Will the internet win the next election? That was the question asked at the Frontline Dinner Briefing I went to on Thursday 29th of May. It was a resounding NO from the panel. According to News Editor; Adam Boulton, political bloggers Guido Fawkes (www.order-order.com) and Iain Dale, (iaindale.blogspot.com) Blue State Digital’s Matthew McGroegor and Alex Smith of Labour List, people vote on policies and personalities rather than websites.Below are the key points from the discussion;
- The mainstream British political parties are five steps behind on mastering their online strategies.
- The British National Party is using the internet to their advantage to promote a grassroots style political communications strategy that has enabled them to raise a significant amount of money and increase their popularity.
- The internet for now appears to be a more effective tool for the opposition and we can clearly see this was the case in the US presidential elections.
- To implement an effective online political campaign it’s imperative that you start at least two years prior to the election, something which all the main political parties have not done.
- Finally, some of the panel though that young people are not interested in politics therefore despite their high presence online it’s not worth trying to mobilise this group.
One of the best ways to communicate with a person is to find something that they are interested in and brands have been doing this for a while now. By amplifying the issues that your target voter is concerned with/or affected by through showing that you have a solution by way of a public policy, you stand a good chance of influencing them and a significant number of others through the power of word of mouth. However, the effectiveness of this is reliant on ensuring that your online presence is on sites that are frequently visited by that particular target electorate
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