The political parties battling it out on the eve of the general election have missed an opportunity to woo voters through social media, according to StrongMail’s UK MD.
Paul Bates told CBR that politicians are unaware of the impact social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have on the younger generation of voters.
“I think the approach to social media this election has been higgledy-piggledy,” he told us. “They’ve missed the opportunity to recognise the fact that social media is hugely relevant for first time voters who have grown up with. There’s been no strategy or structure – and that’s based on ignorance. They think that it’ll do to just set up a Twitter feed or Facebook fan page and that’s the job done. But it needs thought and process.”
This is one area where UK politicians can learn from Barack Obama’s triumphant presidential campaign in the US in 2008. “He had a methodology for use of social media,” says Ryan Deutsch, VP of emerging media at StrongMail. “They got the message out there, got the masses mobilised and turned that force into money.”
Deutsch adds that Obama’s successful campaign raised around $600m, 67% of which was online. This focus on online campaigning enabled the team to concentrate on lots of small donations, which people may not have made over the phone.
Embracing social media meant that Obama’s team had 13 million email subscribers during the 2008 campaign, compared to just 3 million for John Kerry during the 2004 campaign. Obama also had around 3 million fans on Facebook, compared to John McCain’s 600,000.
Parties here in the UK have been less visible when it comes to their social media strategies. Labour’s Twitter page has 16,000 followers, the Conservatives are followed by just over 30,000 people and the Liberal Democrats have just under 20,000.
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Labour is also lagging behind on Facebook. Its page there has 37,000 fans, compared to 82,000 for both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.
It seems that the much-hyped digital election has failed to materialise, with Bates saying that despite the hype campaigning has been focused on leaflets through the door and, for the first time this election, the TV debates.
The biggest news stories involving Twitter and the election were both negative: Labour candidate Stuart MacLennan was sacked after he attacked members of his party on the site, and Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy, dubbed Labour’s Twitter tsar, revealed postal vote figures on Twitter.
The advice for business as well as politicians looking to engage with the public on social media is to not rush into things, says Deutsch. “Social media needs a seat at the table,” he says. “You need to create a strategy because the goal isn’t simply to have a page with lots of fans. You need to establish where and what channels people are using to talk about you and then engage. It’s not difficult. But it is happening and companies need to ride the wave. If you ignore it, you’ll lose.”
StrongMail is an email and social media marketing firm. Its clients include Tesco, MySpace, McAfee, Ticketmaster and Citrix Online.
