Digital communication
Introduction
The fast pace of technological innovation is profoundly changing our world and opening up new opportunities for how we can deliver world-leading public communications. Digital communication is at the heart of this rapid evolution, reflected by the creation of Digital as a standalone discipline in the GCS Strategy 2022-25.
This Government Communication Service (GCS) Digital Discipline Operating Model has been published to provide digital teams working across government with the best practice guidance needed to structure and develop our teams, build digital and content creation skills, and embrace innovation. It contains detailed ‘how to guides’ to help you plan, implement and measure your digital communications, working within the Modern Communications Operating Model (MCOM).
Our ambition is for a world-leading digital and content capability that can support two-way communication with the public. As the media landscape continues to fragment, digital communications give us new opportunities to implement increasingly rapid cycles of listening, measuring, evaluating, and quickly adapting to what works best.
Digital communications offer us the ability to connect directly and speak with the public on the issues and areas of interest they care most deeply about. Owned digital channels offer a unique opportunity to curate a programme of content, with real-time data to measure responses, and to build audiences around the pillars we want HMG and our departments to be known for.
Our owned digital channels need to be respected and protected to allow us to:
- Grow the audiences we need to reach, not just journalists, politicians and those with a professional interest in government.
- Engage an audience with a curated, ‘editorial’ content calendar that goes above and beyond the daily grid, and has a clear value exchange (informative, interesting, useful, helpful) for the public.
The Heads of Digital Network provides support to those working within the GCS Digital discipline, and aims to share best practice, build capability and increase collaboration. All Heads of Digital should join and play an active part in the HoDs Network. For further information please contact Ed Bearryman, Head of Discipline Digital, on gcs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
In this Digital Discipline Operating Model:
- Working with No10
- Mission, strategy and principles
- Digital team design
- Building digital capability and skills
- Propriety
- Managing risk – SAFE
- Data handling
- Accessibility
- Planning and delivery
- Content pillars
- Evaluation
- Five key principles…
Ways of working with the No10 Digital Hub
This section is available for Core Members only on GCS Connect. To access Ways of working with the No10 Digital Hub, please log into your GCS Connect account.
GCS Digital discipline: our mission, strategy and principles
Our mission is to enable the UK Government to connect and communicate with the British people, delivering key information, access to services and a clear route through its digital ecosystem. We want to help to make HM Government relevant to every British citizen through authentic, reliable storytelling; understandable, trusted information; valued assistance and services; and support during crises.
As a digital profession we operate under four guiding principles:
- Audience-first – think about the people we’re trying to reach before we start to plan and create content, incorporating your organisation’s segmentation work.
- Platform-specific – make sure we flex our creative and publishing to suit the channels we are publishing to and what the audience expects on those channels.
- Digital integration – integrating GOV.UK, press and external affairs into our comms planning and publishing so that we are not trying to make social fulfil all of our objectives.
- Creative innovation – continuing to introduce and refresh new formats, work with influencers and partners, to ensure our messaging cuts through.
Digital team design principles
Digital teams should include generalist digital experts with a deep understanding of the digital channel management, platform publishing and content formats required to grow and engage audiences, as well as specialists in the fields of digital content creation and data analytics.
There are four core functions of a modern digital communications team around which your digital team should be structured:
- Digital Strategy & Leadership
- Data and Insight analysis
- Technical content creation split into specialisms
- Graphic design and animation
- Videography
- Photography
- Copywriting, editing, channel management and strategic platform publishing
- Including all digital channels
There are six key jobs which should be done by digital comms:
- Connect what matters to the public with the work of HMG – make it relevant
- Translate into plain English HMG plans and policies for the public – improve understanding
- Show the tangible effect of policy through delivery – awareness of action
- Make the public aware of how HMG can support – assist and help
- Deliver timely, rigorously factual, useful information – provide trusted utility
- Facilitate seamless user journeys across UKG digital touchpoints – ease friction
Team structure recommendation
Below is an organisational structure and indicative grades which we encourage departments to adopt for your modern digital team. Volumes will vary depending on strategic need but we recommend appropriate cover for the four functions outlined above.
| SCS1/G6 | Head/DD of Digital | ||
| G6/G7 | Head of Audience | Head of Digital | Head of Content |
| SIOs | Senior Data Analysts Senior Audience Managers | Senior Channel Managers Managing Editors (gov.uk) | Senior Photographers Senior Videographers Senior Designers |
| IOs | Data Analysts Audience Managers | Channel Managers Online Editors (gov.uk) | Videographers Designers Photographers |
There are some key considerations to note when designing your digital team:
- We recommend a much more thorough integration of GOV.UK publishing in the digital comms mix, whether that be with formal roles within digital teams or a clearer dotted line from digital teams to gov.uk publishing teams.
