The risk of not bringing the organisation along with you was a problem and remains one.
The risk of not learning new skills was a problem and remains one.
Hmmm… partly right
Hiring a chief story teller did gain wide traction in PR but not in the public sector.
Recruiting an army of advocates to share your content in their communities was be one of the best tactical things you could have done. Few did.
There wasn’t a major be AI fluff up. But there were minors ones.
No
I’m not sure that regional news shifted meaningfully to email first newsletters.
I don’t think the public sector embraced AI cartoons.
I don’t think teams have really embraced AI agents let alone AI swarms.
This year predictions have grouped themselves into strategic, tactics, media landscape and continuous professional development.
Predictions
Strategic
This year will cover an epoch that will be the biggest change in the public sector for 50 years. Some shifts will be self-inflicted like huge reorganisations of the NHS and local government in England. Some will be big picture like AI. In the words of the late Robert Phillips, the PR futurist, ‘embrace chaos.’ Because that’s what the future holds.
Evaluation needs to change but the public sector will be slow to make that change. It needs to move away from the number of web hits, media queries, Facebook followers and likes. It needs to take into account the fracturisation of the media landscape. Those Facebook group posts, those email alerts, that disinformation challenged. How to count that?
As people turn more to Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Copilot for search the corporate website will decline in importance. The challenge is that information gleaned from these sources may be inaccurate. Correcting misinformation is needed. But simply putting it on the web is a not a magic cure-all.
The Daily Mail will run a story saying AI is a fad that’s now over. Just as it did with the internet in 2000. On a macro level, there will be an AI hype correction. Gartner’s hype cycle shows generative AI moving from the peak of inflated expectations into the trough of disillusionment. It could move from there to the plateau of productivity. That’s when it gets truly useful. Before we discovered Google and Amazon there was the dot com bubble.
Local government communicators will have to deal more with more Councillors, Council Leaders and candidates who don’t observe conventions, advice or the law. Comms teams need to remain calm. They need to refresh their knowledge of what local government comms can legally do and say. They need to communicate this 365 days a year locally to all parties. Not the morning after an election win. Demonstrate you are politically restricted. Building basic relationships with party leaders to re-iterate this point would be sensible. So would joining a union. These influences will be felt less strongly in NHS, police and fire & rescue.
If they haven’t done already, good communicators at all levels should understand how algorithms have changed and educate the organisation accordingly. That’s things like links should not be used as a primary tactic, for example. That’s so 2011. Without doing this your output may be pointing in the wrong direction.
As pressure grows on services, there will be greater pressure for a slew of vanity comms. That’s comms to look good in front of an incoming administration, a new organisation or to help look for a new job. This will play havoc with the team’s priorities left unchecked. Does your organisation have a list of actual priorities? You’ll need this to bat away the flim-flam.
With all this change, some people will forget internal comms. If you forget internal comms you are stuffed. It’s really hard to evaluate this but in a time of change talk to your staff. This is less prediction and more advice. But this is internal comms to staff but also managing upwards.
An AI plan for a comms team will become essential. This will work out what AI is, some basic training and working out how the organisation can use it constructively and safely.
The smart team will further streamline approval processes. Sign-offs built for the print age do not work when the demand is often real time.
The gig economy will be more of a thing in the public sector. The sector is in the middle of a shake-up but still needs hands to do certain tasks. Drawing on some experience when and where it is needed will become routine.
There will be more people demanding more failing tactics. The poster used to work. So the answer is more posters. This needs to be resisted. Some of this will be service areas and some will be the team itself.
Tactics
Human storytelling will stand out even more strongly. Enshittification is the precise term that describes the process where something online starts off good then gets filled with rubbish. In social spaces, the amount of AI slop and abuse is noticeable. But so is the nurse talking about what motivated her to become a nurse in the first place.
Tactical print will be more effective. Cutting through some noise is a strength of tactical print. It’s novelty value will cut through. It can also land through a letterbox without a crowd of hostile people commenting on it.
More comms workflows will be automated by AI. Rather than being a threat the process that trims minutes from tasks will be a benefit.
There will be things of benefit that AI does at the end of 2026 that we could only dream about at the start of the year. There’s no point predicting a widget that does ‘X’. But when that widget comes along we’ll all be impressed.
The media landscape
In regional journalism, there will be even fewer reporters and BBC Local Democracy Reporters will become even more important. People who work in journalism talk about AI creating a ‘bloodbath’ amongst an industry whose senior people are failing to grasp how AI will affect them. This will play out as fewer reporters paying even less attention to what you have to say. BBC-funded reporters will be the exception to this. They are the final bastion to what old journalism looked like. Elsewhere that kind of reporting will get even harder.
