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Laying the foundations for better local public services

Local Digital Communications

Local Digital-funded projects can use this page to explore Local Digital’s communications channels, and learn how to use them to promote the work you’re doing.

If you need to contact the Local Digital Comms team, please email campaigns@localdigital.gov.uk.

How we can help you

We really encourage our funded projects to make use of our channels to publicise their work. The Local Digital Comms team is here to help you amplify:

  • the progress you have made
  • outputs you have published
  • what you have been doing, such as hosting Show and Tells or speaking at events
  • anything you would like the audience to participate in, such as surveys, user research or events
  • blog posts or articles your team has written

We can help you to promote your work across five of our channels: Sprint Notes, the Local Digital Newsletter, Council Spotlight, Twitter and LinkedIn. We’ve provided more information on each channel below.

Sprint Notes

We work in the open, which means we’re transparent about what we have done as a team and what our funded projects have been up to.

We publish a new edition after each two-week sprint cycle, in the form of Sprint Notes.

How to include something in Sprint Notes

When you meet with your collaboration manager to update them on your team’s progress, make it clear if there is anything you would like to include in our Sprint Notes. They will then pass this on to us.

We encourage you to include any photos of meetings, Mural or Trello boards, screenshots of the product and so on. Please provide high-quality images or screenshots. 

What a good update looks like

Not everyone reading our Sprint Notes will be familiar with certain acronyms or technical lingo, or know the context to your project, so we don’t want to exclude them.

When giving updates, make sure you explain the context and give as much detail as possible.

For example: ‘This sprint we conducted user research with 10 councils, which has been really useful. Our aim was to find out what their experiences of using Github were to see if it’s suitable for our project. Doing this research has meant we’ve networked with councils we hadn’t previously met. Next steps are…’

The Local Digital newsletter

Our newsletter has more than 2500 subscribers and is a great way to promote:

  • events such as Show and Tells, product demos, Q&As
  • big project milestones and outputs
  • opportunities to take part in user research or surveys
  • opportunities to get involved in the project

Subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter.

How to include something in the newsletter

If you would like to include something in our newsletter, please email campaigns@localdigital.gov.uk with the following:

  • no more than 50 words of text
  • a square image, or an image that can be cropped square
  • links to relevant websites or email addresses
  • the deadline for when you would like it to be published

You can view this previous newsletter to get an idea of what we include and our tone of voice.

Share your story through our Council Spotlight

The Council Spotlight blog post series provides councils with an opportunity to showcase their digital achievements and contributions to the Local Digital community.

We want to shine a spotlight on stories of local government digital transformation and digital best practice.

To take part, fill out the online form to nominate:

  • your council/a specific team within your council
  • a colleague(s)
  • a great digital project

The form should take no more than a few minutes to complete.

Twitter

Our Twitter account has more than 6000 followers and is used to highlight the work of our team and our funded projects.

How Twitter can help your project

Our tweets can reach up to 30,000 impressions (impressions = number of people who have seen a tweet) so it’s a great way of getting your message out there.

If you would like to tweet something, it is important to think about:

  • the purpose of the tweet
  • how to communicate this in only 280 characters
  • what image, GIF or video you want to use
  • alt text or captions if you plan to include an image or a video
If your project is on Twitter

Either email us or let your collaboration manager know when you plan to tweet so we can retweet it for you.

If your project is not on Twitter

If your project does not have a Twitter account, but you would like us to tweet something on your behalf, create a draft tweet and send it to your collaboration manager. We will look over it for you and agree on when your tweet will be published.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is our newest platform and we are keen to use it to continue to grow our community. LinkedIn is an opportunity for us to engage with our audience to build greater understanding of challenges, share good practice and strengthen communities of practice.

How LinkedIn can help your project

We use LinkedIn to: 

  • engage with local authorities on topics relevant to local digital and cyber
  • provide Local Digital news and updates
  • post job openings and discuss what it’s like working in the sector
  • promote events we’re hosting and events from the sector
  • share our Sprint Notes and Council Spotlights

Visit our page and follow us to get involved. If your project does not have a LinkedIn account, but you would like us to post something on your behalf, please draft a post and send it to your collaboration manager. We will look over it for you and agree on when your post will be published.