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It is a truth universally acknowledged that organisations are only ever one social media post away from a crisis. But social media is also an opportunity – to turn those crisis situations around, to learn what your customers think about you and to build relationships with the stakeholders that matter most.
 
In this podcast, James talks about how the social housing world, which is on the cusp of a new era of consumer regulation, is communicating with the residents the sector exists to serve. He then shares his top tips for organisations looking to turn those Facebook frowns upside down.

Join Olivia Hullah and Asif Chodury on this podcast episode as they share Olivia's incredible journey from a marketing apprentice to the Marketing Manager at Trust Electric Heating, all by the age of 22. The episode delves into the challenges and triumphs of marketing radiators ethically in a Net Zero landscape while making it exciting and personal.

Get ready for an insightful conversation that explores the unfiltered life of working in a small company, apprenticeships, the sustainable future, and the dynamic world of marketing.

Growing up, Sonia thought that she wanted to be a lawyer. At the age of 18 this all changed. In this episode, Sonia opens up about the some of the challenges and pressures she’s faced growing up in an Indian/Asian community and how she’s worked through these to break into the world of comms. She shares some personal experiences of bias and how she’s worked hard, and how she feels she must continue to prove herself to progress her career as a woman of colour. In this episode be prepared to go on a true, personal journey of having to grow up very quickly and overcoming hurdles of bias.   

Our industry is unhealthily obsessed with two words: best practice. You see them regularly on internal comms blogs, you hear it at internal comms conferences, those words come up frequently on LinkedIn. But a best practice approach only works for simple, non-complex work. The work we do as internal communicators is highly unpredictable and and complex, charged with human emotion and full of complexity. Joanna proposes that we instead talk about “good practices” and think about innovation as an antidote to best practice.

Joanna Parsons is the Founder and Director of The Curious Route, an internal communication consultancy practice. She helps organisations to create effective systems of internal communication. 
 
Joanna is a content creator and thought leader in internal communication with a following of more than 16k on LinkedIn and a new YouTube channel just launched. She has worked in internal comms for more than a decade and was previously Head of Internal Comms with the Irish national police force. She’s a Fellow of the Institute of Internal Communication and has won multiple communication awards for her work over the years. Joanna is also a Lecturer in Strategic Internal Communication with the Public Relations Institute of Ireland. 
 
She’s currently writing a book, “Innovative Internal Communication” which will be published by Kogan Page in the summer of 2024.

In this episode, Matt Geer Head of Communications and Marketing at West Kent Housing Association shares some thoughts and reflections on his career in communications. Matt talks more about how to ensure that you as a comms pro have a seat at the top table to support, influence and guide your organisations approach to strategic communications. Matt also shares some of his lived experience of being in the minority across the industry and how that has influenced and inspired his career direction.

Connect with our guest Matt Geer on Linkedin

If you're trying to communicate with young people within your target audience, or are hoping to engage them within your work, this episode will help you understand how to better listen, engage and empower young people within your work. 
We speak with Rebecca Roberts, founder of Thread & Fable and specialist in youth audiences about her Engaging Youth insight reports and what top tips she has for better connecting with young people through marcomms. If you've read much in the media about youth audiences, you'll have been told they're hard to reach, have short attention spans and are snowflakes (even more so than Millennials were) - Rebecca tackles why stereotypes are not only untrue but are unhelpful in understanding the real context of what it's like growing up in the UK and how comms are well placed to improve the conversation.