Trust at the beating heart of communications
More than ever, government and the public sector must commit to building trust with citizens. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. For communication between government and citizens to be successful, there is one ingredient th...
OPINION: Can AI be innovative?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and innovation Today, we’ll jump straight in with a question. Here it is: will artificial intelligence really reach a point where a machine can out-think us? Realistically, yes. The Future of Humanity Insti...
Building digital personas for your government audience
Personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal audience based on research and data. Personas can help government departments improve the way they create content and interact with their audience in a way that solves genuine pro...
Four media skills that comms professionals need
“When I first started working in journalism, I was given the advice to write for my 12-year-old cousin. If they don’t understand what you have written, start again.” – David Pembroke, CEO & Founder At contentgroup, a big portion ...
Blockbuster vs Netflix: the case for quality content over quantity
How good is Netflix? All your favourites in one spot; documentaries, drama, TV shows and big blockbuster movies old and new as well as high-quality original content. Oh, and it’s cheap; $14 a month, better than shelling out per DVD or ...
Preparing for effective measurement and evaluation
“Do measurement, would you! Measure! Just measure already!!” your boss cries. Shudder shudder. One of the most feared phrases in the communications industry, “doing” measurement and evaluation can feel a bit like drowning in a se...
Forget the door, break a window: how to speak to your niche audience
Chances are, if you’re using influencer marketing to market to your niche market, the audience you’re marketing to know that you’re using influencer marketing. Makes sense right? And that’s OK. We’ve said it before; rather than ...
Our predictions for 2018
Guess who’s back, back again, contentgroupies back, tell a friend. (too much for so early on in the year?) Fine. But we are back, done reflecting on the successes in 2017 and intent on making 2018 our best yet. While we brush the dust ...
What does 2017 hold for content communication, Review
One year ago (almost to the day) the contentgroup team made predictions on what 2017 would hold. The year’s almost out, so just how on the money were we? Here, we review our 2017 predictions. David Pembroke, Founder and CEO: In 2017, ...
contentgroup highlights, 2017
contentgroup highlights 2017 As the contentgroupies gear up for a bit of festive down-time, it’s a perfect time to sit down and reflect on the year that was. Some of our highlights this year include presenting our methodology at the AS...
5 trends every public-sector PR professional needs to know and act on
*Nervously risking the disdain of our readers for pointing out the obvious*… technology has changed the way that government departments can reach and communicate with citizens and stakeholders. The role of the public relations professi...
The UK government – Talking the talk and walking the walk
It’s no secret that here at contentgroup, we can tend to get a bit fan-groupie when talking about UK government communications. Leading the charge of putting citizens and users at the heart of the way the UK government communicates is ...
England coach and contentgroup ambassador Eddie Jones puts trust and culture at heart of elite performance
By James Stafford (Twitter: @jpstafford) Few people in the sporting world can speak with such authority on building and sustaining an elite team like England head rugby coach – and contentgroup ambassador – Eddie Jones. The Australia...
What the sporting world teaches us about social media
Cast your mind back to before the internet. How did organisations build an audience? Quality products and services? A trendy image? Clever marketing? Word of mouth? Or, maybe an audience grew from something as simple as a physical locati...
Too little too late? Twitter increases character limit to 280
That’s it folks, it’s here. The dawning of a new era; this week Twitter has increased its character limit to 280 across all markets. In an attempt to breathe some life back into the stale and struggling Twittersphere, we’ll now see the...
What case studies can do for your communication strategy
As communicators, both in the private and public sectors alike, we’re always looking for new ways to demonstrate the value of our work. Whether a brand seeking yet another way to say “here’s what the new ultra absorbent paper towel...
Curating content the right way: why and how
Sharing new and engaging content builds your brand and your audience. We are all pretty across that concept. But what happens when the demand for new content becomes greater than our maximum capacity for creation? In an age where everyon...
Authenticity, government and social media
Those of us who’ve worked in government communications for any length of time have probably had a conversation with someone from Business Area X that started something like “I want to do 12 Facebook posts to tell people about this th...
The three R’s of recycling content
Recycle, Re-purpose and Refresh The internet is an insatiable beast; and trying to continually feed it fresh content is an exhausting challenge. The smart content marketer knows just how crucial it is to get the most out of every piece o...
Communication challenges governments, globally
My career started with both communication and government. At the age of 25, I had a completely different idea about my job, and I had utterly no idea about how challenging communicating on behalf of government would be. I began at the Cz...