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.

Supporting a third party in a country without proportional representation can sometimes be difficult – we don’t tend to  have the motivation of the prospect of imminent government to call on.

So for anyone else who finds themselves wondering tonight whether their Sunday would’ve been better spent in support of some other cause, I thought I’d share with you the answer I refer back to whenever the “why bother?” question comes up. It comes from the closing sentences of Simon Hughes‘ final speech as President of the party, in September of 2008.

Over the last four years I’ve been humbled by huge support, and love and kindness by many of you, and I thank you for so many good times.

Four years ago, members of my family were sitting in those seats as I became Party President, my good mother among them. Last year I had to dash from the platform of conference to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, where she was fighting for her life.

On that day a combination of fantastic NHS care, and bluntly the miraculous, pulled her through.

Sadly, in November, she died.

But from conference when we were by the bedside in Birmingham, we heard a round of applause in solidarity for our family. For my younger brother, who is one of our councillors, and for me.

That warmth of gesture shows to me that we’re more than just a group of people who carry the same card in our handbags or our wallets. We’re more than just a group of people with personal ambitions. We have a collective vision, and we have a collective hope. Our vision is far bigger than the aspiration of any one of us as individuals, and our hope is to honour our mothers and fathers by building in this country a fairer, more compassionate and more prosperous future.

That’s why we are Liberal Democrats, and that’s why we don’t just deserve to succeed, we will succeed. Don’t ever give up on that cause – it’s the most wonderful thing you can do.

You can’t argue with that, eh?