Mel: When was the last time you read a comment online and felt it in your body? That knot in your stomach or that urge to fire back a reply straight away. If you manage social media for a brand, a client, or your own business, that feeling probably comes with the job. Trolls, bad faith commenters, and more and more AI bots are a part of life online.

So, how do we deal with them without losing our reputation or our sanity? My guest , today knows this better than most. On Felicity Cull's second day at Foxtel, a streaming glitch meant a new season of Game of Thrones didn't air, and she walked into 16,000 angry comments. She thought that would be her hardest day at work.

Then she led social media response to COVID-19 for the Victorian Health Department for the first 18 months of the pandemic. Felicity now helps teams manage social media and handle hostile online environments without burning out. Now, in this episode, we cover a lot, including why ignoring [00:01:00] nasty comments is a legal and reputational risk in Australia, the free moderation tools that are already built into platforms like Facebook and Instagram, when to ban, when to turn off comments, and why moderation is about calming an argument, not winning it, and how to spot bot activity.

As well as Felicity's three top tips for protecting your brand and your wellbeing at the same time. So, without further ado, let's get into it. Here's Felicity

Felicity Cull, welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter.

Felicity: Hi, Mel, how you going? Thanks for having me.

Mel: I am so excited that you're here.

Thank you for coming along today. Before we kick off, can you tell us a little bit about you? Who are you? What do you do? How did you come to develop your expertise in this space?

Felicity: Um, yeah, so my name's Felicity Cull. Um, I'm a social media and online community management, uh, strategist and consultant. Um, and as anyone in my age group, uh-

who came to-- who now works in social media, I [00:02:00] came to it in a very odd way. We all have our own kind of paths to it. Um, I was actually in academia for about a decade, um, working on audience reception. So how- Hmm ... audiences responded to popular culture. So you can probably see the throughway-

Mel: Hmm ...

Felicity: into social media and online community moderation.

Um, and then I kind of tried-- I did some SEO writing. I did all sorts of se- stuff freelance, but then I, I-- basically, every single social media job that I had, I ended up somehow being in a crisis- ... which I thought was about my personality or just an accident. And then I finally realised that's just social media, that's just what's gonna happen.

Um, so, you know, I dealt with some at La Trobe, a lot of, you know, s- a lot of panics during exam periods when I was the online community manager for La Trobe University. Um, and then I went to Foxtel, and on my second day working at Foxtel, um, there was a glitch and they didn't stream the, uh, first episode of one of the new seasons of Game of [00:03:00] Thrones.

Mel: Oh, no.

Felicity: So I walked in- Meltdown. Yeah, absolute meltdown. I walked in on my second day, and there were 16,000, uh, uh, negative comments on our posts. Um, and I didn't know where the toilets were, and I was advising the, um, CEO of what we were gonna do and w- and kind of making plans. So, uh, yeah, so I kind of cut my teeth that way and then I, uh, moved on to kind of government, which I thought was gonna be much easier.

And then two weeks after pro- being promoted to head of social, I, um... Then COVID hit. So-

Mel: You pick your timing well.

Felicity: Uh, yeah, so I t- I tend to kind of, you know, move around where there's crises and, and basically from those experiences, I've been able to help other people learn what to do in those scenarios.

Mel: Well, let's talk about that. So we'll start with the basics. When we are talking about, we often hear the words trolls and bots on social media, who or what are we referring to? 'Cause it's not always a human these days.

Felicity: No, it's not. It's, it's [00:04:00] often not a human. So in terms of, um, bots, uh, that's actually a much more complex question than you would imagine.

And that network of bad actors online, uh, it is quite complex and a lot of it is probably like a bit of a black box, and we're not 100% sure how it all works. But basically- There are for-hire AI, um, bot, kind of AI-enabled, but seriously there used to be rooms full of people doing this stuff. Mm-hmm. So I think AI's just made a model that already existed a little bit cheaper.

