Vote with your feet or your fingers?
Recent reports suggest that the Labour Party is struggling to match the Conservatives electoral campaign budget and could even face bankruptcy if costs are not managed carefully. They do, however, still have access to £8m; but that’s not an awful lot when you consider the scale of their target communities.
Conveniently leaving aside for now the more profound question as to what extent the decision as to who runs the country on our behalf has now become a purely commercial process, this potential challenge, as it is being portrayed, could create a real opportunity for Labour.
While there is no doubt that traditional elements of marketing campaigns (and let’s face it that’s what an election is and always has been) such as big outdoor advertising budgets can still have an impact, there is also no doubting the fundamental shift between brand and consumer that the digital era has already effected.
Brands are having to learn fast how to engage with their communities in very different and often very challenging environments. The principles and the rules have changed. Smart companies already know this and they’re prepared to listen and learn and adapt their behaviour. The rewards are also big, no-one will pretend that brands are acting out of anything other than commercial self-interest at the very end of the day.
One of the many big lessons currently being learned is that the economics are different when it comes to social media. The past 12 months have seen a huge rise in the use of digital communications by a wide range of companies looking to maximise these potential economic benefits.
And the question now is to what extent and how successfully will the politicians use similar methods? In many cases businesses have been driven to explore the world of digital and social media through sheer necessity in a rapidly changing commercial environment. Will the politicians realise the same?
A cursory glance at Facebook puts Labour in third place, hot on the heels of the Lib Dems with the Conservatives way out in front – that is if we’re looking purely at membership of official groups. But that tells only a small part of the story.
Tweetminster tells us there are 60 Labour MPs tweeting away, compared to 20 Lib Dems and only 15 Conservative MPs. I didn’t have the heart to calculate which party had the highest number of total followers. And on You Tube it’s honours even between Labour and the Conservatives who each have around 2,500 subscribers, while the Liberal Democrats are a little way back with around 1,300.
Numbers like these are all well and good, but they only tell the start of the story, they give it a narrative framework but they don’t tell you what’s really going on. If elections in recent decades have come under ever more media scrutiny, we are now facing the very first election in this country where the parties and the individuals are coming under public scrutiny.
You can tweet your MP directly, Facebook them, watch daily videos and post your comments, set up single issue pressure groups and rapidly gather support, post your own thoughts on the stories of the day and blog to your heart’s content. As people have been doing for a number of years already. But now, with an election on the horizon, perhaps the politicians will start listening that bit more carefully.
Which party wins the election is unlikely to be decided purely on the basis of a social media campaign, traditional forms of marketing and media presence will also be critical elements (though for how much longer is an interesting – and separate – question). But make no mistake; this is a fascinating event for watchers of social media to see how the battle lines are drawn and how engagement will take place in a whole new way. Reputation and influence are the real currencies of social media and both are always thrown sharply into focus as the nation enters the run in to a general election.
What do you think?