How Social Media has become a political battleground this General Election

Change in Social

In the wake of Brexit and a world of fake news, social media has developed a reputation for being provocative. Not only has political parties’ use of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat increased dramatically, but this General Election has seen a shift in how parties are using the platforms. The online world fuels pro-Brexit debates and the likes of Jeremy Corbyn getting more shares than Kim Kardashian. While parties still use traditional media to complement their campaigns, social media sites have become a playground for political advertising, often blurring the lines between news and entertainment.

Target Specific Constituencies

Unlike traditional media, social media allows for granulartargeting of specific cohorts and constituencies. Mass marketing has been replaced by micro-targeting, even nano-targeting which allows candidates to put a campaign message in front of one group of voters, while simultaneously running an ad with a completely different message in front of a different group of voters. The intelligence of targeting combined with the sheer amounts of data held on Facebook users is an extremely powerful tool that is at hand to those willing to heavily fund their digital campaigns, allowing for retargeting which follows users up until election day. For example, this General Election, the Conservative party rolled out a series of personalised geo-targeted ads which let its target audience know how many voters are needed for a certain location to win a Conservative seat.

Linking to an online call to action

We may have grown used to the increase in political messaging in our news feeds, but this General Election saw a real drive in social ads encouraging people to register to vote. As interactive platforms, parties were able to easily link through to registration pages; Labour, in particular, took this opportunity to run social campaigns targeted at younger voters who may not have registered yet as a result of university relocation. In contrast, it was not surprising to see a slight lack of wide-reach ‘register to vote’ adsfrom the Conservatives; getting people to register is of great importance, but not if they’re not going to back your party. An emerging platform that also helped push registration was WhatsApp Cascade, which circulated links through political group chats, making it easy enough to spread the message to hundreds of people within minutes. This has been an integral tool for Labour in reaching new audiences and increased autonomy by putting the supporter in charge of spreading the message. It also shows that if given the right tools, people are willing to engage in political messaging on social to spread an important message.

Use of Influencers

On 26th November, a record-breaking 350,000 people registered to vote- of this figure 150,000 were under 25 and 264,000 were under 35 - the highest ever application figure for a single day, other than deadline day. This can, in part, be attributed to YouTuberKSI’s Tweet, urging his 3.5 million followers to register to vote, and Stormzy’s Instagram posttelling his 1.5 million followers that he would be backing Jeremy Corbyn. While younger generations are often dismissed as cynics, we mustn’t underestimate the power of their favourite influencers and ambassadors in generating action online. If they have a genuine belief in the cause, they will post unpaid, and with invaluable authenticity. This is something paid impressions certainly can’t buy.

Cause a Political Stir

This General Election has seen an abundance of ‘viral’ campaign content, which attempts to steer decision making by causes a stir and generating a reaction. Led By Donkeys, a British political campaign group, uses satire targeted at politicians, calling them out on “thermonuclear hypocrisy” among other issues. Known for their simplistic billboard advertisements displaying tweets or statements written by politicians (that they most likely now wish they hadn’t), the group largely focuses on highly PR-able OOH formats. These earn media through shares on social platforms including Twitter and Instagram, a great example of the duality of offline/online content.

One Twitter page which most definitely caused a stir was the FactCheckUK account set up to undermine the Labour party throughout the leader’s debate. This acted as an official fact-checking account, but was actually run by the Conservative party. The incident shows how the use of social media by political parties has somewhat spiraled out of control, with little attempt to give a balanced view of the political climate, and leaving voters puzzled as to what is human intelligence and what is fake news.

Effectiveness and Credibility

Social media campaigns have definitely caused a stir this General Election, but proof of the effectiveness is harder to gauge as all parties are investing in content - the only measure will be the ballot boxes. According to the Facebook Ad library, the Conservative party has spent £497,132, the Labour party has spent £769,247, and the Liberal Democrats have spent £1,010,796over the same time period. As all the main parties have invested quite heavily in digital campaigns, effectiveness could not be determined unless at least one of the parties didn’t use it. As social media platforms have become political battlegrounds that are filled with fake news and paid targeted advertising campaigns, people are becoming increasingly skeptical of what they read on their feeds. The real story of this election and those of years to come could be in the chaos of users’ smartphones where memes compete with ill-informed arguments on Twitter feeds.

Echo Chamber

Amongst individuals’ angst about the credibility of their social media feeds is the prevalence of an ever-growing echo chamber; this is another key challenge presented by the growing use of social media to target voters with political messaging. Because people are happy to take on board information that chimes with their beliefs, it becomes increasingly difficult to see a balanced view of a situation. The effects of such a feedback loop could be detrimental, contributing to already deep divisions within our society. As the realities of the political echo chamber come to light, it begs the question: where can voters go for a balanced argument? More importantly, will people eventually turn their backs on social media as a news source?

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