Um, and they can really influence an online conversation, um, even when 50% of the peop- of the actual posts are not made by people, they can genuinely- Mm ... turn a conversation around. So that's kind of the worst of the worst of what you see online.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Felicity: Um, there is also trolling I think a lot of particularly news outlets, um, in Australia use negative frameworks in their posts because [00:05:00] negative posts get a lot of, of engagement.

I call it engagement farming. Mm. Um, that happens a lot. Um, and there are definitely people who are that archetype of the troll. If I say an online troll, someone has in their head some guy in a basement with Dorito dust on underneath- ... his fingers, um, you know, who's just saying horrible things to people online all the time.

But the truth of the matter is there are those trolls, those trolls definitely exist, but there's also people who are having a really bad day.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, or they've just come from a, a post somewhere that really upset them and really kind of activated something horrible in them, and they've come to a completely benign post and kind of it's bled into it.

Um, sometimes people are trolling and saying horrible things, and it's actually a genuine question.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, you know, that, that if you are a for purpose organisation, you actually have to kind of sort through the mire to work out how are we gonna actually deal with this? [00:06:00] Because this is a real concern from an actual community member, but they're saying it in a really horrible way.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: So, I mean, that's the skill of a moderator in, in terms of it's like sometimes it's... I, I kind of look at it a bit like that old-fashioned kind of gold mining, gold mining, you know, with the, with the sieves- Pan ... in the dirt, and they're just having to shake it and shake it and shake it until, and, you know, they find the stuff that they actually need to genuinely answer.

Um, and sometimes you do get a lovely positive comment, and that's the gold, and that's about how often you get them.

Mel: So yeah, I mean, y- as you said there, you know, people are, can be very brave behind a keyboard. Mm-hmm. And there are often some very hateful comments on what might be very innocuous content as well.

It might seem like, "Why did, why did that person feel like they had to say that on there?" So first things first, how can brands make sure they're monitoring for these comments? Because I'm sure that's quite a resource intensive exercise. Why is that important to do anyway? Why, why not just ignore it?

Felicity: Yeah.

So [00:07:00] one of the things that I, uh, you know, and people are often surprised when I say this, but it, it, it's absolutely vital that organisations and individuals who run their own pages do not ignore bad comments. There is legal precedent in Australia for, uh, publishers, which means the person who owns the page, to be held legally liable for any defamatory comments.

So you definitely don't want to leave comments just without monitoring or saying anything on them. Um, in Australia, that's a really dangerous thing to do, genuinely a risky thing to do for an organisation. But also there's lots of studies that show that, um, Australians use social media to research brands that they wanna interact with, either buy from, or, you know, if they've, they're moving to a certain place, they wanna follow that council and they wanna interact with that council, and it really does damage your brand's reputation if there are all these negative comments and then nothing has been done.

Yeah. It makes people feel less trust towards that [00:08:00] brand. Um, and obviously if you're in sales, that's a massive problem, but it's a massive problem even when you just want, you need the trust of your community. Um, so there's lots of reasons not to leave it. Um- Yeah. ... and, but, but yeah, risk is, uh, definitely a big one.

Mel: Mm. So how do you monitor it? Because I imagine- Yeah ... some of those big brands and like governments for, you know, their big agencies are getting thousands of comments on each post. How do you even start to monitor?

Felicity: Yeah. So in terms of your moder- uh, moderation, there's obviously, you know, there's, there's really expensive and maybe slightly less expensive tools that organisations can get to kind of actually sort these through in streams and, and, you know, word detection and social listening and all those things.

But I actually often recommend, honestly, you need to learn the backend of each platform because there are moderation tools in the backend of each platform that you... And they're for free.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Felicity: Okay. So, um, [00:09:00] firstly, I'll, I'll just, you know, just to be specific, if you are running an organisation's social media, someone needs to be checking the social media comments a couple times a day.

