Better #31

Kia ora friend,

If you live in New Zealand, you’ve got local elections coming up in October 😱 How lucky are you?!

Realistically, if you work at a council, this might fill you with dread - which, given the relentless challenges we already face on social media, is entirely understandable.

But seeing elections only through this lens can be limiting and just kinda depressing TBH. Because they’re also a wonderful and powerful opportunity to connect with residents, encourage civic engagement, and showcase the impact local councils can have in people’s lives.

Yes, that’s right. I’m choosing to go all ‘glass half full’ this year 😃

As part of that, I’ll be exploring election comms and social in more detail in future articles and newsletters, as well as creating a bit of a resource hub, so keep an eye out.

Finally, there are just two spots left for my public sector social media course, starting on 21 February. It’s tailored especially for the NZ and Australian government sectors. I keep these sessions small to maximise interaction and discussion, and it might be your last chance this year, as I’ve got a busy few months of client work ahead.

Have a bloody wonderful week.

Cheers,
Seamus Boyer 👋

Ok, here we go with the first interview of 2025!

I worked with Mollie Coulton at Wellington City Council, and she was a bloody legend at 1) creating content and 2) engaging with both positive and negative residents in a really lovely, effective way.

She also appears in some of my fave WCC TikToks like this one and this one.

We ended up chatting for ages so this interview goes a little deeper than usual, but our attention spans are really long these days so all good lol.

Enjoy.

👇👇👇

Firstly, Mollie, where do you work, and what do you do? 

I’m the Senior Social Media Advisor at Wellington City Council (WCC). I’m actually a trained primary school teacher, but luckily found my way into the world of social media, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I’ve been in comms for about five years now, and I’ve been at WCC for two and a half years, where I started as a Social Media Advisor. I manage our channels alongside Jade Anthony, our newest and most talented social media advisor.

The main part of my role is all about creating content, sharing the stories of Wellingtonians, and making sure our community feels heard and valued. The most favourite part of the job is jumping into the comments to engage directly with Wellingtonians, sometimes with a bit of a sass.

Wellington City Council’s socials seem to have kicked into a different gear recently in terms of engagement, with hundreds or thousands of likes on every post. What would you put that down to?

For starters, we're being a lot more strategic with what we share. Back in the day it used to be, ‘okay we'll post three times a day, even if we're having to go and find something’. Whereas now I haven't been too afraid to just post one thing on the channels, so it's more quality over quantity, and I'll kind of only say something if there is something to say, rather than finding something to say. I find that's been really helpful. 

The second thing is situational awareness. Every single post we create, if we're using photos, the main photo we choose, rather than a generalised photo, I'll try and find a photo that showcases Wellington at a glance. So you can look at a piece of content and see it belongs in Wellington. This way people don't have to see Wellington City Council, they can just be naturally scrolling their feed and they see their home, and they're like, ‘Oh, I want to read that’. And I've noticed that's been hugely beneficial on the channels, because I feel like people are making that connection to home. 

And the other thing is hyperlinks. We don't use hyperlinks directly as pull-through images anymore. We were finding that when we were doing that our engagement would drop. And I think that's just because the algorithm wants to keep people on the platform. So instead, we try to tell the whole story in the post and then provide a link to Our Wellington in the copy, instead of as a link in the post.

And finally, we're being a little bit more firm in the comments in terms of moderation and having that playful tone around it. 

How would you describe that shift in tone?

We're kind of moving away from that super celebratory, fluffy tone. And we're trying to almost meet Wellingtonians where they are. So for example, when I know I'm doing a piece of content that might wind people up, for example, a recent bike lane report we did last month, it was our most engaged post. And we could have taken that post and been like: ‘the bike lane has been amazing, and it's awesome, and it's fantastic, and, yeah, yeah, yeah’. Whereas with that post, it's almost like we tried to get to the butt of the joke before Wellingtonians could in the comments. So we started that post off with, ‘Brace yourselves there’s a cycle-lane post ahead. We know that not everyone's cup of tea, but…’ 

And we’re also being upfront about cost in the copy, if we can be. I've been trying to let comms advisors allow us to include the cost in the copy, because I feel like that just opens up the door to more transparency. Because we will always get asked about the cost of everything no matter what. So why not just own it? So when we’ve done that, we’ve actually got comments like, ‘Oh, I'm glad you shared the cost of this. It's actually not that much. Thank you’.

The comments are such a massive opportunity. How many do you get and how many do you respond to?

The comments are a huge thing, and we make it a goal to respond the same day. So for a lot of our content we won't send it live until we have an FAQ doc that we can then heavily rely on to go back and forth with people.

Last year, we had 11,000 messages and comments in the first quarter. Quarter one this year, we had 22,000 messages and comments. It's just growing and growing. I would love to get more resource for our team - if we’re managing this sort of volume with just the two of us, imagine what we could achieve with more support!

That’s a lot for a team of two. How much time do you spend in the comments?