- Digital comms teams should be responsible for the entire end-to-end digital user journey. Likewise the audience function should have close links and integrated ways of working with existing Insight and Evaluation teams, with overlapping audience and data objectives.
- Digital teams require stronger governance around brief management because of the long lead time and hours required to produce high quality digital comms.
- A specific role or process as to who signs off briefs into digital teams should be implemented and delivered at a departmental level.
Building digital capability & skills
Digital content creation is a specialist practice. The skills needed to develop great content include story planning, content creation, editing and post-production, search engine optimisation, content promotion and data analytics.
Guidance on the capabilities and skills that Digital communicators are expected to demonstrate will be included in the updated Career Framework being published in Autumn 2023. The framework will have a new section for Digital, outlining the general skills that everyone working within the discipline needs, such as strategic campaigns, proactive and reactive engagement and crisis communication, along with expectations on specialist digital skills. As digital communicators move through their careers they will develop expert skills in areas such as developing visual content, animation, graphic design, publishing, data visualisation, CRM, HTML, photography and front end web development.
It is important to flag that mindset is as important as skillset, and all communicators should maintain a broad awareness of the latest technological advances, an understanding of the implications for government of current communications trends, and active consideration of emerging opportunities for innovation.
Propriety in digital and social media
All those working in government communications, and specifically in the digital discipline, must follow guidance on propriety in digital and social media. Civil servants must adhere to the Civil Service Code online as much as offline. Please refer to the Propriety in digital and social media section of the GCS website for further details.
It is important to note that departmental digital teams exist to engage the public where they are in the most efficient way possible. Often this will involve publishing content via ministerial channels but departmental digital teams should not be considered as in-house content teams for Secretaries of State.
HMG digital teams are responsible for managing departmental social media accounts. Ministerial accounts are managed by the Minister’s political team with departmental policy content and copy drafted and posted on these channels by HMG digital teams, in conjunction with political colleagues.
Managing risk – SAFE Framework
The SAFE Framework sets the standard for digital brand safety in HM Government advertising, following the four principles: safety and suitability, ads context, freedom of speech and ethics and enforcement.
Directors and Heads of Communication must ensure that Campaign Team leads are using the SAFE Framework to assess digital environments and adopt a risk-based approach. Using this framework will help GCS to demonstrate responsible use of taxpayers’ money and ensure the UKG brand is protected. Full guidance on the SAFE Framework and how to complete a SAFE assessment is available here:
Completing a SAFE assessment form
Data handling & data protection
As outlined in MCOM 3.0, guidance on ensuring compliance with GDPR when building campaign platforms must be consulted – GCS website development GDPR guidance.
Departments must adopt a ‘Least Data by Default’ approach when using programmatic real-time bidding advertising (RTB) to deliver digital media. This guidance provides the practical steps departments must take to ensure complaint use of RTB – Compliant use of Programmatic Real-Time-Bidding
Facebook-related privacy notices and cookie banners guidance must be followed by those who work on and deliver government campaigns that use Facebook’s advertising products and involve sharing data with Facebook.
Accessibility
Public sector organisations have a legal duty to make websites and mobile apps accessible; you must understand what this means for your social media campaigns, digital and website content.
Refer to our guidance – Accessible communications – for further detail.
Planning and delivering digital communications
- Be clear about desired aims and outcomes by setting SMART objectives: your objectives should be clear to all the team, making sure everyone knows what they are working to and how they can achieve this. All communications objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). Before any communications plan, set out key objectives in this order and make sure to complete all points.
- Start every campaign or comms plan with key insights on your policy, your audiences and your desired outcomes. Who is the announcement aimed at? Do you need to change or influence their attitudes and behaviours to help you achieve your objectives? What are the barriers to change that your campaign can help to address? What is the distinct role of digital in this?
- Build an understanding of both the offline and online environment surrounding your campaign. This will help you frame the messaging to reach the audiences you want to reach and avoid any potential negative reaction.
- Understanding your audience is critical to an effective campaign. It is important that we use insight to create a full picture of who they are and how they will reach the desired outcome.
- Be audience-led: frame your insights as much as you can on your audiences:
- Who they are, where and how do they engage with content, what type of messaging do they engage with most?