A crisis scenario made worse by AI is around the corner. We learned hard lessons about social media in 2011’s riots. We will learn more about AI and emergency planning in 2026.
More disinformation. With the rise of the far-right and Russian influence the public sector strategically needs to understand what disinformation is and how to challenge it.
One of the most significant barriers to good communication will continue to be the radicalised over 50s. Some public sector Facebook pages are magnets for bile and misunderstanding. Shaping a way to triage debate and misinformation will be the most important day-to-day challenge.
There will be more very good and more very bad video. Some of it will tick a box and will fail. The best will have a hook, be made for the specific channel and will work. The Chief Executive may hate some of it. They are not the audience.
Continuous professional development
The public sector may finally wake up to the idea that niche content will perform better than a single loud broadcast across multiple channels. We’re not in Kansas anymore and it’s not 1990.The entire population of Stafford does not watch the 9 O’Clock News and read The Stafford Newsletter. The bright comms team will create content for the Polish WhatsApp, the email list aimed at parents and the Reel aimed at under 24s. They will be entirely different pieces of content. An army of advocates will make this easier. The Polish employee who can share content to the Polish WhatsApp will add value.
There is an immense need for teams to come together to schedule regular time to train more, listen more and to reflect more. All this change would have been hard pre-pandemic. Even if WFH was ended tomorrow, it will remain hard. Time booked in for training or to compare notes is not a luxury. It is survival. This is where you can plot a path for the future pf the team and your own future. This will involve listening, learning and adapting. This may be thorny. It will always be useful. This is best done at scheduled times face-to-face. If the team won’t do it, do it yourself.
Some people will ‘Brooks’ it. Brooks was the character in the film ‘Shawshank Redeption’ who becomes institutionalised. He cannot learn new things. Some comms people buffeted by years of change will make a conscious decision to stop learning. This is understandable but is going to be tricky for leaders.
The comms person who is still in the sector in 2032 will have set aside time to learn new skills now. A comms person who doesn’t invest an hour a week minimum now in their own R&D won’t have the skills.The bright head of comms will encourage this. Reassurance is going to be a big part of this. The sharp officer will just do it anyway.
That’s it.
Thanks for reading.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
I must have said the line ‘more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years’ dozens of times in the last 12-months. It’s still true.
There are rare chances to assess just how much change. One such opportunity is Ofcom’s Online Nations report which takes a chalk mark and compares it to previous years.
I’ve read it so you don’t have to.
Perhaps more has stayed the same than you may think but there are clear signs of movement around the increase in AI for search.
As a former journo, I’m comforted that news consumption has stayed largely the same.
The top 18 UK social media channels
Why 18? It’s an arbitrary number that allows me to capture BeReal which was top 10 a few years ago and has now dropped out of fashion.
YouTube is still largest. Some things don’t change. YouTube remains the largest UK platform reaching 66.9 per cent of the over 18 population. Facebook & Messenger is again edged into second place.
WhatsApp is huge. WhatsApp is in third place reaching 63.4 per cent of all adults with Instagram reaching more than half of all adults.
Reddit is what? Now the surprises. Reddit has moved up into 5th place growing 88 per cent over the last two years. However, as you go and Google what that platform actually is, the data shows people spend a mere four minutes a day there. Compare that to the 51 minutes on YouTube and almost three quarters of an hour that’s thin gruel.
X keeps falling but not as fast as you may think. Also worth a raised eyebrow is the decline of X. It’s been falling for several years but the surprise is that its only six per cent down year-on-year reaching 27.8 per cent of the UK population.
X rivals have not really taken up the challenge. Bluesky has plateaued atlas than three million users – that’s 3.9 per cent of the UK population. Meta-owned Threads still remains the largest X competitor but their numbers have levelled out at just over five per cent.
Elsewhere…
AI is having an impact on search. While Google is pre-eminent on three billion UK searches AI-powered ChatGPT has emerged as its rival with 252 million searches.
AI search is growing. Almost a third of all search has an AI summary. This includes Google and the AI providers. This wasn’t measured two years ago.
The internet continues to be everywhere but we’re alive to the fact it may not be always positive. We spend on average 4.5 hours a day online in our own time. A third of us think the web is overall good for society.
Almost four in 10 people have seen something upsetting online in the previous month. This includes misinformation, abuse or violent content.
