Social Media in Traditional Political Party Campaigns: Is There a Winning Formula?

Abstract

Although many politicians and single-issue/protest parties have used social media to build support and prosper at election time, traditional European parties have in most cases failed to follow suit. This leads one to ask the question: is social media simply not suited to traditional parties? We argue that, given its ubiquity, social media must be a part of any party's armoury. And it can be, yet parties have failed to thrive in social media due in part to their general decline at a time of dwindling memberships and flourishing alternative political movements: their ‘product’ is less enticing than it has been in the past. In addition, we argue that the following three elements, although key to social media success, are often lacking: strategy, resourcing and appropriate mindset. Assuming all the pieces are in place, two areas warrant particular attention from parties: mobilising supporters in order to reach beyond their own networks, and using data in order to microtarget by localising and personalising communications output.

Introduction

Few would still deny the potential of social media in furthering the aims of politicians and political movements, given the number of case studies in circulation, from the election of previously unknown Members to the European Parliament to the success of Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in the recent Italian elections.

The onus here is on traditional political parties, however, where some suspicion remains, given that, in Europe and beyond, they have struggled to harness social media, whether to mobilise existing supporters or gain new ones. Therefore, we must ask the question: is social media better suited to individuals or protest movements?

We would argue that the failure of most parties to succeed in the social media realm has more to do with the parties themselves than with the medium. The ubiquity of social media among all demographics is now beyond dispute, and if the role of political parties is to deliver information, build relationships with constituents and win elections, social media is without doubt part of the armoury, along with an array of traditional channels, from media to meeting people face to face.

Ultimately, social media remains a series of communications channels, and as with any channel, message and messenger matter more than the delivery mechanism itself. If social media has proven ineffective, is the likely reason that (a) the seller has sought to flog something which the target was unwilling to acquire, or (b) best practice has not been applied when utilising the tools?

Assuming the ‘product’ is appealing, how should political parties use social media? The starting point is threefold: strategy, resourcing and mindset. In other words: use it to support a clear communications objective and ensure that activity takes place in the context of everything else, not in a vacuum; have the right people and skills in place; and brace people for the cultural change social media requires.

Social media failure: blame the parties not the channels

It is not the purpose of this article to delve deep into the workings of political parties, but given that the premise is that parties are largely to blame for their failure to harness social media, rather than the nature of the medium itself, it is worth suggesting a few reasons that this might be so.

Generally, parties have struggled with the changing nature of politics in Europe. Globalisation and social fragmentation have resulted in individuals eschewing the group loyalties that guaranteed traditional parties most of their support base for generations, as is now reflected in dwindling membership figures (Bennett 2012).

Instead, many voters now tend to fall into two camps: some are increasingly galvanised by personal values, such as personal freedom, economic justice or environmental protection, and they vote for whichever party comes the closest to espousing their values of choice at each election (Hartleb 2012; Bennett 2012). Often, traditional parties, in their quest to straddle the moderate centre, fail to appeal to voters with very strong sentiment on a single value which, for whatever reason, has been appropriated by the left or right, say, climate change (the left) or personal freedom (the right).

Second, an increasing number of voters are enticed by highly charged populist voices that espouse protest and anti-elitism, where politicking is often simplified to emotional sound bites that apportion blame. In these cases, traditional parties are often seen as being part of the problem, not the solution; rightly or wrongly, they are believed to be elitist and out of touch, interested merely in acquiring votes rather than in supporting the electorate they represent.

In both cases cited above, many parties have failed to make a convincing case to voters, be it because their message is too bland for values voters or appears too dishonest and unemotional to those enticed by populist voices. The bottom line is that, to a number of voters, the ‘product’ does not appeal in the first place. Of course, social media might have achieved more if applied better, but arguably, the key lies in message, personnel and tone, not channel selection.

Having said that, although their foothold is dwindling, traditional parties remain at the forefront of politics in most countries in Europe, so there must be other reasons that explain why social media success stories are few and far between. We argue that a lack of one or more of the following is often at the root this failure: strategy, resourcing and appropriate mindset.

