Tag Archives: Twitter

Nicola Sturgeon insult bingo

Let’s play Nicola Sturgeon insult bingo

Apr 21, 2015 Posted by :   Stewart No Comments
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I’m not in the SNP but if anything is going to make me more likely to vote for them, it’s the hysterical insults piled onto Nicola Sturgeon by right-wing M25 media types. In honour of that, I’ve produced this bingo card so we can all fully appreciate their swivel-eyed ravings.

To my Labour friends who revel in this stuff: have decades of kickings from the Mail, the Sun, the Express, the Times and the Telegraph not taught you that your enemy’s enemy is most certainly not your friend?

Please note how many of the insults used belittle her status as a woman. No-one who claims to be “progressive” can applaud that.

To my SNP friens: if there’s anything that makes it less likely to vote SNP, it’s the online abuse received by journalists, politicians and others who hold the party to account. I could have made a similar bingo card using words all to familiar to the Scottish Twittosphere.

To her great credit, Nicola Sturgeon has spoken out against this kind of nonsense. Listen to her. She know what she’s talking about.

Twitter fail whale

Twitter fail of #BattleForNumber10

Mar 27, 2015 Posted by :   Stewart No Comments
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Regardless of whether you felt Ed or David won #BattleForNumber10, social media lost. Well, maybe not social media but Twitter etiquette did.

Both the big parties hammered out corporate graphics with key messages. So far, so standard. But they insisted on almost constantly demanding retweets.

Aside from the uninspiring imagery and the paucity of vision in the messaging, what’s the problem, you may ask?

First of all, it looks gauche. Asking for RTs should be held in reserve and used very, very sparingly. Constantly seeking retweets gives a sense of desperation. It’s almost, indeed, like these two political parties don’t understand how to connect with real people.

The other reason for not asking for retweets is that it is functionally useless. Anyone who has enough Twitter followers to make their retweeting worthwhile already knows how Twitter works. They already know that if they want to share something with their friends then they can retweet it. They also have a much better idea of what is of interest to their followers than anyone else. Let them be the judge cos ye cannae make them retweet you no matter how much you ask.

As well as desperation, it carries a tang of that familiar Westminster entitlement, especially the Tory effort. “We’re not really interested in communicating with you, just act as a broadcaster for us.”

But the cardinal sin that has been committed here is that these two organisations are not focused on the audience. These parties are focused on their own communications desires and not on providing what is relevant and interesting to people they are talking to. In short, they are thinking about themselves, not about the voters. (Plus ça change n that, ken?)

Who are these graphics for? Surely they should be aimed at undecided voters. What you want from undecided voters is not that they retweet your material, but that they, you know, vote for you. The “please retweet” message is wasted space.

The secret is to make content that’s relevant, compelling and of interest to the people you want to reach. Seed it into conversations that your supporters are having with people in target voter groups and let the organic power of content do the rest.

This requires a bit more effort, a lot more imagination and a real understanding of the interests and cares of the people you are trying to reach. That’s what I love about social media. It forces our political masters to connect directly with us.

And speaking of connection, did you spot the way the two big parties answered replies to their tweets?

Me neither. That’s because they didn’t. They’re broadcasting, not talking. And social media is about talking.

A much better way to do it was demonstrated by Plaid Cymru on the parallel discussion. (Declaration of interest, they’re a client of mine but I did not produce this image.)

It’s short, sharp with an inspiring message. It’s a clear, striking image – and a not a picture of a politician. The crucial thing is to note that Plaid Cyrmu quickly answered the first reply

Social media is about conversation, not begging for retweets.

Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown

Scotland’s social media insurgency

Mar 3, 2015 Posted by :   Stewart 4 Comments
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It’s been a gaffetastic period for unionist politics on social media. However, this is neither trivial nor ephemeral. Something very big is happening.

On social media, it appears, Scotland is already pretty close to being independent.

Labour has had a rough time: Kezi Dugdale told us all their leaflets were printed in England and reminded us that they failed to save Ravenscraig.

An unfortunate official advised us all to vote Tory to keep out the SNP.

Previously, a candidate tweeted a picture of herself standing outside a health centre, commenting on short staffing. The health centre was, of course, closed and had been replaced by a brand new one next door. (Later explanations about taking the picture there to get the sign in kinda missed the point.)

(I take no pleasure in this, by the way. I want to see all progressive parties campaigning effectively on social media – even if I disagree with them about the constitutional arrangements of these islands and even if many progressive friends would dispute that Labour is progressive. I digress…)

But now we have the cherry on the cake – and it’s from the Tories/Lib Dems not Labour. Some marketing genius in the bowels of Whitehall has decided to plaster assorted public works with the slogan “funded by UK government”. No doubt this was supposed to persuade voters not to back “separatist” parties in the general election.

Instead an entirely predictable memeplosion has blasted across Twitter (and Facebook in a different way) north of the Border. You can’t move for images of assorted Westminster-inspired disasters with the label “funded by UK government” slapped on them. This has been very covered by Wings Over Scotland and CommonSpace so I will only present a couple of my favourites.

First we have Maggie and Mr Timetable himself – and image I suspect SNP supporters will be making sure we all see a lot of in the coming months:

And we also have a shot of Ravenscraig:

The interesting thing about all this is that it’s all one way. Labour are mightily outgunned on social media in Scotland. The Tories, despite their enormous Facebook budget, remain irrelevant. Every misstep (or even just every step) they make is spotted, amplified and made hay with almost immediately.

I always tell my clients that, when it comes to political campaigning, the days of off-the-cuff, hit-and-hope tweets are long gone. (Find out more about my services here.)

As a former member of the Yes Scotland senior management team, this rings some bells with me. It’s what used to happen to us on a daily basis in the mainstream press. Everything we did was subjected to intense scrutiny and thrown back at us. We were held accountable for the cock-ups of people on the margins of or outwith the campaign.

As Head of Digital, my job was to focus on the media environment where things were a bit fairer: social media. We educated, informed and enthused our supporters. We sought out, seeded, promoted and encouraged other websites, groups and users.

While Yes Scotland may have been wound up. All those people, groups and websites have not gone away. They remain enthusiastic and committed. The Yes Digital legacy is that social media landscape in Scotland is heavily pro-independence.

Another consequence of the indyref campaign is that a lot of these people who are active online have despaired of traditional media. As customers, it took them for granted. As citizens, they feel it’s skewed the political landscape of their country. Now, they have formed their own digital landscape.

It’s an environment that needs to be treated with more respect than throwing together a trite slogan like “funded by UK government”. Scotland is different.

Proof of this can be found in the extraordinary crowdfunding campaign of Wings Over Scotland. (It’s a little-known fact that whenever you create a blog or website, you are contractually bound to refer to that site with the prefix “controversial”. Regardless of your views of the site’s tone, it is a must-read for anyone interested in Scottish politics.)

Speaking as someone who has started an online publication and knows how difficult funding is, what Stuart Campbell has achieved is utterly astounding. In the space of 24 hours, he raised more than £75,000. (At time of writing the total is £88,000.) A publication which can raise that kind of money in that kind of time is a serious player.

By my reckoning, Stu Campbell has a larger freelance budget than most news and features editors in Scotland.

Not only have a very large number of people of Scotland created their own new media landscape – they’re putting their hands in their pockets to keep it thriving.

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