So my recommendation often is, it's like, basically, don't post and run. Never post something and then go, "Okay, I'm off." Um, it needs to be factored into your week that, okay, our publish- publishing cadence is X, Y, Z, and an hour after it goes out, who's gonna be looking, you know? Um, and working that out in peacetime.

Another recommendation I have is if you are writing a post about, um, all sorts of things, whether even when you don't think they're gonna be c- um, controversial- Mm ... imagine three comments that someone might make and, and plan it with the content. Your replies to the content of the comments that might come up on socials should be part of the content planning process.

It also should be part of your weekly to-dos that social media moderation needs to be done and shared around, because some of the highest, um, levels of psychological [00:10:00] harm that can come from moderation are when someone's doing it over and over and over again with no support. Mm. Yeah. So it needs to be a shared load.

But use the tools. There is actually a quite an interesting AI moderation tool in the backend of Facebook for free. And it can, you, you can have it set up so if a profile doesn't have a picture, if it's brand new and it doesn't have any friends, um, uh, if it s- uses particular keywords, you can have a massive keyword, um, list in the backend of Facebook so that it actually, you know, if anyone says these trigger words, then that gets hidden.

Mm-hmm. You're, as a moderator, still gonna see it, but the c- the community won't see it.

Mel: Gotcha.

Felicity: Um, and it's actually set up for profanity, but you can put whatever word in there you like.

Mel: Oh, okay.

Felicity: So, um, you know, use those tools to your advantage and work out how they, how they work. Um, it's really similar on Instagram, so Meta products, um, in the backend have some pretty good tools, which is amazing 'cause [00:11:00] Meta doesn't give us a lot.

Mm. Let's, let's be honest. Uh, LinkedIn less so, but the great thing about LinkedIn is people, um, control themselves 'cause they think their boss might see it.

Mel: Yeah, that's true. Yes. Although it does amaze me when you see some of the comments from people, particularly on Facebook posts, and then you look at their profile and they've got their employer listed and everything.

Oh. You're like, "Dude."

Felicity: 100%. Um, Mel, I, I h- can tell you that every single social media job that I've ever had, I've had probably two or three screenshots from someone sending me an online argument with someone who's employed by that organisation. Yeah. So- Yeah ... be very careful with the profile information that you share.

Mel: Yes, exactly. So let's say you've got someone or a few people who are leaving rude, derogatory, or horrible comments on your social posts. What is the best way to deal with them?

Felicity: So I think the best way to deal with them, the kind of step one, it's like, it's, it's not even step one, actually, it's the step before you take a step, is to have the expectations for your [00:12:00] community very accessible to the people using your page.

Mm-hmm. So a pinned post, um, a page on your website or both of those things. Um, and regular moderation that's really obvious. So, "Hey, we don't use words like that." Or for example, if someone needs to close off the comments because a post is going, you know, absolutely, you know, just gangbusters and they can't deal with it anymore, and the moderator's going home, saying, "Comments are being turned off because moderation isn't, um, available after hours."

Mm. So making it really obvious that it's a monitored page can make a really big difference before anyone says anything bad.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, but when someone is saying something bad, I, I live by, I know lots and lots of organisations have a three strikes you're out- And if that's what they want to have, that's fine.

I personally think if someone acts badly and is genuinely abusive, uses bad language, uses a slur, um, m- [00:13:00] openly makes fun of one of your other online community members, um, these are all ban. Mm. Just ban them. Um, keep records, make sure that you've screenshot, um, everything that they've said, and keep them on a, a private file on your organisation's SharePoint, sure, because if there is, you know, any f- uh, you know, any blowback from banning someone, and s- sometimes there is- Yeah

you can say, "Well, you broke these community guidelines, so therefore you don't have access to our page."

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: So the organisation isn't shutting down any way to contact the organisation by banning someone from Facebook.

They're not. Yeah. Because there's still email, there's still phone calls, there's still of- o- often receptions. Mm. Um, so Facebook is a privilege, and if they abuse the privilege, they should be banned.