Success in social media: strategy, resourcing and mindset

As with any area of communication, strategy is essential: social media activity has to be conducted in support of a clear objective (or set of objectives). Parties that simply have a presence in social media without any clear scope, be it to provide value to a particular set of constituents in the form of information relevant to them or to build a community of support for a set issue or concern, are unlikely to drive the sort of interest which a more developed approach might have.

Simple resourcing is equally important. In the commercial world, organisations active in social media frequently employ community managers who are tasked with engaging with customers and other stakeholders online. They have a sound understanding of the medium as well as deep knowledge of the organisation and its goals. After protocols governing message, response and process are agreed upon, these individuals are usually given the freedom, and in particular, the time, to track conversations and, where appropriate, engage. Although clearly we do not have intimate knowledge of the working structures of all European parties, we would assume that most of them do not have this level of resourcing or process sophistication in place. Yet given the volume of conversation and sheer amount and quality of input required to have an impact, often in real time, bespoke resourcing is a must.

Perhaps most importantly, the mindset for social media has to be right. Even parties such as New Labour in Britain and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, defined as ‘professional media-communication parties’ (Hartleb 2013) struggle in social media. And yet individual politicians and single-issue and/or protest movements, such as M5S or the German Pirate Party, amass millions of supporters online.

Does this simply imply that individuals and protest movements are more suited to prosper in the medium than traditional entities? Not necessarily, for not all individuals and protest movements have prospered online; but the aforementioned examples do denote two core elements of social media success: personalisation and egalitarianism. The Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico) has 85,000 fans on Facebook. Its leader, Luigi Bersani, has 135,000. Of course, Facebook fan numbers are not a scientific measure of success, but it would indicate that people like to follow and engage with other people in social media rather than with a faceless organisation. Similarly, the success of the Pirate Party in Germany is largely attributed to ‘liquid feedback’ involving participation via the Internet and a new and entirely democratic style of organisation (Hartleb 2013).

Yet both elements are in contrast to the way most parties operate, given that their communications tend to focus on ‘the party’ rather than on individuals within them (other than party leaders, clearly). However, this is a must in the social media age, in which giving a human face to all communications and complete transparency are seen as indicators of trust and likeability. Similarly, most parties maintain an authoritarian streak that is inconsistent with the fluid democracy and openness of the protest parties. A shift away from this norm requires a mind shift and a move away from formal institutional structures, not merely a strategy or a new hire.

One could also argue that protest movements in particular succeed in social media due to the simplicity of their message: sound bites are more likely to be shared over a social network than a more complex or academic item. Perhaps political parties remain too cerebral, not wanting to descend to the level of protesters for fear of ‘dumbing down’ their message. We contend that highbrow political content does not preclude emotion and sound bites: some good-quality political content, say the Liberal Conspiracy blog in the UK, is both highbrow and showcases a high degree of zeal, whereas politicians who most people would define as highly ‘cerebral’ have captured the public imagination (the president of the United States is a fine example in this regard).

The social Holy Grail: gaining support through the power of networks

Assuming that the above elements are in place, the most powerful potential applications of social networks are to, first, deliver information and build closer relationships with supporters—replicate and strengthen existing relationships as it were; but even more significantly, to harness these relationships by reaching individuals beyond one's own network through their online contacts, in other words, utilising the network's network.

In order to test this premise, as well as the political outcome of it, that voting behaviour can be significantly influenced by social media (in this case messages on Facebook), a group of researchers in the US analysed political mobilisation messages delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 congressional elections. A similar in-depth study does not exist for Europe, and no doubt there would be some differences with Europe as a whole, as well as nuances within Europe itself, but the findings show the impact of personal relationships in determining people's decisions, which as a principle is applicable anywhere.

