With the General Election firmly upon us, we are exploring how each party/leader is using social media to increase their influence.
We’re also looking at how schools are taking this opportunity to have a voice.
Which channels are the politicians and parties using?
Leaders
All leaders and parties are on Twitter and regularly tweeting (particularly now that it is election time!).
Leanne Wood (@LeanneWood) is a Twitter veteran having signed up in April 2008.
David Cameron (@David_Cameron) is the newcomer to Twitter having only signed up in 2010. However, he trumps all leaders when it comes to followers. His 962,000 followers by far the highest number of all party leaders.
Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood have the lowest number of followers, but the highest number of tweets.
Parties
@UKLabour have the most followers by a large margin. This stands out because
@Ed_Miliband does not have a huge following, nor do they tweet often.
They also don’t own @Labour. Nope, that’s owned by the Irish Labour Party. This will, no doubt, lead to confusion and mis-tweeting / following.
Conservatives have the highest number of likes on Facebook, closely followed by UKIP.
This is completely inconsistent with the parties following counts on Twitter, where Labour are the most followed party.
YouTube
Ed Miliband is the only verified leader on Instagram but only has a low 5,594 follower count - that’s nothing to shout about.
He’s got a nice mixture of photos and has even been playing with the filters.
Nick Clegg has also been dabbling in Instagram but just doesn’t understand it. He takes ready-made photos and uploads them to Instagram - that’s not how it’s done, Nick. Just look at those white lines!!
Instagram is all about that square crop.
Conversation on Twitter using #GE2015 is steadily rising. It hits a peak whenever there are TV debates - which shows that there is still huge power in using mass broadcasting.
Parties
@UKLabour,
@TheSNP, and
@UKIP are the three most mentioned parties on Twitter. Again, you can see how their mentions peak on key events such as TV debates and manifesto launches.
Manifesto
It’s interesting to look at the discussions around the word ‘manifesto’ on Twitter.
Not much movement until we hit the 12th April when the manifestos started launching.
#milifandom vs #cameronettes
Heard of Directioners and Beliebers, right? They’re the fandoms of One Direction and Justin Beiber.
Well, there’s now a fandom for teenagers who like Ed Milliband. And since #milifandom trended on Twitter, out came #cameronettes - but it’s just not as popular.
Sounds like a joke, but #milifandom was set up by a teenager studying for her AS Levels (and has had to turn down interviews as she’s studying) who wants to correct the ‘distorted presentation of Ed’.
@Ed_Miliband too.
#milifandom has gone viral and been covered by multiple publications.
#milifandom was tweeted over 25,000 times. Apart from the SNP (with just under 30,000 mentions on 2nd April), none of the parties, or leaders have been mentioned that many times in one day. Not even Labour themselves. This is the power of social.
What we’re doing
We’ve launched our own campaign and manifesto - yep, why not!?
Let’s just say - they weren’t as expensive as we had first thought ;-)
What’s your school doing?
There’s an opportunity for your school to have its voice heard. Get out and get involved with the conversation on Twitter.
Do your pupils study politics at all? Get some of them to write a blog post, have a debate on YouTube, create a podcast on Soundcloud, do a Q&A on Twitter.
Why not launch your own manifesto? Seriously. Share your 5 ‘key points’ on Twitter. Create a 60 second video. Do an interview. Explain why someone should vote for your school.
What’s your school’s manifesto? How are you looking to improve your school over the next 5 years? Are you going to increase grades, build a new science department, invest in new technology? Put this in a manifesto.
We’re marketers - we look for opportunities. And this is one BIG opportunity.
Share your school’s manifesto with us, @intSchools. We’ll put the best ones on Twitter and in our blog (free link to your school website!).