pr-media-blog.co.uk

As the Conservative Party prepares to complete the conference season in Manchester on Monday and launches the online campaigning tool, myconservatives.com, (seen here in Beta form), PR Media Blog put questions to Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport and Spokesman for Online Campaigning. The questions and answers were supplied in written form and have been reproduced as such.

PR Media Blog: The Tories are way ahead in the polls. Does it matter what the party does online between now and election day?

Jeremy Hunt: While the Party is currently ahead in the opinion polls, the only poll that matters is on General Election day and we’re taking absolutely nothing for granted.

In terms of our online efforts, we’re the only party that has committed consistent time, effort and resource into online communications since the last General Election, and you can be sure that digital will continue to play a massive part of our engagement with voters.

PRMB: David Cameron has been dismissive of Twitter where people in the other parties have embraced it as a communications tool. Is he worried that encouraging Tory MPs to use it would be too uncontrollable and risk re-toxifying the Conservative brand?

JH: Twitter is the fashionable tool of choice at the moment, but as Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital said: “Services like Twitter are scattershot and dizzying. They burn political capital. Besides, they don’t talk to the people you want to talk to.”

It’s OK using Twitter if, like Grant Shapps, you already have an email list of over 10,000 local residents with whom you can communicate directly. But many Labour and LibDem MPs have a totally disproportionate attitude to it - how many of Kerry McCarthy’s constituents are on Twitter? I’d be amazed if it was over 10%.

It’s not fear of Twitter by any stretch of the imagination - our Party account has more followers than Labour and the LibDems combined, and several public facing staffers are on there too and constantly engaging with people - it’s rather that our MPs and Candidates focus on the digital activities on channels that matter in their local campaigns - websites, email, Facebook and supporter mobilisation.

PRMB: Do you see so-called “right wing” bloggers such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes as the Tories’ natural allies online in the run up to the election?

JH: The dominance of the centre-right in British political blogging is a testament to their quality and independence, and though we have a relationship with almost all of the big beasts in this world, it is up to them to decide on their editorial line.

The top centre-right bloggers are, however, part of a broader Conservative movement that is looking to challenge the wastefulness, incompetence and lack of vision in this current Labour Government.

PRMB: Does having a social media presence conflict with the Conservatives’ need to control the message very tightly in the coming months?

It’s important for any political party to have a clear, distinctive message so the voters know exactly what we stand for. However, it’s equally important to be reaching out to voters so they can ask us questions and figure out if they want us to be the next government. Social media offers us an excellent opportunity to have that conversation and open ourselves up to public scrutiny, but so do other channels.

Email is still the most accessible engagement tool out there and public meetings provide a great way to engage directly. David Cameron has also held almost fifty ‘Cameron Direct’ events over the past year, engaging with over 10,000 people face-to-face and answering their questions on a range of subjects.

PRMB: Is the party afraid that social media will become the source of damaging stories or allegations that will turn the polls against it? How well prepared is the party to deal with a scandal erupting online?

JH: We saw from the Draper-McBride scandal what happens when a central Party tries to take control of independent, online media - it ended in the kind of fiasco and disgrace that will come to define Labour’s approach to the internet in the minds of most people for many years to come.

The Conservative Party inherently understands that online communications comes with risks, but that the opportunities are too great to ignore.

PRMB: I’ve read that the party is going to advertise on Spotify. In what way is this the right medium for a political party to engage with the electorate? Is this just trying to piggy-back on the latest “hot thing”?

JH: Your advertising strategy has to be about reaching out to people who would never ordinarily engage with your content - or even be that interested in politics and platforms like Spotify (or Google AdWords, which we’ve also used with significant results) are a great way of reaching new audiences.

We’re absolutely not about going for the latest “hot thing” - if a platform wasn’t going to be effective for us or offer value for money then we wouldn’t use it.

PRMB: Does the party think it will harness online communities in the way Barack Obama did ahead of his presidential win?

JH: Can we emulate Obama? US elections are very different in tone, size and scale to ours in the UK but we are the Party that has best understood and adopted the lessons they learnt last year. Obama’s achievements in terms of organising activists and raising money have certainly raised the bar in terms of what a political party can achieve online and we’re obviously looking to do something similar in Britain.