Mel: So I guess the flip side of that is when you see a brand behaving badly or perceived to be behaving badly- Mm-hmm

so if I think about the Ed Sheeran thing just recently-

Felicity: Yeah ...

Mel: and a bunch of people jump onto his profile and, [00:14:00] you know, leave comments, nasty comments on his, in his comments, I think with some brands, and I have seen case studies of this, the temptation is just to turn comments off- Yeah ... because they're trying to keep their, you know, positivity and, and a bit of a purity sense around the brand or the person.

But what that tends to then show is that, uh, that person's not open to criticism, that brand's not open to making amends or apologising if they've done something wrong. How do you advise brands in those situations where, you know, I... Like, social media can be great to help manage a crisis, but it can just as easily be the cause of a crisis too.

Felicity: Or the cause of a crisis, yes.

Mel: Yeah.

Felicity: Um, I think that is, that is actually a, a really complex question, and it's, it's a little, uh, it's a little bit kind of, uh, nuanced in terms of which advice I'd give, and I, I always hesitate to give blanket advice.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Felicity: Because, and I'll tell you, the, the two things that always are, are a bit of a push and pull for me in terms of turning off comments is [00:15:00] turning off comments can attract extra commentary that is negative- Mm

and that can be a bad thing. But the more you feed the fire, every single negative comment and every single bit of content that you give someone when there is a social media pile on is another bit of kindling on the fire.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: So an apology is kindling on the fire. Um, you know, t- and a, a reply to individual comments is kindling on the fire, and you just keep giving people, particularly on TikTok- Mm

more material to make more content, and that's just gonna make the fire bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So it depends whether you think turning off the comment is kindling or turning off the comment is like closing off air to the fire.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: And I think it can be a bit of both, and sometimes you're like, okay, if we turn off comments, A, that's really psychologically good for our moderators.[00:16:00]

They are done. Yeah. They, they can't keep going with this. We've already said our piece. Um, is, is it okay that the last piece of content that we give this fire is they've turned off the comments? Is it o- is that okay? Maybe it is okay. Maybe we can handle that until we can ride our way through this crisis.

Mel: Hmm.

Felicity: Um, so it can be ch- really tricky because, you know, you d- particularly when there is a lot of noise around an issue of are you turning... Are you kind of tamping down protest, which obviously is not a good look for everything. Um, but it, it is important to protect your moderators, and it's also important to realise that every single reply is, could be another TikTok.

Mel: Mm. Yep, very true. Yeah, it's a bit of a balancing act, isn't it? And, uh-

Felicity: Mm ...

Mel: yeah, nobody's got a crystal ball, unfortunately. So-

Felicity: No ...

Mel: um, you know, [00:17:00] sometimes I, I've seen just recently there's been a couple of brands who have put ads out. The ads have been accused of being racist or misogynist or whatever. Um, that's, you know, it doesn't...

Yes, they've removed the, the image from Facebook, whatever. The screenshot's done. It's out there. It's out there. It's, you know, so it is totally out of the control by that point anyway. Um, but it is, it is, I think, yeah, that bit of a, well, how far do you go? And- Mm ... it is a crystal ball. I don't know. We don't know how people are going to react necessarily, as much as we think we do.

Felicity: Yeah. And, and it is... I mean, I, I... There's definitely things that I advise brands to do in crises. Um, turning off comments is usually not the first thing. Mm-hmm. It's more like a, look, we just have to, we're just gonna have to ride this wave and let's just stop it here. Um, I would say you probably should, n- no more posting.

You are- Yeah ... cor- no more posting. It a- it has to, the publishing cadence has to stop here. Um, if you have [00:18:00] spokespeople who have personal accounts that are linked to your organisation, they can't be posting either, and they can't be personally replying to anything. Mm-hmm. They need to be completely away from the brand.

Um- It's almost like, it's almost like gray rocking. Yeah. It's like how can I be less interesting? How can I be less interesting to these people? Yeah. It's not about winning the argument, 'cause moderation is never about winning the argument. Mm-hmm. Moderation is about diffusing the argument until it dies down.