We’re still using the web for news. Overall, 97 per cent of people have visited a news site. The BBC is the largest share with eight in 10 visiting it in the previous month. The Sun is in second place with The Guardian third. We spend 10 minutes a day consuming news online.
WhatsApp is trouncing its messaging rivals. Ninety per cent of people who use the internet use the platform. This is almost double Messenger in second place.
WhatsApp is the most widely used app. Nine in 10 have used the tool beating Facebook into second and Google Maps intio third.
Children are spending time on the internet. A 13-year-old will spend four hours a day. That’s twice as much as an eight-year-old. You can read the full report here.
There’s two questions to ask with UK public sector WhatsApp use… how is it performing? And why on earth isn’t there more?
As a platform, WhatsApp is about as near as it is possible to get to a universal channel with more than 80 per cent of all age groups in the UK using it.
Organisations like Real Madrid have more than 60 million users and in the UK, BBC News commands a channel with 13 million subscribers.
Yet, two years after launch, WhatsApp Channels have failed to really ignite public sector communications.
Analysis shows just over 20 public sector organisations in the UK are using WhatsApp Channels. Yet, Metropolitan Police have 65,000 people signed-up for their WhatsApp Channel but have used it only once.
There is an audience who is not being reached.
The importance of the push notification
Way back as far as 2019, the push notification to the phone was being seen as a front that had overtaken the 9 O’Clock News TV bulletin as a space that is dominating the news agenda.
Your phone pings, you glance at it and read a piece of breaking news that you’ve opted into.
“The push notification is one of the only ways to cut through the noisy filter bubbles that many of us now occupy,” the New Statesman then reported.
“In our fragmented media landscape, push notifications are becoming as important as traditional TV news slots.”
Today, the BBC has eight million sign-ups to its news app that issues push notifications. That’s more than double the 3.5 million who watch BBC’s largest news audience for the 6 O’Clock News. The click through rate is one per cent. But rather than the full story, people are grazing the headline.
Reach’s combined local and national WhatsApp Channels reaches more than three million people. Interestingly, 80 per cent of their five million clicks a month come from WhatsApp Communities rather than WhatsApp Channels. While Channels are open-ended Communities are limited to 5,000 subscribers. Fine for the Stoke City coverage from Reach’s Sentinal title but less so if you are a global football brand.
An update from a WhatsApp Channel can be made to ping like a news alert. Or people can simply use their feed as a news catch-up scroll.
Why the low take-up?
All this constructs a compelling argument as to why WhatsApp is in an important position in the landscape. It can be used for news or it can be used to sort meet-up arrangements between friends.
So why hasn’t it taken off?
As a hunch, I’d say that WhatsApp has been hit by a perfect storm of less available time, declining morale and smaller teams. The day is already busy enough. Why squeeze something else onto the to do list?
But is public sector comms missing a trick?
I’d say, yes.
Where public sector WhatsApp is
Take-up of WhatsApp Channels in the public sector is thin.
Across the public sector, there is a WhatsApp Channels for UK Government as well as Welsh and Scottish Governments. There are four police forces with a presence. Aside from the under-used Met in London, Lancashire and Derbyshire Police have accounts as does Gwent’s Police and Crime Commissioner.
In the NHS, NHS England run the NHS WhatsApp Channel and it remains to be seen if that will outlast that organisation’s demise. Elsewhere in England, Northumbria Healthcare and Great Western Hospitals have a presence. In Wales, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board have a presence.
In local government, Sheffield, Renfrewshire, Fife, Surrey, Wealden and in London Hillingdon and Richmond have WhatsApp Channels. South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue and West Midlands are flying the flag for fire and rescue.
There are no WhatsApp Channels in Northern Ireland found in the sweep.
There may be more and I’d love to hear from you if you are aware of more.
How is it performing?
I’ve taken a look at a cross-section of accounts from different sectors and different parts of the world.
WhatsApp Channels can work.
Real Madrid’s 60 million followers thrive on realtime updates. News from the club or scoreflashes work well.
There is a tendency to add a link to the post to drive traffic to the corporate website. I’m not convinced that’s what people want from WhatsApp. A quick update and some sharable information is probably what people want.
In Germany, Feuerwehr Munchen – the regional fire service – send out text updates of incidents in a uniform format. Some get comparatively good engagement.
For me, the Daily Mail approach is still a strategy to pursue. Rather than have one account to rule them all you can opt into different subjects. So, the Daily Mail general account has 1.3 million followers, with Daily Mail Kardashians 1.1 million, Daily Mail Taylor Swift 249,000, and Daily Mail Best Shopping 11,000.