The study demonstrates that messages transmitted on Facebook ‘influenced political self-expression, information seeking and real-world voting behaviour’ (Bond et al. 2012). Perhaps more remarkably, in the context of the ‘network's network’ concept, the messages were found to not only influence the users who received them but also the users’ friends, and friends of friends. In fact, ‘the effect of social transmission on real-world voting was greater than the direct effect of the messages themselves, and nearly all the transmission occurred between “close friends” who were more likely to have a face-to-face relationship. These results suggest that strong ties are instrumental for spreading both online and real-world behaviour in human social networks’ (Bond et al. 2012).

The researchers conclude that the study has a number of implications: ‘First and foremost, online political mobilization works. It induces political self-expression, but it also induces information gathering and real, validated voter turnout. We also show that social mobilization in online networks is significantly more effective than informational mobilization alone. Showing familiar faces to users can dramatically improve the effectiveness of a mobilization message’ (Bond et al. 2012).

We would stress that simply delivering information via social media cannot mobilise support and guarantee reaching a network's network. The bottom line will always be that the product and the message, as well the messenger and the tone it is delivered in, have to be enticing enough to make people want to read, engage and share. There is no recipe for success here, other than the right building blocks of strategy, resourcing and mindset, and a compelling message. But certainly, the more local and personal a message can get, the more likely it is that the recipient will be influenced by it, inducing sharing and subsequent reach within further networks.

Beyond social: utilising data

All this takes us beyond social networks to data, or in particular, the use of data to understand audiences, and applying it in order to break down communication in social networks and elsewhere, so that it is relevant to smaller groups of targeted individuals, or even better, targeted right to the individual.

The Obama campaign is cited as a model for social networking, which it is, but in truth it was superior in its use of data and analytics: this was the prominent feature of the campaign in 2012. If any lesson can be gleaned by European political parties, it is that data can and should be analysed in order to gain a deeper understanding of the electorate (within the realms of possibility in Europe, given more stringent data protection norms, of course).

Most European parties would not be able to replicate the sheer scale of the Obama campaign, given that its digital team was made up of 300 people, of whom 50 were solely dedicated to analytics (the analysis and breakdown of data). Nevertheless, the principles are applicable anywhere.

In short, analytics was applied in the Obama campaign in order to predict activity and thus allocate resources effectively, to analysing performance in order to optimise output, and last but not least, to voter identification and analysis in order to target and mobilise voters with highly targeted, often personalised, messages (Engage Research 2013).

The complexity of the Obama system was such that it developed bespoke dynamic models using voter data, with which it would run tens of thousands of daily simulations in order to make predictions in swing states that could vote either Republican or Democrat, allowing them to shift resources in real time (Engage Research 2013). On the other scale of analytics, however, was the use of data to improve day-to-day elements of the campaign, be it website landing pages, email subject lines, social content or offline communications in the field.

Clearly, the extent to which this is done is infinitely scalable and thus within reach even to poorly funded parties.

Conclusion

Social media is without a doubt a powerful campaign tool when applied correctly. However, suitable building blocks have to be in place, from the underlying appeal of the message, to the practicalities of resourcing and application of best practice, to the use of the method which best lends itself to the medium: personal, emotive and participatory.

Assuming these building blocks are in place, might social media be a suitable channel for pan-European campaigns, say, for the European elections in 2014? Perhaps this should be assessed case by case, but we would argue that social media in a sense makes wider campaigning more difficult, not easier. One paradox of social media is that, despite its universality and the numbers associated with it—'1 billion Facebook users!'—it is a medium best utilised in a more intimate fashion: rather than a broadcast mechanism, it should be seen as a means to foster relationships between individuals and small groups of individuals based on shared interests.

Are parties that do not embrace social media destined to fail? Not yet, but over time, most likely: beyond the mere ubiquity of social media as a means of accessing information, it is patterns of trust that matter. People will be more likely to support an entity which they feel displays the appropriate levels of integrity and appeal in social media, or at least is endorsed by individuals within their own networks. Clearly, both elements require an active and appropriate social presence.