Thanks to Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications, Deirdre Molloy at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Mark Pack of Mandate for inspiring different parts of the presentation.

Presentation, with annotations

Below you’ll find a copy of my slide deck, with some explanatory notes added in red.
The digital world: ten things you need to know but never dared ask

You can also download a PDF of the presentation (12MB PDF) without annotations.

More reading

I promised some links to useful websites and agency suggestions, so here is my starter for ten:

Word of Mouth agencies

• We Are Social
• 1000heads

Digital strategy and web service agencies

• Chameleon Net
• Fortune Cookie
• Precedent

Online video production

• Christian Payne (documentally)

Measurement

• bit.ly
• Google Analytics
• Google Insights for Search
• Icerocket
• How to use YouTube Insight

I’ll be speaking at the annual convention of the Association for Cultural Enterprises next week – if you work in that sector and fancy a session which will involve PowerPoint but also the collective creation of a small piece of social marketing collateral (despite warnings not to rely on an internet connection!), then do come along.

One of the major factors for students who choose to study at a metropolitan university, particularly those living in London, is the proximity of the University to their home. These students are more likely than most to search for a specific institution by name, as they may be familiar with it having been exposed to the brand through advertising / signage / events.

If you search for the University of Westminster on the current Google interface, you will see a first hit that looks similar to this:

Under the new Google interface, the map is no longer included in the first search result. However, further down the page a contextual map is included:

I can’t quite believe this map is intended not to give prominence to the University of Westminster, given that those were my search terms. However at present, this is a slot of our ‘shop window’ dedicated to our competitors, without the need for PPC advertising. A big change, with a particular relevance in areas where multiple institutions are packed in close together - so yet another London factor for student recruitment.

It’s impossible to answer that question without first defining what an “Internet election” is. Traditionally to my mind there have been two possible definitions:

1. An election where a stasticically significant number of seats, ten or more, change hands either as the direct result of online campaigns by political parties candidates, or because positive online campaigning was a critical factor.
2. An election where any number of MPs, as low as a single MP, is undeniably ousted from their seat by a negative campaign either by political opponents or independent critics, mustered online.

But a third possibility is emerging.

My belief is that when we look back on the General Election of 2010, for all the effort poured in to them the defining story will not come from My Conservatives, or the Liberal Democrats’ soon to be launched competitor, Act.

It could come from a signature pre-planned campaign. If, for example, the TaxPayer’s Alliance aren’t working right now on a postcode searchable system in which voters can see what their sitting MP has claimed on expenses, and what their opponents have said their approach to expenses will be, then they need to sack the person responsible for their digital effort and re-hire quickly.

More likely, the defining online moment of GE2010 will come from Twitter.  Watch this short video before you go any further:

The video shows Twitter’s trending topics for October 13 2009. It shows the clear emergence of the #trafigura hashtag as the dominant topic of conversation in just three hours – an explosion aided by (cough) people like me keeping the tag alive overnight from about 10pm on the 12th. They weren’t just any hours either, but the awkward hours at the start of the working day – 08:00 to 10:00 where people are still drifting in to work, and an organisation isn’t at its peak responsiveness.

Millions discussed Trafigura on Twitter. By the time Trafigura hired someone who understood social media, just three days later on October 16th, their staid YouTube response was only able to garner a few hundred views. Many simply weren’t interested in the story any more, and those who were interested weren’t inclined to help the company out by passing on the existence of the video. They’d burned millions of bridges with millions of people, simply by being slow to react.

Every party, and every candidate, has to decide now whether they’re going to understand and engage with social media, or fear it. It’s a nightmare for political parties to get their heads around – social media has no respect for constituency or regional boundaries, no understanding of the need for parties with complex structures to navigate their internal democratic processes before they pronounce, and in particular, no mercy for those who cannot respond somehow, in some way, immediately.

