Social media dances circles around the political parties

I went to SES London a couple of weeks ago and I realise it's been a while & I should have blogged about it earlier but I've resorted back to that saying ('Old news is Good news') that has prompted me to blog about a session that stood out for me: 'Digital Media Meets Party Politics.' The session was led by Rishi Saha representing the Conservatives, Mark Hanson  for the Labour Party and Mark Pack  for the Liberal Democrats who all offered an interesting mix of opinions on how all three parties are interacting and engaging in online communities.

The Labour party actively pursues Twitter for a more direct approach and a blogsphere as they have a large group of Labour-supporting bloggers that have donated advertising space to their ventures.
The Tories (Conservatives) to my surprise have become a lot more focused and social media savvy. Before I heard the talk all I could remember was Cameron's "Too many Twits might make a Twat" so I was pretty impressed to hear that they've come a long way since then and are embracing Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and are focusing on communicating with their existing supporters through email.
The Lib Dems have utilised the key fundamentals of social media which is 'listening and interacting in order  to build relationships' and it's great to see that they are doing just that by using the social giant: Facebook.

Labour has a group of 4 people dedicated to campaigning online whilst the Tories have an impressive nine.  Lib Dems didn't specify but I would imagine that there were probably a couple of people dedicated to campaigning locally due to limited resources.

It's great to see that there is a lot more focus online as in the past all three political parties fought advertising wars. A great example that I want to remind you all about was Saatchi & Saatchi (1979)'Labour isn't working' campaign which ultimately propelled the conservatives campaign. Now the emphasis seems to be on building connections through a wider reach.

However, in today's world advertising appears to be dying out when compared to the digital/new media age.The digital hub is far more reactive and the nature of the online world means that this battle has become fast and furious. An example put forth by Kate Kaye from ClickZ News was the Mumsnet Ad where all three parties knew that their campaigns needed to be that much more targeted, reactive and persuasive having identified their key voters. This combined with a well-organised approach to other social media channels like Twitter and Facebook suggests that the battleground for the upcoming general election will not be the billboards, but the RSS Feeds, online communities and the blogs. It's all hotting up nicely.

In conclusion to a very resourceful session I am looking forward to the upcoming election as I would like to believe that the battle put forth by each political party will continue to be fought through social media techniques.