Does this need a 2010 update?

The front page of The Sun on Saturday 11 April 1992 will go down in history as one of the all time greats. The newspaper’s decisive “Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights” headline on Election Day was considered by some to have tipped the balance of power and won the Conservatives an extremely close election. Eighteen years on, we are approaching an election which is likely to be just as close – but our communication habits have changed dramatically. News, comment, opinion and trends are generated in social media spheres as much as in traditional media.

Was it social media wot won it for Barack Obama? There’ll be no definitive proof, but the facts remain that as far as engaging with social media was concerned, Obama gave John McCain an absolute spanking. British parties are quickly realising that a stranglehold on the social media space could be critical if it comes down to a few fractions of per cent swing to tip the balance of power.

In this country, the major parties are all embracing social media enthusiastically. One name to mention in particular is Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone who has been driving their social media strategy for some time now – for the Lib Dems, with their traditionally younger voter base, social media could be the critical difference between success and failure. The independent bloggers are uncontrollable but powerful; the likes of Mark Reckons, Adam Bienkov, Iain Dale and above all Guido Fawkes ensure that grass roots opinions are given a wide audience.

One phenomenon that has grown in recent years has been the vigorously competitive commenting on news articles and blog posts written by the major media owners and bloggers. Take BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson – potentially the most powerful political journalist in the country – who in addition to his TV and radio commitments has a lively and active blog with a huge readership. Robinson’s blog covers all aspects of mainstream high-end party politics, but just as fascinating as the posts are the comment wars which take place on the same page. Of particular note are the Tory commentators – many of them Guido Fawkes disciples –  who have practically taken up residence on Robinson’s blog with an incessant stream of posts undermining Robinson’s impartiality, particularly if he writes a piece critical of anything Conservative – an excellent example is here.  Do these howls of outrage have any effect? Probably not on Robinson himself, who doesn’t appear to read the comments, but perhaps on the casual blog visitor who may have seeds of doubt sown into his mind as to whether Robinson is in fact a Labour stooge. There are similar “comment wars” in the Daily Mail – with both right- and left-wing activists arriving in droves to “rate” comments as good or bad (they are scored accordingly).

I would suggest that social media will make this election the nastiest yet. We’re back to the bad old days of the internet – anonymous writing, shadowy figures, alter-egos, Mr Hyde online personalities. While party HQs may not authorise spiteful smear campaigns or disinformation, they have little control over the bloggers and tweeters who can unleash vicious propaganda, spin and counterspin which could, in some cases, be enough to unseat an MP – and potentially tip the balance of the whole election. Of course, there’s nothing to say that an official party campaign couldn’t be running guerrilla social media affairs anonymously. Bet your bottom dollar that the more tech-savvy activists will be on the hunt for incriminating IP addresses though. Some of the more forthright bloggers end up in wars of words that would make Genghis Khan wince, although to my knowledge Khan’s weapon of choice was not the handbag. More controversial are subversive campaigns against particular MPs; the #kerryout campaign on Twitter, a guerrilla tactic attempting to unseat Labour loyalist MP Kerry McCarthy, was the subject of much wagging of blogger/tweeter tongues. At the time of writing, the furore has died down somewhat, although the campaign trundles on in the background (the latest contribution, from somebody calling themselves “OldHolborn”, simply says “@KerryMP Oh do fuck off you greasy pole climbing vegan mentalist #kerryout”.

But is Twitter mainstream enough yet to make much of an impact on voters? Iain Dale, one of the most powerful Conservative bloggers of all, has less than 8000 Twitter followers – not bad, enough to win an election on his own? I suspect that the truth is that, as with a commercial marketing push, a social media campaign has to look at the platforms holistically and with an integrated social media campaign in mind, rather than knee-jerk “We need Twitter activity”. There is often a natural, organic progression of content and social buzz from blogs and other web content, via Twitter, to Facebook groups and pages, and thence into mainstream channels and media with an ever-increasing and widespread audience.

Did the Tories score a social media own goal?

The outstanding example of social media generating interest in recent weeks has come from MyDavidCameron. When the Conservatives launched a print ad campaign featuring the Tory leader’s face prominently, it was leaked (or noticed) that Cameron’s face was heavily airbrushed. This led, unsurprisingly, to a fair degree of mirth from political commentators, but were it not for MyDavidCameron, a few titters and sketches in the Guardian may have been the end of it. Then graphic designer Clifford Singer spoofed the posters, created a website for his handiwork along with a slogan (“Airbrushed for Change”), and the rest is history. I personally heard about it (via a retweet) in its early days – and the social media buzz grew exponentially over the next few days. At the time of writing, MyDavidCameron has a relatively meagre 700 followers on Twitter and 1000 fans on Facebook – but that has been enough to generate countless email forwards, 90,000 unique visitors, chatter in forums of all sorts, and generate coverage in national newspapers. With the online generator  anyone can have a go and those blessed with Photoshop skills have come up with some outstanding creations (I must confess that I giggled in a puerile manner at a contribution I came across where Cameron’s head was expertly replaced with a certain male organ – to preserve people innocence, and jobs, I won’t reproduce it here). The result: the Tories’ no doubt expensive ad campaign completely undermined and next to useless – with reports that they are recruiting a Brand Manager!

Social media is unlikely to be the single biggest factor in deciding the outcome of the election this spring. But at both a local and national level, those campaigns which make best use of social media will surely maximise turnout and hook in floating voters.

Political discussion arousing strong emotions, I should probably add that although the purpose of this article is to briefly examine political social media activity from an objective standpoint, the views expressed here are my own and not of Social Media Library or Firebrand Digital.

About The Author

Eoghan O'Neill

Eoghan O’Neill is a Social Media Analyst for Social Media Library. Responsible for developing the content within Social Media Library, Eoghan spends his day darting between reading blogs and Twitter posts from around the world, and with his nose deep in spreadsheets! Prior to joining Social Media Library he worked within Arts Marketing for a leading arts trust and is a Physics graduate from Imperial College, London.

Eoghan blogs frequently at Eoghan London and is an active user of Twitter too @EoghanLondon.