If the parties haven’t understood it already, they need to now. The General Election of 2010 is already the Internet election – the power of one foolish remark by a tired key figure, amplified by Twitter, could cause your national campaign to implode if you aren’t ready. There is no choice whether or not to engage online, the playing field has been swapped from under the feet of the political parties while their attention was focused on the Lobby.

Purely in terms of defending against the threat of social media, irrespective of embracing the opportunities, if parties haven’t already done the following, they need to move quickly:

• Don’t think that reading Guido Fawkes’ blog is the same as monitoring the web – treat Guido just as you would a journalist from the mainstream media. In terms of influence his blog is as mainstream a media outlet as The Telegraph online. Engage him as you would any other hostile journalist. And Guido’s not alone – have a list of bloggers with a similar impact to the MSM.
• Train all your press officers as active participants on Twitter. The Lobby and other key journalists are already there, and will be being fed stories through Twitter constantly.
• Extend your media monitoring teams to set up Twitter searches for ‘@’ replies, so you can see not only what your key targets are saying, but what is being said in reply. Include:
  • Your candidates and their opponents
  • The journalists following your campaigns
  • Key national political media
• Merge / co-locate your digital and media teams, they need to feed information to each other instantly.
• Have a plan for how you’re going to engage on a national level. Where will you be? Who will speak? Look at the polling data – particularly the demographics. Are you better off on Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? Can you cover them all?
• Be ready to create video at short notice. If you’re hit by a critical YouTube video, there’s little point responding on a webpage on your party site.
• Train your local campaigners. Make sure they’re running a reduced version of your national social media monitoring. Ensure that they can quickly alert your national digital team to anything they may have missed. Particularly, but not exclusively, for sitting MPs look at the campaign and ask yourself this – “If I found myself on the receiving end of a Tim Ireland / Anne Milton campaign, would I know how to react?”

And finally, the national parties (and for that matter any large agency, charity, or company) need to examine their usual tactics for handling negative stories, and ask if they still stand up in the age of Wikileaks and Twitter. You can’t injunct them, you can’t cajole them, you can’t bully them, and you can’t deny their voice. You can only engage. Are you ready?

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

So said André Gide. Wise man. It’s in that spirit that I’ve taken a gamble, and handed in my notice at work – I’ll be leaving in the new year.

We’ve completed a couple of major projects recently – a new website for the University of Westminster, and a major HR campaign (both profiled here.) Those two projects close an intensive 32 months which have been packed full of comms, PR, media, and public affairs work. It’s been a fantastically broad and challenging role during a period of intensive change for the University.

The Vice-Chancellor recently announced a new three-year plan, within our vision for 2015. It’s a big plan, and I fully support it.  However, I realised quickly that it was going to need constant communication, and it would be best served if the Comms Director could see it through to 2013 at least, and better still to 2015. I’m convinced that it’s best for the University if a new figure takes over in the new year to progress my work, avoiding the disruption of a handover mid-project – and this is the only window to ensure a smooth handover. I’ll miss the great team we’ve built here.

Having declined my manager’s kind offer to try and talk me out of it, I’ve taken a leap in to the unknown. I’m putting together a showcase of my work, and I’m happy to send my CV to anyone who’s interested. Both my current employers and Lord Rennard have offered to act as referees. If you would like to see my CV, or discuss any opportunities, do email me (rob@northumbrian.org.uk) or call me on 07961 814 527.

Lets hope that neither destitution nor consultancy await.

I’ve always said that some day I would compile a book of unexpected sentences, the sort of things that make you say “well, I never thought that would come out of my mouth”, but I like to start small and pilot first – so before the book comes www.twitter.com/adventitiously

Adventitiously will be a 24 hour stream of consciousness, taken completely out of context. It will launch without warning (even I don’t know when I’ll do it), it will consist completely of passing thoughts of mine, things I overhear, or things I say. Nothing will be explained, it’s for you to imply your own meaning to the moments. An example from today might’ve been:

“If it had to be that big, did it have to be that colour?”