So, segmenting is good.
Few people want to hear about everything the organisation does. But news targeted to a geographic area or a demographic such as parents of primary-school age children would work.
AI note: ChatGPT Deep Research was used to collect together evidence of UK public sector WhatsApp Channels as well as push notifications. The gathered information was read and reviewed.
With December coming into view, here’s some content ideas you can adapt to reach an audience.
I’ve taken them from advice baked into training I offer just to make your life easier.
Stay safe this Christmas
A carousel of images to depict safety advice over the festive season. Switch off the Christmas tree lights overnight. Don’t leave cooked meat out in a warm room on Christmas Day unless you want food poisoning. That kind of thing. Text on image but with images recognisably local.
Why? Because carousels are the most popular content on Instagram and Facebook.
House Christmas tree displays
As an admin on a community Facebook group, let me tell you the content that is going gangbusters are shots of houses with festive lights. Avoid car number plates in the drives or telling people where the houses are just in case people don’t want the extra attention. Maybe even crowdsource it.
Why? Because the topic is hot and timely and public engagement can boost your other call-to-action posts.
A solutions journalism approach
Instead of four press releases that won’t go anywhere, try a round-up of things that may help the budget-conscious time-poor parent or carer. Of the 12 things you can pull together four may have been press releases in the past and the rest may be made up of things you overlook. Like a stroll in the park. Borrow a book from the library.
Why? Because solutions journalism content works effectively for outlets like the BBC and others.
Celebrate festive staff
On LinkedIn, the shot of the hospital porter in a Christmas hat pushing a trolley decked out with Christmas tinsel was the most popular content of the year for one NHS Trust.
Why? Because showing that you employ humans encourages people to work for you.
Show the Christmas card ideas
Often public figures like MPs or Mayors can choose a design from a Christmas-themed competition to design the next Christmas card. Share them all. You don’t have to identify them beyond a first name.
Why? Because parents, siblings, aunts and uncles and grand parents have Facebook accounts too.Engaging with your page means they are more likely to see your calls to action.
Put the bin collection info as a graphic not a link
Facebook hates links. It will penalise your post. Don’t ask people to click because they either won’t see it or just plain won’t. Add the info as a graphic and for accessibility at this to the body text.
Why? Because links get penalised but graphics can be shared in community Facebook and Whats App groups.
The first and last baby
If you are NHS and have a maternity ward setting up a last baby shot of 2025 and first baby of 2026 is pure win. You’ll have to send emails. You’lkl need to remember GDPR. It’ll be worth it.
Why? Because cute babies can work across every platform.
A post-Christmas carousel
Post a carousel of images to flag up the twixtmas messages you need people to see. Often, they are about recycling, taking exercise, avoiding access and places to remember for mental health support be they MIND, Samaritans or elsewhere. What can you do with a Christmas tree? Or shiny wrapping paper? Or do you have leisure centres where people can carry out a New Year resolution?
Why? Because carousels work on Facebook and Instagram.
Where were the website hits on Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2025?
NHS England did a particularly good post they published on Christmas Eve in 2024. In it they went through the most popular pages over the previous Christmas. Booze, burns and bites topped the list.
Why? Because people love data repackaged as a news story or fun content.
Pre-record a suitable 30-second video with a round-up of things to remember
Then post it at the right time over the festive period. If you plan ahead you can shoot, edit and post ahead of the game.
Why? Because vertical video on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn works.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
As a former journo, I do find attending journalism conferences thoroughly useful ways to spend time.
Like two relatives forced to live next door to each other with a shared drive journalism and PR & communications need to co-exist.
Sometimes this is an easy relationship and sometimes it isn’t. But always when you peer over the fence there are things that you can learn from.
One brilliant pearl came from an event in London last week where Anita Zielina from Better Leaders Lab spoke about what media leaders needed to know about AI. Of all the ideas that emerged one really shone through that can be applied by anybody in the comms industry be they long in the tooth or new.
Tip: “Reduce the noise”
By reducing the noise, this doesn’t mean turn down the volume and pretend AI isn’t happening. Far from it. What she meant is to protect your mental health you need to stop firing out emails about AI, reading them and making hand-break turn decisions based on what you’ve just read.
This makes lots of sense.
In the ‘always on’ culture we can think we need to be awake 24-hours and available seven days a week. But if we do that we make bad decisions.
Instead, put some time aside every week. Leave the AI for then. In that window, turn up the volume and dive into it.
By protecting yourself you’ll make better progress.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
.jpg){kind=link}