Posted by Adrian Goodsell (Head of Social Media)
Going in to this election there was a considerable amount of buzz - certainly in the media world and in Westminster - concerning the critical role that new media would play in the outcome of the election.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et al have significant audiences across key demographics these days. The rapid rise of social networks has created an entirely new social space. This represents unchartered territory where general elections are concerned. The space simply didn't exist in any meaningful way the last time the British public went to the polls, back in 2005.
This time around, the social media space was seen to represent an entirely new political opportunity for those who could seize the initiative. Much of the excitement undoubtedly arose from Barack Obama's masterclass in harnessing the awesome power of the web in his trailblazing election campaigns of 2008. It's difficult to imagine, but President Obama might never have made it to the White House at all if it weren't for the existence of Facebook. His innovative campaign strategy has changed the way politicians will think about election campaigning and fundraising forever. It's also given the wider media sector a model benchmark that will surely prove difficult to surpass. It's no surprise that British parties have been looking across the pond for inspiration.
We saw the opening shots in new media campaigning from the Conservative Party, who until as recently as two weeks ago, were assumed to be our government in waiting. WebCameron had been around for some time (since September 2006), when David Cameron furthered the Tories' commitment to all things digital with the launch of www.myconservatives.com, in October last year. The site has more than a passing resemblance to Obama's highly successful www.mybarackobama.com site, not least in the choice of URL. The campaign site was quickly and effectively lampooned by www.mydavidcameron.com, a wonderful piece of political satire which grabbed the initiative through smart crowdsourcing and harnessing the seeding potential of a highly-active Twitter community.
More recently, the Tories produced www.cash-gordon.com, a social gaming site which uses Facebook Connect to try to spread pro-Cameron content across users' Facebook networks. The launch backfired spectacularly within hours due to an ill-conceived strategy around the #cashgordon Twitter hashtag.
Labour's own social media strategy has grabbed fewer headlines. Activity has included regular posts of video content and real-time Twitter-monitoring, but has had a negligible impact on the polls. To date, the greatest impact Gordon Brown has managed online is as the subject of numerous videos on YouTube which relentlessly mock his failure to grasp the art of communication in the modern world.
So up until April 15, the main role of new media appeared to be as a channel for users to mock and satirise the earnest (if occasionally misguided) efforts of the two main parties. Enter so-called traditional media...
The first ever live televised debate between the three main party leaders in the UK took place on Thursday 15 April, 2010. An estimated 9.4 million people tuned in to watch the debate on ITV. Within hours, the consensus was that Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, had won the debate outright. Prior to the debate, the Lib Dem campaign had been all but invisible.
So it was good-old fashioned TV which created the defining event of the 2010 election. At time of writing, the Lib Dems have been enjoying an unpreceded run of publicity, with some polls even giving the third-party an outright lead. Interestingly, the TV debate has also proved to be the spark which finally lit the fuse of activity in the social media space.
So what happened to the so-called 'new media election'? Why couldn’t the Conservatives or Labour seize the initiative online in a meaningful way? And what can we learn from this most dramatic of turnarounds in terms of media marketing? Here are some thoughts...
TV is not dead
We hear a lot of people in our industry prematurely pronouncing the death of traditional media, as if it has been consumed and rendered obsolete by the monster that is new media. This scaremongering approach is not only irresponsible, it's patently not true. As the live TV debates blisteringly demonstrate, TV is still unrivalled when it comes to reach and impact in the UK.
Speed of communication results in stunning shifts
Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of the Liberal Democrats' change in fortunes is the speed at which people were able to reach consensus on Nick Clegg's victory. By Friday morning, the fact had been established as part of the election landscape and the Conservative lead duly fell away. This could not have happened were it not for the role played by always-on real-time networks like Twitter and the 24-hour rolling news channels. Instant communication means that consensus can be established in minutes rather than hours or days.
Some stories play particularly well in the new media space
Also remarkable is the momentum which has since carried over from the first TV debate. Nick Clegg entered the first debate as an unknown underdog going up against two known, but not liked, establishment brands. Clegg seized the initiative by taking the side of the viewer against Cameron and Brown. The underdog card played equally well when the right-wing newspapers unleashed their attack dogs on Clegg, unifying the Twittersphere in support of the plucky outsider. The Us v Them story is, of course, nothing new in marketing terms - Clegg was merely following the example of Apple against Microsoft or Virgin Altantic versus BA.
New media doesn't always go to plan
Pretty much every initiative by Labour and the Conservatives has been lambasted, attacked and in many cases, effectively lampooned. Prior to last week, new media seemed only to represent 'the case against'. In the past week, however, Twitter has proved an entertaining battleground between traditional news organisations and users of the micro-blogging service, as the #nickcleggsfault hashtag satirised clumsy old media attempts to subdue the Lib Dem surge. All the parties would have loved to have been able to plan this kind of momentum in the social media space, but planning campaigns in an environment that deals in instant reaction is notoriously difficult.
The biggest impact new media has had in this general election has been entirely unplanned, demonstrating that social channels work best when spontaneity is not just accepted but embraced and learned from.
Communication overall is at an all-time high
Today's media landscape in its entirety is incredibly complex. It's a hodgepodge of always-on, real-time, on-demand, streaming, downloads, uploads, broadcasts and narrowcasts; all blended in to a bewildering and ever-changing whole. When the media landscape looks like this perhaps basic binary distinctions like 'old and new' media aren't actually very helpful at all. Surely, in a world where there is more communication than ever before, understanding the currency of communication is what really matters?
When the votes have been cast, Clegg's positioning of his argument in that critical first televised debate might just prove to be the best example of a UK party leader understanding the currency of communication in today's digital world.