The Institute of Direct Marketing (a fine body of men and women) have commented on the emerging social media campaigns at the election. The gist of the observation is firstly:
“Marketing Week reports social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter will be primarily used to attack the opposition in the run up to the May 6th polling day.”
And secondly – by way of warning:
“Ivan Ristic, director and co-founder at Diffusion, recently warned that political parties need to be careful in their use of social media during the campaign as there is much less "command and control" of the platform compared to political spin seen in previous eras.”
Which presents an interesting dilemma for the parties given the extent to which they have been trying to direct campaigning centrally. The traditional media demand a centralised campaign as local paper and broadcast media (outside London) has very little impact and the approach adopted by the parties suits this demand. But emerging alternative media – including social media, the world of blogging and specialist publishing – does not fit into this neat paradigm.
The election may – as Iain Dale has observed – have become more “presidential” in nature but alternative media are beginning to shred that cosy, London-centric model. Indeed, twitter, facebook and the blogs are more akin to the old-fashioned street corner soapbox hustings that to the sleek, besuited, controlled media message of the Mandelson-Campbell era in campaigning.
The fall out will be interesting to watch.
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