Tonight saw the relaunch of #CommsChat, Europe’s most popular communications conversation. Aside from being an interesting way to spend an hour on Monday evenings, it’s a great way to connect with comms professionals from around the globe, and best of all? It’s free!
I’ve been taking part since January, when I wrote about the original concept, and today’s relaunch includes a refreshed website, archived chats and lots more.
What is it?
CommsChat is based out of the UK and every Monday at 8pm GMT, comms professionals communicate and connect to look at all aspects of comms including PR, marketing, reputation management, social media, internal comms and all things digital. Every week there is a guest moderator and anyone who is interested in comms is welcome to join in and offer their views.
I think it’s a great way to meet like-minded comms professionals from around the world and share ideas and offer advice to each other. I find it valuable to gain insight into different areas of communications and learn something new.
How do I join in?
There are lots of ways to view the conversation and take part and the best way is via the CommsChat website as it has a built in Twitter chat facility. You can also view the hashtag #Commschat on Twitter and follow @commschat. To actively participate you need a Twitter account, although this isn’t essential to view the conversation.
You can also sign up for updates on CommsChat via the website to find out who the next moderator will be.
Cravenhill Publishing, who produce Communicate Magazine host the site and Publisher Andrew Thomas said: “There’s still more work to be done. Over the next few weeks there will be more functionality added to the site: the Twitter chat window will have more features and blogs will be tagged”.
From October there will be two #CommsChats a week, with one conversation at 8pm GMT on Mondays and one at 2pm GMT on Wednesdays. I think this makes sense to ensure as many global communicators as possible are able to find a time which suits them.
How did it start?
About a year ago Adam Vincenzini and Emily Leary started CommsChat. Adam said: “We had a simple idea – gather up enough people to stage a weekly Twitter chat about media and communications at a European-friendly time. After six months Andrew Thomas and his team stepped in to be its full-time parents”.
Why should you take part?
Here Adam shares his five reasons why you should join in…
- Free industry knowledge – Like many of you, I’ve lost count of the sheer number of industry events you can attend nowadays. Instead of putting all your eggs in one costly basket, engage with the industry professionals who take part in #CommsChat each week and exchange knowledge and opinions with them…for free!
- Understand how online communities work – There is so much talk about ‘online communities’ and the role they play within the broader social media eco-system. #CommsChat is an ‘actual’ community you can participate in and learn from, both from a passive and active perspective.
- Challenge and be challenged – Your involvement in #CommsChat can be anything you want it to be. Some people like to sit back and take it all in, while others will put radical thoughts forward and encourage debate. It is totally up to you.
- Learn new stuff – The media and communications space moves quickly and due to its format and size, so does #CommsChat. If an industry trend begins to emerge, you can chat about it as it happens, not six months later when you’re grappling with the next one.
- Meet nice people – While the PR industry in particular suffers from a poor reputation at times, the people who take part in #CommsChat are the ones setting a really good example for everyone else to follow. If you’ve just entered the UK scene or trying to get back amongst it, this is a great place to start.
So what have you got to lose? I certainly recommend checking it out. It costs an hour of your time each week (two in future) and could lead to the breakthrough you need if you’re puzzled by something comms related, or as Adam says, you could simply meet nice people, which is never a bad thing!
Have you come across something you think other comms professionals would benefit from knowing about? Do get in touch to let me know. You can comment below or email me: rach@rachmiller.com
Post author: Rachel
Thanks so much for such kind words.
I’d like to pick you up on one point, though. As of today you dont need to use tweetchat, tweetdeck or twitter. The new website has twitter chat functionality.
It was very important when planning the relaunch that we kept participants within the CommsChat site. This wasnt done for SEO or ‘stickiness’ or commercial reasons. We were constantly speaking to people who said they liked the idea of #CommsChat but found the whole process of reading about the topics or who the guest was, but found the whole process of leaving the site and going elsewhere just too complicated. We didnt want to alienate existing users, but felt it really important to do all we could to make the whole process as simple as possible to capture new ones.
I’m glad you enjoyed tonight’s conversation. Watch this space – we’re going to carry on developing the site in new and exciting ways. But most important of all, we’re hopefully going to carry on finding great guests.
Hi Andrew, good point, thank you. I will correct that sentence above so it is accurate and reflects the new way of taking part. I think the team has done a great job with the site and look forward to more conversations in future, Rachel.