Mel: People move on to something else. Exactly. Speaking of which, so there's a lot of content out there that we now know is misinformation, disinformation. We also know that a lot of that, like you were saying earlier, is being spread by these AI bots. Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, interference with elections is, is probably one of the big signs of it, but we also see signs of it on, um, social media platforms.

I mean, the amount of bot comments on LinkedIn posts alone.

Felicity: Yeah.

Mel: But what are some of the signs that something has [00:19:00] been posted by an AI bot? Whether as a comment or as a post in itself, what are some of the cues we can pick up?

Felicity: Um, bots, I, I have a suspicion that AI is going to make this a lot harder.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, but in my experience over the last couple of years, I would say bots use scripts- Mm ... and they usually only have four to five, which is why I'm saying that AI make, might make that a bit harder. Yeah. But they usually have scripts. Um, uh, during, um, COVID we could pick up those bots pretty quickly. Um, uh, and I know that other organisations that have had similar, they went, "Oh, okay, so they're all saying this."

Mm. And then as I said before, you can hide those keywords Um, it's also about doing a bit of digging in their profile. So you'll find most social media managers will be incredibly good at finding who the people actually are, and it's so easy to find out who people are from their profiles. If it's not, it's probably a bot.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: So it's because it's not a real person. Um, [00:20:00] so it's really about profile integrity and the fact that they use scripts because that's what they're wanting to do. They're wanting to make particular keywords be repeated so many times that it impacts algorithms.

Mel: Yeah.

Felicity: So they don't want to diversify their message too much because that's not gonna actually have the impact that they want it to have.

And once you know their script, you can at least keep it off your page. The sad thing is you can't keep it off every page.

Mel: No.

Felicity: So... And that's the tide that we're all fighting against. Um, social media managers for sure are, are kind of on the front lines, but realistically, anyone who doesn't want misinformation to be about everywhere is...

Everyone's fighting against that.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, which is why I often say, um, you'd probably think that I would say to people, "Hey, don't ever con- comment on social media or on anything." And I actually say, "Please, if you know th- things, please share information that you know is factual-

Mel: Mm ...

Felicity: all over the internet whenever you can."

Yeah,

Mel: yeah. And whether people listen to it or not is a whole other question, but-

Felicity: Yeah ... [00:21:00]

Mel: we're playing your little part and, um- Yes ... I actu- and I think you're right, AI is becoming a lot more sophisticated in- Mm ... how it presents. So I just had something just in the last couple weeks, actually. A person connected with me on LinkedIn.

They were from ch- some change institute management, that's what they said, um, invited me to apply for something, and I was like, this... There was just something about it.

Felicity: Mm-hmm.

Mel: It didn't feel quite, didn't feel quite right. Um, so I, you know, looked at the profile and they had a full-on LinkedIn profile and photo and went to the website, and the website looked legit.

I mean, it was all stock imagery, that was the thing, and there was nothing that really told me where are you based, where, where is this company actually based and, and that sort of stuff. So I actually used AI. I asked Claude, I was like, "Can you tell me whether or not this is a legitimate person and a legitimate business?"

Felicity: Mm.

Mel: And it came back with some really good stuff like, "Well, I've looked at this and I can't find them on here or here or here." Um, so in my mind, there's also a place for AI to help us be the- Yeah ... tool to detect the AI.

Felicity: Yes.

Mel: If that makes [00:22:00] sense. Yeah.

Felicity: Yes. Um, and like as I said before, that's, that Meta have definitely done that.

Like they have- Mm ... given you a, like a, an AI assistant to help you in moderation. Um, so I... And I think there are lots of tools. There's tools like Hootsuite, there's Meltwater, there's all sorts of management tools and I, what I really hope is that AI- In those tools keeps up with the AI and the tools for the, for the bots.