I've been saying like 50% of my job now is moderation. Before, it would be like 20-30% but now it's easily 50%. I sit on the channel all day to respond to stuff, and the reason why our engagement has been so high is because of the way we interact in the comments, and being really quick to respond. We do get pushback from other council staff occasionally because they sometimes don't see the value in us responding to certain comments, but we've just got to explain to them what we're not actually just replying to that person, our comment is for every other person that will see that reply. 

I like to say that every post is literally an invitation to your audience to engage. Would you agree with that? 

Exactly. That's so true, Seamus, I love how you put that. And there are so many organisations that do all this mahi on the main feed, and then they're just empty in the comments. The first place I go to, as a natural user of social media, is straight to the comments to read what people are saying. I'm always in the comments.

I did a little research into our frequent flyers and how much they're commenting on the channels in comparison to other people. We worked out that we get 21% of our comments from the same 50 people, when we had 1900 people comment on content that month. So we worked out for every one comment someone else was leaving, these people were leaving like 11 to 15 comments. By the end of the month, they were having like 50 comments. So it was quite interesting to see that it's so true when we talk about this negative sentiment is just coming from this very small minority of people.

But that doesn’t mean you turn the comments off though, as some councils have?

No, because you've now just shut off those people that may want to engage with you that now can't, and they can't engage with you positively.

For our frequent flyers that say the same thing, I love pointing it out to them that they've commented something similar before. So I'll be like, ‘Kia ora Mark, we've explained this to you before, but happy to explain it again’. And some people might look at our response and be like, ‘Oh, that's a bit sassy. That's a bit firm’. And it might seem firm to a user that doesn't know the channels and know the relationships we have with our audiences. 

But when you've got the likes of people saying, ‘I'm insulted that you've used ‘kia ora’ in this post’, as a council we need to show who we are and what we stand for. And the best way to do that is by engaging with those people in the comments and shutting down that unhelpful narrative early.

I like how you translate in the comments any Māori words you use in the post - to preempt those ‘I can’t understand you’ comments. How has that gone for you?

We’ve actually had a couple of other agencies reach out and ask if they could use the same approach, which is nice. We get a few comments that are like, ‘this isn't helpful to me’. But then I like to use it as an opportunity to explain how we're a bicultural nation, and how we're trying to get people to understand Māori in context and that sort of thing. Our Māori capabilities team, they are so proud of our mahi on the channels, and sometimes our approach is not just for the public, it's for the staff. I think it's nice for staff to see that we're out there defending their work, and they can feel good knowing that we as a team, we're out there for them.

How do you stay so chill and chipper with all the negativity and provocations online? 

The hate has really, really increased, and people don’t see the stuff that we hide. I had someone call me a disgusting weed the other day. People say to me, ‘I don't know how you do your job, how do you reply to those people? You must get so grumpy?’ And I think the difference is, I have the ability to reply, whereas other people looking in, they don't, so they feel powerless, whereas I at least am able to get my emotions out in a nice, beautiful comment [laughs]. And that makes me feel better about it, I get to take my power back by being able to respond in the way we do. I feel like if I was in a position where I couldn't respond the way I do, and I wasn't given the trust to do that, I think I probably would be a lot less chipper than what I am.

I know Wellingtonians love the fact they know your names via your sign offs, but does that make the abuse also feel more personal?

Even if we signed off content without our names, we're actually still going to get those hateful comments. And personally, my belief is that people are less inclined to be hateful towards us when they know it's a real person, not just a nameless entity. 

And I think at the same time, by actually commenting with our names, we take accountability for our replies, so it makes us more concerned and considered in our replies, because we are signing them off with our names, and we know that it's going to be tied back to us. If I ever make a mistake, I can actually own the mistake as a council officer, rather than owning the mistake as council.

Could you be as effective as you guys are being if you didn't love the comments?

Probably not. It definitely takes a certain type of person to do it. I don't think it's the kind of job that anyone can pick up, because along with content creators we’re also a contact centre, we're also an encyclopedia, we're also a little bit of everything. And I need a job where I can be creative and where every day it's different, and that's the thing I love about my job. Every post we do, I don't know what response we're going to get. S… can hit the fan in a second, and I love that side of my job, that busyness, that no day is ever the same. 

I remember when I first started, I probably didn't like the comments like I do now, and it felt overwhelming. You would just get comment after comment after comment, and even now sometimes - just recently I was sitting at my desk and thinking ‘this is a lot, like, there's just so much coming in’. You can struggle to keep track. 

There’s this narrative that Facebook is dead and that it's harder to get reach and engagement there. How are you getting so much growth?

I think the audience on Facebook is more likely to engage, more likely to comment. The older people may have more time on their hands, and they're more willing to have something to say than younger people. We ran an ad targeting all Wellingtonians, just asking about transport changes around the city. We got so much hate, it was awful. When we refined it to target under-35s only, no hate at all. Crickets. Nothing. 

So that just shows that older generations, they are more inclined to engage and more willing to say something, but then the other side of that is now we are seeing more young people coming through and actually responding back to those older generations and making their views known. We’re hearing things like, ‘This is our future, not yours, we are the future’. And I've been seeing a little bit in our comments, with young people jumping in saying, like, ‘Lynn, you're not going to be here in 50 years to use a cycle lane, so pipe down’.