- Go to where your audiences are: what language or people are they most likely to engage with and understand? What platforms do they use and how?
- Ask yourself key questions and understand as much as you can how different audiences receive and consume different information.
- Consider media consumption, sentiment on specific policies, pages engaged with and different ways of using different social media.
- KPI setting: as part of your objectives, and part of ensuring they are specific and measurable, make sure to establish realistic KPIs (key performance indicators). These should be based on knowledge of the topic or policy you’re addressing (if it’s something that regularly garners high engagement, for example) and previous performance on your channels.
- Strategy and idea: Use the insights to set out your approach, considering proposition/messaging; digital channels and digital partners/influencers. How do the digital elements sit within the wider campaign?
- Map the audience’s journey and design communications relevant to different stages of the journey. Where possible test or pilot your approach to assess its effectiveness.
- Roles & Responsibilities: once you’ve set out your objectives, set out clearly who and how each member of the team is responsible for each objective. If a key objective is video views, for example, establish key responsibilities within the team responsible for this, relying on their knowledge and expertise to best achieve this.
- Tagging: establish a clear taxonomy early on to tag your content as it goes out and after the event. This will make it easier to both evaluate your content in the short term and track any long-term trends with your pages.
- Monitor in real-time: during the planning process and the launch of your comms campaign, ensure you are monitoring constant feedback from audiences on your policy – during the planning process this will help inform your messaging, and after the launch close monitoring can help quickly address any gaps in your comms that need addressing.
- Reporting: establish both regular reporting for content from your team on, at least, a bi-weekly basis (preferably weekly) and produce ad-hoc reports when working on big campaigns or announcements. Reporting must be learning-led: establish key facts about performance, comparing where possible to similar events, but lead with any key insight that can help you improve your team’s performance further.
- Wash-up fast. In line with real-time monitoring, establish quick turnarounds for lessons learned. This is useful both to amend any gaps or mistakes rapidly, but also helps settle in any learnings while content is recent to those who have worked on them.
Content pillars
The following five content pillars are recommended to bring structure and order:
- Brand & team: HMG, its plans, policy and tangible delivery
- News & information: daily news agenda/grid
- Inspire & Encourage: get involved, change behaviour
- Help & Services: find answers, solve problems, access assistance
- Tasks & Tools: do it easily, intuitively, digitally.
Evaluation – a measurement framework for digital campaigns
| Objective | KPI |
| Reach & awareness | Opportunity to see/hear Impressions Unique reach Video views |
| Growth & engagement | Engagement rate Shares Comments Follower increase |
| Participation | Clicks Sign-ups Usage |
| Approval | Likes per impression Likes per engagement Sentiment Emotion |
The Evaluation Framework 2.0 provides guidance for major paid-for campaigns and other communication activities, including:
- Setting baselines and measurable criteria to demonstrate change
- Defining outtakes and outcomes
- Factoring in causal links.
A new digital tool for planning and evaluating comms activities is in development and will be launched in Autumn 2023. This section will be updated to reflect this new guidance and what KPIs Directors and Heads of Communication should use to effectively evaluate the impact of digital content. In addition, stronger standards relating to digital will be included in the updated Evaluation Framework 3.0.
Key principles for creating and delivering content
1. Start every campaign or comms plan with key insights on both your policy and your desired outcomes. Having an understanding of both the offline and online environment surrounding your campaign will help you both frame the messaging to reach the audiences you want to reach and avoid any potential negative reaction.
2. Be audience-led. Try and frame your insights as much as you can on your audiences: who they are, where and how do they engage with content, what type of messaging do they engage with most? What language or people are they most likely to engage with and understand? What platforms do they use and how? Ask yourself key questions and understand as much as you can how different audiences receive and consume different information.
3. Set SMART Objectives. All communications objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Before any communications plan, set out key objectives in this order and making sure to complete all points.
4. Monitor in real-time. During the planning process and the launch of your comms campaign, ensure you are monitoring constant feedback from audiences on your policy – during the planning process this will help inform your messaging, and after the launch close monitoring can help quickly address any gaps in your comms that need addressing.
5. Wash-up fast. In line with real-time monitoring, establish quick turnarounds for lessons learned & share widely. This is useful both to amend any gaps or mistakes rapidly, but also helps settle in any learnings while content is recent to those who have worked on them.
1. Sell the content (again & again): wherever you are pointing your audiences’ attention, your social post is your chance to get attention for the content you are promoting. Where appropriate be creative with your copy, layout and tone to draw people in and push them where you want to. Think carefully about your first line. Test and learn with new formats and rinse and repeat with what works.