Mel: Yeah. Yeah. So one last question for the formal part of today's proceedings. Mm-hmm. For people who are listening who are managing social media channels, so it might be for their own small business, it could be for their clients or, you know, their working house, what are the three top tips you'd give them for dealing with the keyboard warriors so they can protect their brand and reputation?

Felicity: So number one is, um, imagine your social media is your lounge room. Okay? So it's not your bedroom, it's not an intimate space, but it's a space where you're inviting people in, and if they put [00:23:00] their dirty feet on your couch or spill a glass of wine, you're probably like, "Hey, hey, I think it's probably time for you to go."

Yeah. And I... And if you think about it in terms of like, this is my space where I'm sharing my information with people who are invited guests, and I really want to invite you in, but I don't have to keep bad actors around.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, and keeping that mindset because I have wo- definitely worked with brands and organisations that are, like, really, are, are getting hit hard by trolling and nastiness, and they're really scared to, to put boundaries up.

Yeah. Um, and one of the things that I really try to get in, in people's brains is, like, it's completely okay for you to eject people.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: And that's fine. Um, the other thing is, is that every single org- um, every single platform gives you the ability to protect your time and to protect your peace. So all you need to do is tell people what the, what, when, [00:24:00] when you're gonna be there, when you're gonna answer, when you're not gonna be able to answer.

Um, have automatic replies set up in all of your, on all of your, um, uh, platforms, so that when people reach out, they know when you're gonna get back to them. And that means that you're not checking 24/7.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Because checking 24/7 is when you can get burnt out, you can, you start getting anxious about it, and which leads me onto my third, um, point, which is, uh, not just your brain reads a comment, your body reads a comment.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: And when you read a comment and your body is activated, you feel funny in the tummy, or you, you, you angry and you're kind of feeling a surge kind of in your body, that's when you don't answer.

Mel: Yeah.

Felicity: That's when you maybe draft a reply somewhere else and have someone, if, you know, if you're a small business, ask your partner or ask your best friend, "Hey, what do you think about this?

Is this an okay reply?" Mm. Um, if you are in an or- organisation and [00:25:00] you're employed in, in the social media team, then instead what you should do is, is, is say, flick it to someone in Teams, "Is this reply okay?" Or flick it to ChatGPT and say, "Can you take the emotion out of this reply and make it really polite?"

Yeah. Um, but it, you know, it's okay to kind of go, "Actually, this, uh, this comment's really upset me-

Mel: Mm ...

Felicity: and I'm gonna, I am, like, literally gonna touch grass."

Mel: Go and make a cup of tea. Um-

Felicity: Yeah. Exactly. It's okay. It can, it can wait two hours for someone else to read this reply for me.

Mel: That's it.

Felicity: Um, use a buddy system.

Yeah. Um, you don't have to, uh, if you are feeling it in your body, you should know that you're feeling it in your body, and that's not when you reply.

Mel: And honestly, that advice applies to reading emails at work as well.

Felicity: 100%.

Mel: Just walk away- 100% ... take a breath.

Felicity: Yeah.

Mel: Yeah.

Felicity: And, and, uh, it's one... So I actually read this, there's a study, um, by a neurology professor where they've shown that, um, when you read something [00:26:00] online, it actually activates the same part of your brain that deals with melody.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Now, what that actually means is that if someone's feeling angry, they can read your completely benign comment as if you are having a go at them. So their emotions are gonna impact how they read your content, but that works on you too. Sometimes it could actually not be as nasty a comment as you think- Mm

but you've read seven nasty comments about this and it's upsetting you. Yeah. Um, so you just always, uh, need to remember that emotions impact how we deal with people online, and-

Mel: 100% ...

Felicity: give yourself a break.

Mel: Yeah. And certain things don't translate well in the written word. You know, somebody could be being sarcastic or maybe- Mm

they're just quite straightforward, but it comes across as rude. We, you know, we're not there to hear the tone of voice, so it's- Exactly ... it's can be very challenging. Mm. Um, I actually lied because I do have one more question, but it came to mind- ... when you were talking about being glued to our screens and monitoring 24/7.

