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Was this really the UK’s first Digital Election? That was the question we wanted to try to answer, at least in part, when Diffusion commissioned YouGov to examine the impact that online campaiging played as we headed to the polling stations on May 6th.  You may have seen the results of our Digital Election Report covered exclusively by the Financial Times last month, but I wanted to share some of the data in a bit more detail with you below.

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One of the key research findings was that over half  (56 per cent) of the voting age population consumed political information via digital channels during the General Election campaign. However, despite the hype surrounding some social media channels, one of the most popular sources for political information online were the websites for candidates and political parties, with 19 per cent of the public as a whole and a third of voters aged 18-24, visiting these sites over the course of the campaign.

Twitter was arguably the most hyped platform in the run up to and during the election itself, but our research shows that only 5 per cent of UK voters read any political content via the site, rising to only 13 per cent for those aged 18-24. This contrasts with Facebook, which was one of the big winners of the Digital Election with over a third (36 per cent) of those aged 18-24 reading political information on the platform. Of the sites we surveyed,  Facebook  was the most popular single online source of election information for young voters.  The social network also remained influential with those aged 25-34 with almost a quarter of this group (24 per cent) consuming political information on the site.

Online video content was a focus for all the main political parties, however only 8 per cent of the public watched political videos on sites such YouTube during the General Election campaign, but this figure is significantly higher at 25 per cent for 18-24 year olds.  Online advertising was also a prominent part of the online election campaign, with both the Labour Party and the Conservatives investing in Google AdWords and other online advertising campaigns on key sites.  According to our research 12 per cent of adults, rising to a quarter of 18-24 year olds, recall seeing online political advertising during the election campaign.

Interestingly, email, one of the oldest and potentially most effective digital channels and one which was a cornerstone of Barack Obama’s campaign, seems to have made minimal impact in this General Election.  Only 13 per cent of those surveyed can recall receiving any emails from political parties and organisations in the run up to May 6th.

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This was also not the ‘Mumsnet Election’. It appears that blogs and forums played a much more limited role as a source of political information for the general public, with only 11 per cent recalling reading political information on such sites.  While ‘online mums’ were courted by Cameron, Clegg and Brown, blogs and forums were actually twice as popular among men (15 per cent) compared to women (just 7 per cent) as sources of political news and commentary.

Finally, we also wanted to gauge the impact of digital campaigning on the voting intentions of the public. Did voters feel that the information they read and shared online actually made any difference? Now, asking voters  to separate out the impact of different channels on a decision as complex as voting is a difficult task, but the research revealed some important results.

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Of those that consumed political information online during the election, only 19 per cent claimed it made no impact on how they voted. Significantly, 15 per cent of voters stated that the political content they consumed online had either a ‘fair amount or great deal’ of influence on who they decided to vote for on 6th May. This may seem like a small amount, but a couple of percentage points can be more than enough to sway an election outcome.

As shown throughout the research, younger voters were most likely to have engaged with the General Election online and also most likely to be influenced by online campaigning. YouGov found that almost a third (30 per cent) of 18 – 24 year olds stated that their decision on how to vote was effected to a fair or great degree.

While the 2010 election campaign was dominated by the novelty of the TV debates, it is clear that digital channels, many also used for the first time in a General Election, influenced the electoral choices of British voters to varying degrees.  This was not the Digital Election some had predicted, but it certainly was a Digital Election, with online campaigning making an impact with large sections of the British electorate.

In the weeks ahead all political parties will no doubt be receiving the results of even more in-depth studies into the effectiveness of their online campaigns. If their results mirror ours, there will be some important lessons that will need to be learned ahead of the next General Election, whether it takes place in five months or in five years.

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The first of the Election TV debates is just hours away and as reported today by PR Week, the post debate spin operation will be on a mammoth scale.  However, despite the army of official spin doctors attempting to convince the media that their man was the victor, journalists will also being playing close attention to the vast online spin room known as Twitter.

From Prime Minister’s Questions to Glee, Twitter has become the official social media TV ‘back channel’ with thousands of viewers using the platform to comment in real-time about the programmes they are watching.  The first of the leader debates is likely to see this trend taken to a new level.  Now, that’s not to say that the reactions on twitter will automatically be more authentic and representative of the viewing audience – every party’s activists and supporters will be furiously tweeting up the performance of their candidates. But before having to negotiate ‘spin alley’ the banks of journalists watching the debate from the press room will be able to tap into twitter and get an immediate feeling for the exchanges and strange behavioural tics that have got people watching talking.

