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David Cameron poses for a selfie photograph
Political parties and politicians have failed to use social media to connect with voters. Instead, they’ve used the channel to document their campaigns. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
Political parties and politicians have failed to use social media to connect with voters. Instead, they’ve used the channel to document their campaigns. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Welcome to the social media election that never was

This article is more than 8 years old
David Fletcher

So far, the social media strategies used by the main political parties in this year’s general election have been routine, predictable and overly cautious

For all of the punditry around the social election there’s little evidence of much action from the main players. Content from the two main political parties published on social media has so far been less about providing a personal feel of the candidates, or offering an informative or inspirational narrative and more about point scoring. This might play well with their respective communities, but can it reach swing voters? Will this be effective at engaging those most active on social media: the 18-24 year-olds?

The tactics

The social media strategies of David Cameron, or Ed Miliband and their respective political parties follow roughly the same course: 1) routine update of their campaign day, 2) what they’ve achieved to date, or will do, and 3) describing what a disaster the other political party will be. When it comes to offering an insight into the person behind the politics they have opted for more traditional media: a TV piece on the BBC or a newspaper interview, missing the core aspect of what social means for its users.

Take Cameron, for example, who is currently one of the most followed UK politician on Twitter, with over 980,000 followers. His use of the platform is simply to document his campaign: “start of a one-day, four-nation tour of our United Kingdom”; to criticise the Labour party, “today we’ve seen the chaos there’d be if Labour was ever allowed to be in charge of the economy”; and to state basic pledges, “we’ll raise your tax-free allowance to £12.5k”. This lip service to social media by the Conservative Party is demonstrated by its official Twitter account, with the majority of content on their own page being retweets. Coupled with the fact that David Cameron’s Facebook is similar to his Twitter, a slight lack of imagination in social media strategy is displayed.

Breakfast with Sam at Scottish Widows HQ in Edinburgh: the start of a one-day, four-nation tour of our United Kingdom pic.twitter.com/HVGh6cgeb8

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 7, 2015

On the other hand, the Green Party tentatively pushed their social boat out with a social initiative in the form of their YouTube election broadcast Change the Tune. This is the only piece of party produced content to reach any form of online viral status, reaching traditional online news outlets such as The Huffington Post. Strangely enough, while clearly a social hit, the Green Party has yet to implement further popular social content. Regressing back to more typical political messaging, their social strategy returned to preaching to the converted.

Unfortunately, viral content hasn’t reached the Liberal Democrats social media team either, as they follow exactly the same tactical social path as the Conservatives. Liberal lashings of campaigning photo ops and party achievements joined with a regular dig at the opposition haven’t enhanced Nick Clegg’s social media strategy. The Ukip team, despite warning party candidates to avoid social media, have also used the formulaic political strategy that shows no tactical distinction from the other main parties – unless you count having Nigel Farage like all of his own posts.

Labour is following a similar tack, but are at least one of the few political parties to recognise that social media has its own distinct language and platforms don’t just stop with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The party and Ed Miliband have attempted to utilise Instagram, one of the more popular social networks for young people in the UK, with imagery of the campaign. So far, it has generated a limited following; inhibited by a lack of promotion on its other media channels and a clear understanding of how to leverage this network in a unique way. Both might be better suited to following the lead of Justine Miliband, who launched her Instagram channel last week, and which feels more authentically sincere than party playbook copy, or images.

Q: How will you pay for this promise? Jeremy Hunt: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://t.co/MsFsGyFmPu

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) April 11, 2015

A great deal has been made about the Conservatives promoting attack ads on YouTube, but Labour haven’t been shy at using this channel to produce their own negative spin on the Tory Party. Unlike the Conservatives, though, they haven’t disabled comments and are also featuring local activists to showcase what the Labour Party means. The Conservatives have shunned this grassroots aspect in favour of focusing on videos from David Cameron, who is clearly their best electoral asset in the social sphere.

Whether Labour, or Conservative, it all feels a bit conventional.

Where’s the imagination?

If we look across the pond at Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 election wins, we see a person and a political party who could effectively mix the attack with a very personal narrative. Use of social didn’t just sit with the standard channels, but also included Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, and the campaign wasn’t afraid to leverage internet culture, with memes and gifs. The strategy worked because the Democrats and Obama recognised social isn’t just another attack channel, but an opportunity to present their character and to personalise the message.

Michelle's biggest fans were watching from home: pic.twitter.com/nOYmACPG

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 5, 2012

The most we’ve seen so far in the form of a personable, individual message is the occasional Thank you video by Nicola Sturgeon posted on the SNP’s Facebook site. While this content has resonated higher than any other within the party followers, the SNP party appear not to have capitalised on this engagement with their audience as only two of these video have been produced.

The only real attempt at engaging with a youth platform by the Conservatives was the use of the site Buzzfeed, of which 56% of their visitors are made up of 18-34 years-olds. As with Barack Obama’s Buzzfeed interview in February, David Cameron provided a standard video interview. Unlike Barack Obama, without an established social media foundation to hold up this content, it appears to have had little resonance with the target demographic. Only a single comment was registered on the site itself and there have been only 862 mentions across Twitter, news, blogs and forums since its publication.

Take Obama’s decision to use Reddit’s Ask me anything forum to reach a younger audience on the website that attracts 174m monthly unique users and whose largest demographic is aged between 18-29 year-old males. The interest was huge, with the discussion generating 23,856 comments in just 30 minutes. Here is a clear demonstration of the power of the individual agency, allowing voters to have interaction with the leader and generate a sense of individual political empowerment. Have we seen anything as forward thinking in the UK yet?

As the UK election has become increasingly presidential, Cameron and Miliband both have the opportunity to use their social channels and new technologies, including Periscope and Snapchat, to speak to young people in this manner. However, given the cautious approach we have seen so far, it remains to be seen if we will witness any innovative use of social media over the next few weeks in the run up to the election.

Perhaps for all of the potential upsides there are still too many opportunities to fall foul of “death and gaffe watch” journalists waiting to pounce on a too-easily-misconstrued twitter picture. White vans and flags of St George, anyone?

David Fletcher is the chief data officer at MEC

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