I have to ask you, what are your thoughts about the under 16 ban for social media in [00:27:00] Australia?

Felicity: Um, I, um, have really- Diverse opinions about it. Um, I was disappointed at the time when they brought it in because I could-- I follow a lot of academics who work in, in the space of, of kind of looking at how online environments impact people, and I didn't feel there was a whole lot of consulting with them.

Mel: Mm. Mm.

Felicity: Um, and I always think my red flags always go up when I feel like the ex- when the experts are saying, "Hey, we didn't get consulted about this." Um, having said that, um, I have a lot of girlfriends who... and, and, and friends who are parents, you know, and they were thrilled.

Mel: Yeah.

Felicity: Um, and I can feel-- and I think, well, i- honestly, if they're that thrilled about it, then maybe we really do need to kind of intervene here.

Mm. Maybe-- and maybe this is just a pause- Mm ... while we work out how best to educate young kids about how-- what the online environment is gonna be like, um- Mm ... and, you know, in a kid-friendly way. [00:28:00] Um, I do always share the story, though, that I really deeply remember. I, I believe, um, she was an Ariana Grande fan, and her mum took all her devices away, and she worked out how to keep tweeting about Ariana Grande via her Samsung Smart Fridge.

Mel: Oh, wow. So

Felicity: I do think kids always find a way.

Mel: Yes, exactly. Well, look, young people I know of who are in my family, they've gotten around it. Yep. They're still on TikTok. They're still on Instagram. Yep.

Felicity: Yeah.

Mel: So- Um, there was always a way, so.

Felicity: Yeah. Uh, so, so I feel, I, I do think that it's one of those things that we're probably not gonna know for another five years.

Mm. But, you know, I, I do, um... I, I mean, one of the things that I tell people all the time is, like, some people's trolls are 10 years old.

Mel: Yeah.

Felicity: Um- Yeah ... so maybe... I, I don't think it's a, I don't think it's inherently bad. I don't think it's inherently good. Mm-hmm. I'm hoping that it has the impact that I know the intention- Yes

of the policy had. Yeah. Um, I'm just not sure it will.

Mel: Yeah. [00:29:00] Well, it'll be interesting to see, as you say, like a, a longer, bit of a longitudinal study. Maybe in a few years we'll be able to really get more of a feel for the impact. So- Yeah ... thank you for sharing that. I know I threw that at you at left of field.

Felicity: I know.

Mel: Now, there's three questions we ask every guest on the podcast. You ready for those?

Felicity: Yes.

Mel: Let's do it. So what is an unexpected or left-of-field way you learned a valuable lesson about communication, and what was it?

Felicity: Um, I was thinking about this this morning. Actually, genuinely, so-

I don't know if it was necessar- necessarily unexpected, but cons- uh, quite honestly, COVID was, and having to deal- Mm ... with COVID was incredibly unexpected. Um, and one of the lessons that I learnt, um, uh, when we... So obviously you're, you're from Queensland, but everyone Victorian who, um, listens to this will know the tweet that I'm talking about.

We used to share the n- the COVID numbers in the morning.

Mel: Oh, [00:30:00] yeah.

Felicity: So, uh, that came to us really g- from the epidemiologist. The report would kind of land in our, in our inboxes, and we had about 10 minutes to create the content around it and get it approved and get it published. Um, which was an incredibly difficult thing to do because then- Mm

we would get abuse for kind of hours afterwards. Yeah. Um, and one of the things that I learnt from heading up a team that were doing something that hard was ha- that building team resilience was something completely different than I thought it was. I thought it was, like, making sure that helping, like, improving people all the time, and making sure that they were aware of what they were good at and what they could improve and blah, blah, blah, and I kind of learnt to be a lot more gentle in my communications- Mm

with my team. It's like if you are doing something that is that hard, actually do you need the, that feedback today? You probably don't.

Mel: Yeah, I think that's a great lesson.