It would be naive to presume that those reactions on twitter won’t make any impact on the way specific journalists chose to report tonight’s events. For those of you wanting to follow the debate while watching DIY SOS I understand the official twitter hashtag will be #LeadersDebate

This morning saw the launch of the Diffusion Facebook & Politics research report, with the results of one of the most comprehensive assesments of how the Conservatives, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats are using the platform. We examined the profiles of over 169 MPs on Facebook, 564 prospective parliamentary candidates and the official Facebook presence of the three main political parties.

Why did we go to all that effort you may ask? Well, one of the most powerful criticisms of the social media industry is its propensity to jump on the latest bandwagon, often aided and abetted by a media eager to write about the next big thing. Recent coverage on the use of social media in the forthcoming general election has been an interesting case in point.

From the acres of press coverage devoted to it over the last 12-months, it would be easy to assume that Twitter is the only show in town. While few would argue that Twitter has provided a vibrant new platform for political discourse, we believe its significance is being over-stated.

It’s worth taking a moment to step back from the hype and look at the cold hard facts. Facebook remains the big beast of the social media world, with four in ten people in the UK (24m) active users of the platform. 18 million of those are estimated to be aged 18 and over.  Analysis from Hitwise for February 2010 shows that Facebook now accounts for over half (51%) of all visits to social networking sites. This compares to just 2% of all such visits to Twitter.

Social media and social networking sites specifically, have the potential to play a key role in the online campaigns of all political parties in the forthcoming general election. However, scale, reach, functionality and engagement will be critical success factors. This is why we believe that Facebook, not Twitter is likely to be the most significant platform employed to energise and organise party activists on the ground and influence undecided voters.

Some of the key findings from our research have been reported today in the Guardian and Metro, causing quite a stir in political circles. Our headline findings show that the Conservatives are, to date, clearly winning the Facebook election battle.  We will be releasing more detailed findings from the report over the next few days, so watch this space!

It’s been a day of high political drama with The Sun announcing that it’s turning its back on Labour to endorse the Conservative Party at the next general election. Nobody would accuse us of underestimating the importance of online media and digital platforms, but we would never be naive enough to assume that when it comes to political campaigning or PR in general, that national newspapers no longer matter.  However, surprisingly, this seems to be the agreed attack line adopted this morning by Labour spokespeople being interviewed about The Sun’s decision.

Everyone from Lord Mandelson to Charlie Wheelan to the Guardian’s Michael White have been on the TV and radio claiming that The Sun’s explosive decision to back the Tories doesn’t matter in today’s internet age with falling newspaper circulations.  Labour MP Kerry McCarthy, the parties new media chief even went so far as to claim in a Tweet last night that “Labour doesn’t need The Sun. We’ve got Twitter.”  As wonderful as Twitter is, it won’t have been read by close to 8 million people this morning, alongside a full-colour pull-out poster detailing what the paper claims to be Labour’s shortcomings.

There were some interesting Twitter sentiment analysis carried out yesterday by the team at Tweetminster in response to Brown’s speech, which classed 53% of tweets as positive with 21% negative.  The analysis is great to see but I don’t think it tells us anything more than lots of delegates at the Labour Party conference and supporters were on Twitter yesterday afternoon.  I don’t think Twitter is significantly Labour supporting, so again McCarthy’s claim of ownership over the platform for Labour seems rather misguided.

The pure online impact of The Sun shouldn’t be underestimated either. This morning it’s launched a Google Adwords campaign bidding on keywords including ‘Gordon Brown’ and ‘Labour Party’ which state  “The Sun endorses The Conservative Party for the next general election.” The paper’s FeelingBlue campaign has already translated onto Twitter within hours.

Ultimately lets not forget the 23 million plus unique users per month to Sun Online. Beyond pure news coverage The Sun’s website will be a key battle ground for seeding video attack ads and virals during the election campaign – following today’s switch it’s a battle which Labour’s online team will struggle to win.