I do think another key part of our strategy is using giveaways. It’s such a great tool to encourage engagement on our channels. So we try to have at least one giveaway a month just to keep that engagement up. When we're running giveaways, our engagement does increase.

Do you obsess over the numbers?

Yes, unfortunately, but I try not to. We do a weekly report which talks about all the numbers on the channels that week, comparing them to the week before. We talk about what content we shared and why we chose to share that content, so talking about the strategy, and then we share the overall sentiment on the channels as well. 

For me, social media is a great way to balance the media voices out there. We had one week where despite receiving over 100 media queries and significant coverage from news outlets where 50% was negative, the sentiment on our social media channels was positive. This contrast shows how direct engagement with Wellingtonians can be more balanced and supportive in conversations. So the media can shape perceptions of the council, whereas we're able to have direct communication with the public to be able to build a strong sense of connection and appreciation. 

And we'll often use the media sentiment from the week before to inform our content the following week. So, say if we know we've had quite an awful week in terms of sentiment, and people are mad that we're not ‘getting the pipes fixed’, we'll make it a goal that week to be more operational on the channels and share more of the stories around fixing leaks and infrastructure updates and that sort of thing.

You and the team have attracted some media attention over the years, how have you found that? I’m thinking of the pretty crappy articles about the TikTok content?

With the first article [headline was ‘How a council’s weird TikTok represents everything that is wrong with local democracy’ but I can’t find a link - Seamus] where we were told that we were marketing interns, I remember being like, ‘WTF, this is insulting’. It just echoed that whole rhetoric that we're just social interns and all we do is post stuff and we don't think about it. 

Then the banana suit article came out [again, can’t find the link - Seamus] and at the time, I absolutely hated it. Now it's a joke in our family, they like to buy me banana socks and banana T-shirts and all that sort of dumb s… which is hilarious [laughs]. And the thing is I absolutely hate bananas, like I have an irrational fear of bananas, so that takes it to an extra level. 

I don't know if you saw it but I was in the paper recently talking about how younger generations look at social media and that was a good little piece, I was happy with that. 

How rewarding do you find the role?

I would say it's extremely rewarding. I've never actually worked on such a rewarding job out of all the roles I've ever had. I don't wake up in the morning and be like, ‘Ugh, I've got to go to work today’. Like, no, I don't want to wake up early and go to work, let's be honest [laughs]. But I actually love my job, and I love engaging with the community and helping people, because I'm not just helping Wellingtonians, I'm also helping council staff share their messages, and finding ways to tell their stories in a way that will suit our channels and also serve the person and the project. 

While you do have the negativity at times, and it can feel like the end of the world, I think for me, the negativity will get me down for a couple hours, and then I'll wake up the next day and I'll feel fine about it again. 

Finally, I know your TikTok has been on hold for a while - is it still part of the overall strategy?

Yes! I’ve been on my own for a while now so there was just no way, but now we have a full team again we're working on a bank of content. We're planning on going really hard in 2025, so yes, short form video is coming, keep an eye out, it is going to happen.

Also, we’re going to start showing ourselves on the channels more, and doing more face-to-camera video, and maybe go out vox popping in the street. It’s going to be a lot of fun and we’re looking forward to it.

Quick 6 with Mollie Coulton…

1. Strategy or tactics?
Tactics. Strategy is great as it gives you the overarching vision, but in social media, you’ve got to be quick on your feet. It’s all about making decisions on the fly, pivoting when something’s not working, and tweaking as you go. Social media moves so fast, and your tactics need to keep up.

2. Favourite platform?

I’m an OG TikTok supporter. I loved it when it first came out, even though I was slightly embarrassed to admit it back then. Honestly, it’s the closest thing we have to Vine and I loved Vine. Like, truly obsessed. I still spend my days quoting Vine. My favourite quoteable Vine, you ask? “Look at all those chickens!” (even when it’s pigeons or seagulls).

3. Least favourite platform?
Without a doubt, X. I’ve never enjoyed it, even back when it was Twitter. While our council has stepped back from it due to the vitriol, it’s always felt like a negative space to me.

4. One public sector account to follow?
Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa on TikTok. Their account is so good, hilarious, engaging, and they tackle important topics in such a relatable way. Plus, you’ll definitely learn a thing or two.
 
5. One non-public sector account to follow?
Shop Cats on TikTok. I scream every time they upload, I love cats. Also, I’m obsessed with Bekah. She’s a rave influencer, and her chaotic vlogs are everything.

6. Something you wish you’d known earlier in your career?

You’re not going to get it right all the time, and that’s fine! When I first started, I had major imposter syndrome and second-guessed everything I did. But I’ve learned that mistakes are part of it, and you don’t need to have it all figured out, you learn so much from mistakes. I trained as a teacher, not in social media, so it’s proof that you can learn anything if you’re curious and willing to give it a go.

That’s it for today, really hope you enjoyed it.

Please consider sharing this newsletter with someone you think might get value from it (honestly this is the best way to support me 🙏).

See you in two weeks for more tips on how to get a little bit Better 👋