Charm offensive: political parties put their social media plans into action ahead of the election

Despite numerous scandals and Twitter’s recent ban on political advertising, social media continues to be a key battleground for political parties. As election fever hits the UK, Freshwater CEO, Angharad Neagle, reveals what is driving the growth of political campaigns and explores how they are shaping the political landscape.

Ever since the successful Obama campaign for the US presidency in 2008, social media has become a crucial battleground for political parties, with teams of digital-savvy campaign managers and activists wracking their brains to deliver the game-changing strategy and engaging content that will cut through the noise and help their leader or party into power.

Fast-forward to 2019 in the UK, and the political parties are, once again, selecting their weapons of choice and striding out into the ‘virtual amphitheatre’. Less than 24-hours after the election was signed off by MPs and the party machines were cranked up to full volume, with online videos featuring Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn and other party leaders appearing on laptops and smartphones up and down the country.

Political parties are putting their money where their mouths are too. During one week in November, the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems had spent nearly £200,000 on Facebook advertising alone. So why is social media, and social media advertising in particular, proving so popular with political parties?

The first reason is reach. Gone are the days when the only sight you would get of your prospective candidates was a knock on the door or a hastily arranged rally in the local church hall. At the same time, the influence of traditional media is waning, with national newspaper circulations falling and front pages becoming more partisan. And that’s even if politicians decide to give interviews to journalists. Last week, Wales Online joined a growing number of media outlets who were refused an interview by Boris Johnson’s press team as the election deadline looms.

Television is governed by stricter balance rules, but there are more channels and scope for comment by third parties and lobby groups. Welsh voters are offered an on-demand smorgasbord of election broadcasts; with MPs and AMs, business leaders, think tanks and other political commentator ever willing to give an opinion, stepping in to satisfy the insatiable demand for content. Leaders’ debates are now available in multiple flavours, with political parties battling with media owners to try to ensure they get the best possible share of voice.

A big advantage of social media is the ability to serve up tailored content to highly-targeted audiences. In the US, they talk about ‘Swing States’ – regions that tend to swap between Democrat and Republican politicians on a regular basis. In the 2017 General Election, 97 seats were won with a majority of less than 5% and 51 by less than 2%, so the need for parties to target their efforts on key battle grounds is one that is particularly well-served by social media.

Targeting seats geographically is one thing, but paid social media can also deliver content and messaging tailored to specific demographic groups or with certain interests. Whether we’re talking about targeting leavers or remainers, picking on key local issues or simply saying things your research suggests is going to play out particularly well with specific voters, social media can be an incredibly effective channel for tailoring campaign messages.

Perhaps the most important benefit of using social media is the ability to get feedback, in real time, on how well your content is being received by voters. Parties will continue to use focus groups to test and hone their campaign rhetoric but these are now just as likely to feature the question, “which one of these MEMEs do you like best?”

Social media analytics, such as reach, engagement or ‘shares’, alongside other digital metrics like traffic driven to websites, online polls or newsletter sign-ups, can generate a wealth of information that is fed back into the campaign machine to increase the effectiveness of future communications. However, the key question for campaign managers is not just how many people can I reach with my budget, but how effective are my communications likely to be in terms of getting people to change their minds?

Much has been written about the ‘echo chamber’ of social media – a situation that sees messages shared among people who already hold lots of the same beliefs and opinions. In the context of political campaigns, this can mean parties wasting lots of time, effort and money in communicating with audiences who have already made up their minds to cast a vote for their candidate, while enjoying limited exposure to those who have yet to be convinced.

However, really strong, engaging content often goes much wider than core supporters. In the current election, a video by the actor and comedian Rob Delaney (backing Labour) was viewed more than ten million times. And, even with content that has been shared widely organically, paid advertising can be used to ensure that it is reaching target groups.

The other thorny issue is that of trust. There has been much discussion about ‘fake news’ and the difficulty in being sure a source is reliable. This issue came into sharp focus in the election with the Conservative’s re-badging of its campaign Twitter feed to ‘Factcheck UK’, which was described as “deceitful” and drew criticism from several quarters, including the Electoral Commission, independent fact-checking charity, Full Fact, and Twitter itself.

Despite these concerns, Facebook ranks third behind BBC and ITV as the most important source of news for UK adults, according to recent research by Ofcom.

Social media will undoubtedly continue to be an effective channel for influencing the national conversation and steering political debate, as well as engaging with journalists and opinion formers. It has the power to recruit advocates and mobilise activists, dispel myths and challenge stereotypes – but as many have found to their cost, if not used correctly, it can devour budgets and damage reputations.

This article was written by our Chief Executive, Angharad Neagle, and appeared in the Western Mail newspaper on 3 December 2019.