To that end, we’re launching something very exciting at Party Conference - the most advanced political campaigning tool outside the USA, and the endpoint of our content and supporter recruitment strategies.

The Labour Party’s final conference before the next General Election - and perhaps its last as Government for the next few years - begins on Monday. How will the party hope to engage with the electorate and stave off what looks now like an inevitable defeat? PR Media Blog spoke to Kerry McCarthy, recently appointed new media campaigns spokeswoman about how the social media sphere is influencing Labour’s communications.

If New Labour will be forever associated with anything in the English language, it will be the phrase “on message” and the word “spin”.

Tight, centralised control of communications and an unfortunate habit of using the ugly face of public relations to manipulate the truth has peppered much of New Labour’s time in power.

And while US congressman, Joe Wilson, recently caused a furore when he shouted “You lie!” at President Obama mid-speech, such an outburst against Tony Blair - if it had happened - following the exposure as fiction of the Iraq “dodgy dossier” would probably have been roundly applauded in the Commons.

This year’s Labour “Smeargate” scandal and the ensuing departure of government advisers, Damien McBride and Derek Draper, raised questions about Labour’s relationship with dirty tricks in the communications department.

But the party’s new media campaigns spokeswoman, Kerry McCarthy - or “Twitter Tsar” - believes that by embracing social media, Labour is making itself both more transparent and accountable.

Speaking of Smeargate, she says: “It was a tricky period. It was wrong, the ideas that were being kicked around - we don’t need to stoop to that level.”

But she also laments the growth of what she describes as “right wing blogs”: “I would be quite depressed if we had need for a Guido Fawkes on our side. The difficulty with blogs like that, and Iain Dale’s, is that they are not elected politicians and they would be held up to certain standards if they were. We haven’t got sites spreading smears about people.” 

Yet the idea that Labour might lean on a Labour blogger who was writing scandalous copy is not the case, says McCarthy: “If it was a keen, young activist we wouldn’t have any control over it. But I don’t think it’s a control freak thing to say we think it’s wrong and unprincipled. We don’t want the Labour Party tarnished with this.”

But how does a party with a history of autocratic control over communications relinquish its rule? “You can’t control it in the way Labour controlled the message in 1997 and afterwards. The news agenda has changed,” she says. “News is so much more rapid and also there is the commentary from a myriad of voices. The issues are all over the blogosphere and Twitter and it would be obvious if politicians are parroting soundbites. If you have got lots of different media outlets there is more chance that truth will come out. Stories get another life online.

“And [social media] is also about how [politicians] respond to people when they are challenged. Getting into debates [online] there is no way you can dictate that from the behind the scenes.”

But at a time when Labour is trailing in the polls and needs clarity about why people should vote for them, isn’t the idea of  MPs having countless, public conversations in social networks counter productive? McCarthy says: “Though politicians might have differing views on things, what comes through are the underlying principles and values.”

She draws a comparion between Labour’s immersion in social media and what she sees as the Tories’ reluctance: “I think it will be difficult for the Tories as it will be the maverick voices and the wilder elements of the party that will stand out”.

Labour is experimenting with different social media activities, including a way of using Twitter to make grass roots activists feel more included in debates at party conferences.

But is there a risk that Labour positioning itself as the “social media party” will detract from the real issues the public care about? “We’ve been careful about this,” says McCarthy, “as there’s nothing worse than politicians trying to be trendy. Authenticity is important and people will see if we are using it as a gimmick.

“Twitter is a two-way thing and it’s done in public, reaching a much wider audience. Politicians can be held more accountable so it is a useful tool.”

But how significant will social media be in helping Labour to victory in 2010? “It’s not the magic bullet that will win the election; it’s a small part of getting across the message but will help in getting activists enthused.” She notes that the need for door step campaigning and getting face-to-face with voters has not gone away.

And how does she juggle social media with the day job? “I’ve got 101 ideas for blog posts but it’s having the time to sit down and do them. With Twitter you can do it in a couple of minutes while you’re in the middle of something else.”