Felicity: You probably don't. Yeah.

So it was, it, like, I think it, it taught me it was so [00:31:00] tough that it taught me to be more gentle.

Mel: That's awesome.

Yeah, great lesson. Uh, second question, what is a book or podcast you love and would recommend to our listeners?

Felicity: Um, well, I actually really liked Change Is Hard by Mel Loy. That was very good. Um, uh, it's... And honestly, I mean, I actually think it's really important for people who are in social media to listen to an incredibly wide variety of podcasts and-

Mel: Mm

Felicity: follow an incredibly wide variety of social media people and people doing weird stuff. Like, you can follow, like, thousands of people who are like, "This is how you should do your social media, and this is the reel that you should be making," and, and it's, like, actually, you should be l- following historians and scientists and your local council and all sorts of people who are doing things in really strange ways, um, for, because you never know when you'll pick up something.

So just, like, I- Mm ... [00:32:00] I cannot tell you how many... I li- I follow so many weird- ... w- really weird niche creators, um, because you never know when you're gonna pick up a different way to approach things.

Mel: Love that. Yeah.

Felicity: Yeah.

Mel: And I'm a big fan of diversity as well. Like, I- Mm-hmm ... there's things that I, I listen to to learn, and others just 'cause I enjoy it.

It's like-

Felicity: Yeah ...

Mel: you know?

Felicity: 100%. Yeah.

Mel: Last one: If you could wave your magic wand and change one thing about communication at work, what would it be?

Felicity: I wish that... I remember saying to someone in my social media team, like eight years ago, like, "Oh look, in a couple of years it's gonna be so different. Like, everything- Yeah

in social media is gonna be so different 'cause w- people are gonna take s- it so much more seriously, and we're gonna have more resourcing, and we're gonna have all of this." And, and it's eight years later and I actually kind of think that I've, I see more solo social media teams.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: Um, I wish that [00:33:00] there were more leaders who would look at the ROI of organic social in genuine terms.

Like, the amount of times that I, uh, have to explain, organic social does this for you, or, you know, organic social, um, actually proves to you to, you know, show, shows trust, it builds your reputation, it shows you how friendly an organisation is. It, um, allows people to approach you in a way that they're really literate.

You know, you are, um, in their everyday conversations if you're in their organic socials.

Mel: Mm.

Felicity: I wish that those principles were better understood and believed. Um, there are way too many social media teams, um, who are one person who's making videos, and doing copy, and publishing, and moderating, and, you know, doing all sorts of things that realistically probably three or four people should be doing.

Mel: Yeah. Yeah. I'm seeing that a lot more across comms roles in general. Um- Yeah ... [00:34:00] fewer roles, but they're being asked to do a lot more for less pay.

Felicity: Yeah.

Mel: Uh, and y- that just leads to high turnover at the end of the day- Yeah ... 'cause who's gonna stick around for that burnout, and- Yeah ... that lack of value. Yeah.

Well, on that note, let's end on a more positive note. Felicity, if people wanna find out more about you and learn from you, what's the best place for them to get in touch?

Felicity: Um, yeah, so I am actually incredibly prolific on LinkedIn. I, I post there all the time, which I never thought that I would say five years ago- but I actually really enjoy it.

Mel: Me too.

Felicity: Um, so, I, yeah. So I'm Felicity Cull on LinkedIn. I also have a Substack, Substack, same name, um, which I'm kind of getting used to posting on. I generally kind of do kind of think pieces about the value of social media, which I deeply believe in, because I think that social media can be so useful.

Um, but yeah, so that's, that... Basically, I'm Felicity Cull everywhere. There is actually another Felicity Cull, but she's a lawyer, so you'll be able to- Ah,

Mel: okay. Look, she should come in handy with social media. Yes. Exactly. Who knows? Yeah.

Felicity: [00:35:00] Yeah.

Mel: Well, Felicity, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.

Felicity: No worries. Thanks for having me, Mel. It was really great.