It might be hilarious, it may be profound, most likely it will be a complete waste of time.  We’ll never know unless we try. Whatever happens, I’d like to gather your reactions around the hashtag #adventitiously. So, if you fancy a day out of context some time soon, please follow @adventitiously now.

I ended my summary post with the question “how did the party websites become so universally dull?” It’s easy to leave a question floating, much more dangerous to attempt to answer it. Below, I lay out my thoughts not as a polished prescription, but as a conversation starter for the parties.

As we aproach a general election and I open a political party website, it can be a little like sitting next to a stranger on a long train journey. I might be lucky enough to find someone interesting and engaging, who is up for a stimulating conversation. If it goes really well, maybe we’ll exchange contact details, have a few drinks, and a beautiful friendship is born out of a chance encounter. Alternatively, I might get the latent drunk – peacefuly asleep until the very last minute, when he suddenly starts shouting meaningless babble over my head at no-one in particular.

Political party website content generally takes one of three forms. First is rolling news and comment – press releases, and web news stories. Second  is information on campaigns and policies. Finally, information on conferences, and things like resources for activists – content for the internal audience.

Given that there will be a heavy supporter bias in the visitors to any political party site, rolling news well done is an opportunity to keep activists and supporters engaged and motivated. A balance is required between news and comment on the issues of the day, and news and comment on the party itself. This latter group of content – information about the people in HQ, the process stories, candidate selections, has a significant, and I would argue growing,  pulling power. However, parties are too keen to push this news to infrequently produced paper newsletters, or to Home sites.

Many party sites – Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens being the worst offenders – lead instead with a lazy rehash of the daily line to take. This approach to content  can alienate supporters and create a sense of detachment from party leaderships and their troops on the ground – party activists are often the last to believe the party line. Immediately, these websites begin to talk over the heads of their users. Credibility and interest is lost.

Campaigns are the principle opportunity to reach out beyond the traditional supporter base by rallying ad-hoc support around specific issues.

The Right:  5/5

Both the BNP and the Conservatives scored 5/5 in my content tests.

The BNP have a very active news centre, a sort of righter-wing online Daily Mail, which incorporates news from HQ and around the regions. There are high numbers of comments under each news story. Although written in the style of media releases / reportage, the stories appear to be principally generated with the BNP-supporting web audience in mind.

The BNP appear to have successfully placed rolling news updates at the heart of their web content, and have an internal structure which delivers regional news to the national site. I cannot see any evidence of a print newsletter for BNP members, making the website the key channel for delivery of internal party news.

The Conservatives provide online content through blogs, news, speeches, and campaigns. Particularly of note is the high quality campaigns page, though this feels rather buried in the design of the site.

The Conservatives make heavy use of a regular stream of video (see elsewhere for more), and content provided for press releases is different to the content used in the higher profile online news section.

The parties of the left have proven slower to react to the need for a steady stream of online content, and the power of the web in gaining and motivating support.  These parties need to engage in some frantic effort to prepare themselves for next year’s general election.

Video

Video helps to bring a party website to life – it is a way to sharply and succinctly emotionalise or editorialise a complex issue. A good party website will have a steady stream of video produced, with a call to action included in each video. These need not necessarily be big-budget blockbusters, and a slight home-made feel can be a positive benefit.

I’m going to make a vaguely educated guess that a large portion of political party website traffic comes from people sat in offices. Be they newsrooms of international news companies, or the desks of party activists slogging away at the day job.

Users based in offices can face fundamental obstacles -  their computer may not have working sound support, or they may not wish to be overheard in their office watching a party’s videos. How do you get round this? You might add subtitles, or  create a video which leads on words and pictures, rather than talking heads.

Compare and contrast two recent attempts at the animation route. First Labour:

and then the Conservatives:

The Tory video is produced to a much higher standard. For a start, it’s got a script, not an extract from a press release. Unlike Labour, the music has a connection to the on-screen message, there is narrative use of colour and typefaces, and there is a clear and coherent message – it tells a story. However, the Conservative video is not perfect – the call to action at the end of the video has a more opaque purpose than Labour’s, and their custom player strips out all of the social capabilities of a system like YouTube – thousands may have watched, hundreds may think the content is five-star, but we’ll never know.