2.Speak like your audience in platform: We need to translate the work of government into language that is easy to understand. That means clear, concise and free of policy/government jargon. All the platforms are different and should be treated with equal care. Do not copy & paste copy and think about departmental vs. SoS tone of voice. Think about the audience you are talking to, what they’re looking for and how to tailor your approach accordingly.
3. Keep conscious of the bigger picture: Timing and tone is everything when it comes to the performance of content. Publishing content at an inappropriate time or without reference to the day’s news could have a negative, potentially reputational impact on how your campaign or announcement is seen. Always check the wider picture before publishing, anticipate risk carefully and where necessary adapt content to ensure it strikes an appropriate tone.
4. Know the outcome you’re aiming for: How can we know if we’ve succeeded if we don’t know what we’re aiming for. Is it reach, engagement, click-throughs? Be clear with yourself before you post so you are laser-focused on the outcome you want to achieve.
5. Timely, accurate, but disruptive: 2nd place is last place in social. We have access to incredible exclusive content and breaking the story is fundamental to effective digital. Plans worked on ahead of time with policy and copy cleared in advance that can be issued in sync with media lines improves content performance. Disruptive when appropriate.
1. Manage the message: It’s crucial that our communications are short and easy to understand. The key takeaway needs to be legible, without policy jargon, and immediately demand attention.
2.Keep it simple and digestible: Always draw the eye to the most important part of the design, avoid competing elements. Ensure text-based design has a clear hierarchy of information, i.e. headline and body text, that is complemented by font choice, weighting and size.
3.Repeat recognisable brand assets:Recognisable brand assets (typography, colour, layouts etc) help to build reputation & recall. Be consistent on specific messages, deliver repeatable formats. Consider what makes your department’s visual identity unique and leverage that.
4.ABC – Always Be Creative: don’t just fall back on static graphics, every announcement should include some disruptive executions to stop the scroll. But remember: creative doesn’t = controversial.
5.Do your research: Allow yourself the time to research different styles and visual references and consider what’s best for your project. The best creative normally doesn’t come from a blank page, but from finding inspiration, knowing the landscape, and developing ideas over time.
1. Lights, Framing, Audio: Never forget the three foundations of good video – a well lit, framed and mic’d subject without intrusive background noise is the key to strong, engaging video.
2. Vertical is the future: Beautiful, landscape hero videos have their place but shooting for your audiences’ screen is crucial. You wouldn’t expect to see vertical video at the cinema. The format dictates the content.
3. Timing is everything. You have 0.5 seconds to cut through the first frame of your video is more important than anything else that follows. You have to make an impact and stop the viewer here so your strongest, most impactful visual should go here. Once you’ve got them, you have about 45 seconds before they’re bored and move on. There’s no point packing your video with information if no-one is going to watch it.
4. What is your concept?: The time for ‘shooting a visit with a PTC’ is over. Audiences need a concept to engage them and hold their attention. Before you start any video project, answer the simple question: why would anyone outside of government want to watch this video? And then block out that idea in advance with a shot list and visual research.
5. Phones for you: Likewise tune into what your audience is used to seeing on the platform and consider when shooting with smartphones, Go Pros, 360 cameras or other tools is preferable to deliver your message.
1. Shutter speed, aperture: In ideal setting, you should be aiming for 500th/second & upwards for moving subjects. On aperture, your subject should be front of mind and your depth of field should reflect this. ISO control is essential so ensure this is set at the right level to control your shutter speed & aperture.
2. We have a front seat to history, let’s document it: We should be seeking to get the behind-the-scenes shots that the media doesn’t have access to. Lean into it. Feel empowered and prepped to capture the best shots to tell the story.
3. Platform focused: A front page is hugely powerful coverage but we have to consider all the digital opportunities both on our owned channels and those of digital media – square cropping, verticals for IG Stories. Ensure that photography on each platform clearly follows a similar style that all posts adhere to.
4. Composition is everything: Think about the rule of thirds, leading lines, and symmetry. Consider what you are trying to tell the audience with the picture, achieve a clear focal point, and try to avoid any elements that are distracting.
5. Edit with care: Enhance your photos using editing tools to adjust and heighten exposure, contrast, and colours. But be cautious not to overdo it. We need to ensure we maintain trust that our photographs are not manipulated, nor should it detract from the story it is telling.
- Image credit:
- Shutterstock/Visual Generation (1)