Toby Beresford

Just as brands now battle it out for online audiences so do politicians. The online audience in the UK is 39m strong and over half of them are now on Facebook. The potential is enormous, but note, these people are quick to judge and fast to click away. Politicians ignore the online audience at their peril. In this fast moving media it's no surprise that online debate is simple and brutal. When I was a local politician in Wandsworth a decade ago, email was just beginning. Now with Facebook we have a tremendous digital communication platform that can quickly create big waves from small beginnings. Remember the successful online campaign "elect" Rage Against The Machine instead of an X factor winner to make Christmas Number One. A campaign that gathered a million people on Facebook using Facebook's free tools quickly turned them into activists who went out and bought the single. Pity the humble politician that comes up against a successful viral campaign of this magnitude.

Winning elections is about finding your voters and getting them to vote for you on the day. It's here we'll see effective use of social media as a campaign organising tool. Take, for example, Damian Collins, MP hopeful for the Folkestone and Hythe constituency. He has been putting social media to work on his campaign trail with a "Damian for Folkestone" group (http://j.mp/7Dvu7k), Facebook events for important meetings and a Facebook page to share campaign stories. Damian is taking advantage of Facebook's "social newsfeed" which tells friends about the events that their friends are going to. It is a very cost effective way to organise a campaign too: social networks are generally free and powerful tools like Events and Groups can be set up without any technical skills.

At the heart of this campaign though, is Damian himself. He recently said "social media helps me build relationships with people not engaged in politics". Perhaps he has "got" social media's true promise: connecting a candidate directly with potential supporters, reducing reliance on the traditional propaganda role of the campaign office. His competitors like Andy Reed MP (@andyreedmp) and Ministers like Stephen Timms MP (@stephenctimms) are using twitter to achieve the same thing.

As President Barack Obama showed in his US election, direct connections to voters can really improve and add depth to a strong candidate. A quote by Joe Trippi, the American Democratic campaign strategist, is now the byline for digital electoral activism - "There is only one tool, one platform, one medium that allows the American people to take their government back, and that's the internet…”. What Trippi perfected was that direct connection mattered to voters. For an emerging generation that genuinely relates to each other digitally, there is a need to sense a real presence behind the digital profile. Something Obama clearly "got" when he thanked his Facebook fans with a direct message, even before he had made his TV victory speech. Obama's underlying message then is Facebook first, TV second.

So what will we see in our first social media affected election? I predict we'll see more than a few potential MPs succumb to online campaigns designed to stop them gaining or regaining power. We'll see the digitally savvy candidates get a higher turnout in their areas as online activity creates a greater buzz around their election and we'll see local issues increase in importance as social media pulls power away from the central, national media outlets into the hands of local people themselves. I believe that the 2010 elections will see social media playing a big part for politicians and voters alike. It will also generate interest among the younger voters which, I’m sure most people will agree, is no bad thing at all.

About the author

Toby Beresford is Director at Nudge Social Media, a full service social media agency, providing expert strategic consultancy, campaign planning and management for leading brands. Nudge Social Media creates great experiences for users that also provide conversation opportunities for companies looking to explore the opportunities provided by social platforms. Nudge produces campaigns, pages, utilities and games on social networks for brands, clients and digital agencies.

www.nudgesocialmedia.com