For an old school agent who believes elections are still won door-to-door, the nine most terrifying words I now hear are, "We need a committee to improve our social media."
I'm hardly shy and retiring when it comes to social media myself. I am a prolific Facebooker, I have a Twitter a/c with 2,200 genuine followers, I use Insta and my consultancy has a website. And the ward where I am standing for election in May 2019 also has a FB page which is growing slowly and makes a nice addition to our traditional campaign toolkit
My issue therefore isn't with social media, it's with people who think it can replace traditional campaigning. These fall into two groups:
(i) the new and enthusiastic who genuinely believe it to be true, and
(ii) the habitually bone idle who think it might save them from doing some hard work.
At present I have two "social media committees" in my patch, each of which is "developing a strategy". Endless meetings are held, policies produced and plans made. But nothing every bloody happens. There are never any outcomes.
I suspect the type of people who convince themselves that they can thumb and tap their way to victory are more or less the same type of people who registered to vote in their millions in the 72 hours before the EU Ref but couldn't be bothered to walk to the polling station to vote.
One of these committees even convinced the Association to stump up two thousand pound so they had a budget, which they spent employing someone to tweet for them. And that's the problem. Some Orwellian "newspeak" which simply retweets CCHQ propaganda alongside municipal press releases is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Last year I was sitting at my desk at West Kent Towers half listening to one of our Association's Local Government/Approvals Committees interviewing incumbent councillors in the adjoining room. The senior councillor being interviewed started berating the Association Officers for their lack of social media commitment. As she ranted on I searched her Twitter account; she'd tweeted nine times in the previous three years! "Something must be done!" as long as someone does it for me.
When she sadly lost her formerly safe seat everyone else was to blame. Not enough support. Not enough money spent in her ward. Not enough time from the agent. Not enough literature. It was never mentioned of course that this ward had fewer pledges than any other, no peacetime newsletter had been delivered in the past ten years and two of her ward colleagues hadn't even been bothered to collect their main election leaflets from the office. Had that branch spent more time building a relationship with their residents, the residents may have been more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when they needed it. In politics as in life, what goes around, comes around.
So yes, social media has its place. But for me it must be local, intimate and immediate. Association Twitter accounts blasting out CCHQ memes will never make the emotional connection with local voters that is vital to success. Councillors and candidates should use their social media pages to build relationships with their residents by posting examples of what they are doing locally and the difference they make to people's lives. For it to make a difference we must use social media to narrowcast, not broadcast. My most popular FB posts on my ward political page are when I post a lovely sunset or a photo of me with a random cat I have met on the doorsteps. These work because they tell a human story, and my goodness, now more than ever, those of us in politics must demonstrate that we are authentic and human.
And being human does not require a huge budget, a committee or a strategy. It requires a phone with a camera and an ability to talk to people on an emotional rather than political level.
And that I am afraid is a skill too few of us have.
No comments:
Post a Comment