Social media has been an important channel for political campaigning since 2008, when it was used to great effect in the USA by the Barack Obama presidential campaign. Since then, social media campaigns by political parties and candidates have grown in prominence worldwide, and it’s fair to say that social media played a pivotal role in the UK’s 2024 General Election.
Although the main parties all used conventional media to connect with voters, including postal direct mail, email marketing, TV and radio, and print media advertising, it can be argued that social media was the primary tool for political campaigning and voter engagement, especially at the level of individual constituencies.
From the lowest to the highest level, political candidates could be seen on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and even Tik-Tok disseminating their messages, posting campaign updates, and explaining policies, giving them a faster and more efficient reach compared to traditional methods.
What factors make social media such a popular choice for political campaigns?
Political campaigning, at its best, is a direct conversation or dialogue between a political candidate and their target voters. This is often difficult to sustain using traditional media due to the time lag between content publication and response – also one of the drawbacks of conventional advertising for businesses. Social media, on the other hand, facilitates direct real-time interaction between MPs, parties, and voters, allowing candidates to respond to feedback, get involved with trending issues, and have two-way personal conversations with voters.
Social media is also popular among political parties as a channel for encouraging political engagement: letting people know at every stage that there is an election going on, that they should get out and vote, and providing information on how and when to do so.
These messages may have fallen on deaf ears in 2024, with the 52% turnout being the lowest in a General Election since Universal Suffrage was introduced in 1928. Ouch.
This raises the question about how successful politicians genuinely were at using social media to connect with voters. In theory, social media gives political parties sophisticated targeting capabilities to run highly personalised political campaigns, e.g. tailored to specific constituencies, different demographics, and even individual preferences.
But did this work in practice, or did the parties fall short of the potential benefits of social media?
Conservatives
As the Conservatives lost the general election quite spectacularly, it’s easy to point out what they did wrong. However, in terms of social media strategy, they entered the campaign on solid footings. The party had a big budget, and their social media content was very well produced, often featuring high quality videos and graphics, which conveyed a professional and competent image. There was none (or at least, not much) of the fear mongering of some previous General Election campaigns. Instead, social media content was based on widespread data analytics to deliver highly targeted content at voters in target seats.
Despite this, the Conservatives struggled to connect with audiences on social media. This sends a word of caution to businesses that, however much data you hold and how much you think you understand your buyer personas, data alone won’t get you over the line. Analytics is no substitute for direct engagement and relationship building.
Labour
The Labour Party have always been good at social media because it fits well with their grassroots campaigning philosophy and their practice of reaching out directly to mobilise voters in key areas. The 2024 general election was no exception. Labour made excellent use of all social media platforms to broadcast live from rallies and real-world events, coordinate volunteer activities, and mobilise voters.
The party also struck a good balance between highly produced content and ad hoc video content produced on the spot using phones and mobile devices. However, before we pat Labour on the back, it can also be said that their general election social media strategy sometimes lacked consistency, with mixed messages that confused voters over some key policies and priorities, e.g. their position on Corporation Tax or the single market. The party was also occasionally slow to counteract misinformation campaigns aimed against the Party itself or individual candidates, which allowed some false narratives to spread unchecked on social media.
Smaller parties
The smaller parties all used social media with greater or lesser success to target their voter bases. Noteworthy are the campaigns conducted by the Liberal Democrats and Reform Parties. The Liberal Democrats successfully ‘played’ the first past the post voting system by concentrating almost all their social media campaigning efforts and budget in key seats. This prevented the party from dissipating its limited resources and yielded strong local success in areas where a Liberal Democrat was running second to the such Conservatives.
Reform, meanwhile, were arguably one of the big winners in terms of social media efficacy, successfully using social media to win voters away from the Conservatives, and also engaging with younger and first-time voters through Tik-Tok and Instagram.
Misinformation and credibility
All the parties faced the spectre of misinformation and disinformation on social media, and the spread of false information was a significant concern. The possibility of manipulation of social media content by hackers, and AI generated images and text, prompted platforms like Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) to introduce the mandatory labelling of AI-generated images in February 2024.
Ultimately, the 2024 General Election isn’t the best example of successful political campaigning using social media. Credibility was down, voter turnout was down, and the results of specific campaigns were mixed. Even the Labour Party, despite their landslide, only increased their vote share by an average of 2% in England (19% in Scotland). They got into government, rather, due to a collapse in the Conservative vote (down an average 20% to 28%).
What lessons can businesses draw from this?
One of the crucial factors we have always recognised about social media marketing is that customers/voters don’t like to be preached at. This is why the most successful business social media campaigns are those that go out of their way to provide value, for free, and hold back on the sales pitches. Businesses that are always pushing sales on social media don’t do very well, and the same, I suspect, is true for politicians.
For all the talk about grassroots mobilisation by the political parties, political social media content was always a one-way communication channel, not a dialogue. Parties did a lot of broadcasting of their pledges and opinions, but – arguably – not enough listening.
As the parties reflect on the results of their social media campaigns and look ahead to the next round of elections, the question might not so much be what businesses can learn from political campaigns, but what political campaigns can learn from businesses. To learn more about social media marketing, please contact us.