This week’s issue of PR Week takes an in-depth look at the BNP’s success at the recent European elections and asks a straightforward question – was enough done by the main political parties to prevent their breakthrough? My own view, shared by other industry colleagues, is that a communication strategy based on the premise that if we simply ignore the BNP they will just disappear has clearly failed.  A new approach is now needed, focussed on countering BNP propaganda whenever and wherever it appears, with a far more proactive stance taken by all mainstream political parties.  This includes online.

While I agree completely that there is no substitute for knocking on doors and talking to voters directly, the inability of the BNP to use the mainstream media as a mouthpiece, makes the internet a key component of its campaigning strategy. The online world will therefore become a key battleground in fighting extremism.

I was given the opportunity to debate these issues further with Luke Pollard, an account director at PR consultancy Edelman, as well as a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party. You can watch our discussion in the PR Week video podcast below.

Being both a politics and digital PR junkie I’ve been rather spoiled and completely fascinated by the US Presidential elections. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to record a video podcast for PR Week on both my favourite topics last week, which you can watch here. I think it’s fair to say that we are witnessing the first Social Media Election, where online platforms have become so much more than just channels for raising money but central to campaign strategy for both the McCain and Obama camps.

While the US elections have no doubt showcased the scale of what the web can achieve, there is still so much more that could be done in terms of sophistication. I touch on the issue of better campaign integration in my podcast – amplifying the power of political campaigns through intelligently linking traditional media relations, Search marketing and Social Media.  This is one of the areas I highlight where political parties in the UK, particularly the Conservatives are taking a lead and have a thing or two to teach our American cousins. The Tories live-bidding on Google for keywords spoken by Alasdair Darling as he was delivering his last budget speech is just a sign of the things to come.

Another example of integration in action, which I never managed to blog about at the time was Obama’s visit to the UK in July and his private meeting with David Cameron. Though most of the actual meeting was conducted away from the cameras, the party released a video on YouTube of Cameron discussing the encounter within an hour of it ending and then pushed this out via its press office, an email marketing shot and a sustained Google PPC campaign. The video made it into the Top 10 most popular YouTube videos that weekend, with over 20,000 hits in 48 hours, helping to ensure that the Tories at least matched the coverage given to Obama’s meeting with Brown.

As with most things Social Media we have barely scratched the surface, particularly when it comes to using the two-way communication potential of online platforms to the full. Watching how the UK parties fight the next general election online is going to be compelling viewing!

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” were the reassuring words of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 as the US faced the realities of the Great Depression. This week our own political leaders have been trying their best to reassure the  financial markets and assuage the fears of ordinary voters worried about their jobs, homes, savings and pensions.

To help get his message across Gordon Brown on Thursday launched a new series of podcasts on the economic crisis – the first discussing the government’s rescue of the British banking sector.  Hosted on the new Number 10 website and on iTunes, the podcasts are part of a concerted strategy to communicate government policy directly to voters, bypassing what remains a largely hostile media.

I can see, or rather hear, why the podcast medium is attractive for Gordon Brown.  His deep Scottish brogue works far better on radio than on TV, where his visual tics invariably distract the viewer from what he is actually saying. The live interview format also usually results in Brown reverting to repetitive and robotic stock-phrases and apart from when being interrogated by Mariella Frostrop, I’ve yet to see a TV interview where he looks genuinely comfortable.

So the pre-record of a podcast works well and his delivery is relaxed and reassuring to the listener.  I would however be tempted to experiment with different formats in addition to the standard Churchillian address.  Perhaps have Brown “in conversation with…” the types of individuals he mentions at the start of his podcast – first-time buyers after a mortgage, small business owners trying to secure bank loans or a housewife trying to balance the household budget. Why not record it at the local Lidl?  The conversations wouldn’t need to be confrontational or overtly party political, but would arguably help demonstrate how the government’s £500 billion intervention will positively impact on the day to day lives of ordinary voters.

Anyway, having listened to the Prime Minister’s podcast, my iPod immediately segued into Abba’s ‘Money, Money, Money’, which kept me amused for the rest of Black Friday at least.

I was asked to contribute to a fascinating article in the National Journal, a leading US political magazine, on Friday in response to the initially surprising news that John McCain is actually outspending Barack Obama on Google. Figures released by Nielsen Online show that McCain’s campaign purchased just over 7 million impressions via Google AdWords in June, compared to just over 1 million for Obama.