What to do?

If any political party is still indulging itself in debating the question of whether the 2010 election will be ‘the internet election’, then they have fatally underestimated the power of online.

Here then, is my starter for ten:

Properly resource your web teams, and either integrate them into, or place them on equal footing with, your press office during the election period. Guido Fawkes can hurt you as badly as George Pascoe-Watson, and without the overnight lead time of the first editions to prepare your reaction. The public will start commenting immediately – how quickly, how effectively, and where, will you rebut?

Open up your sites so that party workers / activists / supporters can provide you with content. Look at the success of your respective Home sites, and seek to emulate their content, rather than their functionality. Give user generated content equal prominence to the party line – create a buzz, show us your supporter base. You’ll have to filter it, of course, because your opponents are bastards and they would hijack an open stream without hesitating. You need to face in and out of your party simultaneously.

If you’re an elected representative, don’t staff it out. Get on to Twitter, Facebook, and the your party’s website yourself. Don’t see online as a luxury – start by using it as an effective channel for motivating your activists. If you’re in a party HQ, make sure your candidates have guidance on what not to do.

More video please. Tell us the story of the campaign trail. Buy a load of Flip Ultras and despatch them to your key marginals. Provide guidance so the teams on the ground promote the video locally, but pull that video back up so we can see the national picture from your site.

Yes, use your site as a portal for donations and new joiners, but go to the effort to convince us you’re worth joining before pushing a big red ‘JOIN‘ button in our faces.

Talk to us, not at us. Listen to your audience, and respond. If you don’t have someone manning your ‘corporate’ Twitter feed who is authorised to issue replies on behalf of the party, you’ve failed already.  If that prospect is too terrifying, you could consider a Twitter ambassador. Hold online Q&As. Let us comment on your news and policies. Respond quickly, and thoroughly – even to the loonies. Especially to the loonies.

Finally, if you are the person or team charged with running your party’s website, ask yourself one question whenever you upload or approve content – “is this dull?” If it is, send it back. You’ll be doing us all a favour.

Generally, my preferred measure of global website popularity comes from compete.com, who in this case only record traffic for the BNP and the Conservatives.

According to compete.com, the Conservative Party saw 4,698 unique visitors in June 2009 to the BNP’s 3,343. Unfortunately, in this  case Compete is not the best site to use – Compete’s figures massively under-report the actual traffic, probably because the majority of their data is gathered in the US.

Alexa

Without access to the likes of Hitwise, this forces me into the rather unpredictable world of Alexa. I don’t normally assign a great deal of weight to Alexa figures, and will avoid rehashing the arguments for and against their data here. However, I wasn’t prepared to use Alexa ranking as part of the scores, so they don’t have any bearing on the end result.

You can see in the chart above that in global terms, when excluding the BNP, each of the political sites is much of a muchness when it comes to traffic.

Where a lower figure is ‘better’, the global rank Alexa assigns to each of the major sites is:

1. Conservative: 116,400
2. UKIP: 173,731
3. Lib Dem: 181,085
4. Labour: 189,384
5. Green: 234,390

The BNP have a much higher rank, 27,526 – a fact that is boasted on the front page of bnp.org.uk. I would suggest this figure is suspiciously high and has most likely been manipulated by BNP supporters installing the Alexa data gathering toolbar. However, I don’t doubt that proportionally the BNP website is one of the most popular political party websites in Britain – possibly the most popular.

As with political blogs, political parties of the right perform rather better than their left-wing counterparts.

Clearly underlining the message that content is king (and you need strong content to build up a dedicated community) is the fact that ‘party celebrity’ blogs significantly outperform their own party sites in the rankings. For example the Conservative blogger Iain Dale has an Alexa rank of 69,419 – nearly 47,000 places above his own party’s website.