However, the really interesting stats are for spend on traditional banner advertising, where Obama is trouncing McCain. Obama invested in over 80 million impressions compared to just 16 million for McCain. Nielsen’s analysis shows that Obama’s banners have been deployed on popular portals such as Yahoo! and MSN and news sites such as CNN. The campaign also bought almost 2 million impressions on allrecipes.com, perhaps in an attempt to reach more of the women who voted for Clinton.  McCain, who is still distrusted by much of the Republican base, seems to have focussed his banner spending on conservative sites such as the National Review and Lucianne.com.

As pointed out in the article, the discrepancy in the investment between banners and search advertising by the two campaigns is most likely a result of financial expediency rather than deliberate strategy.  McCain has fewer resources and is therefore focusing these on more targeted and cheaper ads on Google. It’s difficult to tell from the outside the real degree of targeting by the Obama campaign in its use of banner advertising. It could be various ad-networks are being paid millions of dollars to simply get as many eye-balls as possible.

What is true is that the Republican campaign had had to play catch-up in effectively using the Internet as a campaigning tool and is learning fast.  McCain’s recent adverts portraying Obama as both Moses and a blonde bimbo and the now famous response by Paris Hilton, has meant McCain has overtaken Obama’s lead for YouTube viewers for the first time.

Analysis from Tubemogul.com shows McCain’s videos attracted more viewers than Obama’s for seven days in a row last week, and on 11 of the previous 14 days.  Maybe it’s time for Will.i.am to pen another ditty…perhaps featuring Paris’ much under appreciated musical talents?

So I was asked by PR Week on Monday for my views on Gordon Brown’s Ask the PM initiative on YouTube. This was the latest foray into the online world by Downing Street, following its recent embrace of Twitter. My assessment that Ask the PM “smacks of gimmickry and desperation” led the article and there was a clear consensus from other industry commentators, that this project was a typical case of ‘too little, too late’.

I had a couple of interesting conversations on Friday in response to the piece. These boiled down to the argument that as a Social Media evangelist I should have welcomed the initiative, however imperfect, as a step in the right direction. Sorry to disappoint.

I have come to a view, which has hardened in recent months, that high profile examples of digital tokenism such as Ask the PM, are actually devaluing the real potential of Social Media. They are feeding a scepticism which makes the pioneering work we are doing unnecessarily difficult.

A couple of years ago, the medium was the message when it came to organisations adopting Social Media. This was typified by those endless stories in the national press, with leading youth brands like IBM and PA Consulting opening virtual offices in Second Life. Today, the filter I always use when assessing Social Media initiatives, my own and others, is whether the communication objectives and creative approach are actually more interesting than the digital platform(s) being utilised.

Using this filter, Ask the PM just doesn’t cut it. It’s not a genuine attempt by Gordon Brown to reconnect and really start listening to a disillusioned electorate. His comment at the end of his welcome video, where he states, “I’ll be back to talk to you at some point…” betrays a total lack of understanding of the two-way conversation that Social Media enables. You may as well write a letter and stick it in the post – you’d probably get a quicker reply!

In my mind the YouTube channel, the Twitter feed and whatever online gimmick is announced next, is primarily about metaphor, the hope that some shiny digital zeitgeist will rub off on an increasingly lacklustre Prime Minister. Equally, it’s a clumsy attempt by the new Downing St communications team to ‘get with it’ and reduce the gaping void between their digital approach and that of the Opposition.

As I have been saying a lot this week in new business pitches, Social Media is not a magic wand. Ultimately whatever Stephen Carter and his team try to do, Gordon Brown at heart, will always remain an analogue politician in a digital age.

Neil McCormick at the Telegraph has written a great piece looking at the phenomenon of Will.i.am’s Yes, We Can video on YouTube in support of Barack Obama. The video has already attracted 13 million views with that number growing at a rate of 1 million hits a day.

However, Seth Finkelstein at the Guardian has a word of caution arguing that great online campaigns do not always translate into political success and it’s all too easy to conveniently forget Internet campaigns that haven’t worked. Having set the standard, Will.i.am is already spawning imitators like the No, You Can’t video below attacking John McCain.

It will be fascinating to watch whether the Republicans have the creativity and Internet-savvy to effectively retaliate.