Gary Andrews

And they’re off. We’re now well and truly into electioneering territory as Hobson’s Choice the General Election 2010 rolls well and truly into town. Forget any hope of finding out news that isn’t connected to three middle aged men trying to out-quip each other. It’s everywhere. Including social media. And as a recovering politics geek who spends more time than is healthy on these places, I find it all completely fascinating.

Last election Twitter didn’t exist, all the cool kids were flocking to MySpace and, while the political blogosphere was in fairly healthy shape (and, it has to be said, a lot friendlier), the whole area was seen as a niche concern. These days, political news is being discussed on social media before the speech has even finished, while somebody will already be plotting the inevitable Downfall parody. Yes, for General Election 2010, social media matters – both to the media and the politicians. And that’s both a good and a bad thing.

The bad covers a range of areas, the most obvious being that politicians and the media will try too hard to woo and give credence to what is, in all honesty,  a small percentage of the voting population by focusing too heavily on what Twitter users and bloggers are saying. That’s not to say they shouldn’t, but us social media types may not be representative of the areas of society who a change of government will make the biggest differences to.

[Facebook, incidentally, is a completely different proposition and one where there is are genuine possibilities for breaking down barriers between the public and politicians and enhancing democracy like never before.

My feelings on YouTube and politicians, though, generally falls under the same category as the words "let's do a viral."]

There’s also the unsightly and rather depressing sight of grown adults indulging in petty point scoring across these networks, and the media breathlessly reporting this like IT MATTERS. It possibly does, but maybe not to the level it gets elevated to. I’m more interested in working out if the sums add up, or there’s a commitment to, say, democratic reform of Parliament than seeing a schoolboy-like putdown that serves nothing other than mutual backslapping from that team.

Then there’s the gaffes. With social media now firmly entrenched in our lives, it was inevitable that there would be plenty of political gaffes, fails and misunderstandings on how to use it all.

Us social media bods across the media or in brands engaging online have just about got the hang of what works and what doesn’t, by and large, although are always learning. We’re adaptable to the needs of our audience because we’ve been listening and engaging with communities for a while now.

Politicians, with some notable exceptions, haven’t. There’s a reason why companies are prepared to spend thousands on pounds in training their staff on how to use social media. Sure, they can use Facebook and Twitter for personal use, but that’s a very different thing to acting as a representative for your brand in a public space, where anything you do can be attributed to your paymasters. The list of companies who’ve committed brand-damaging social faux pas grows monthly.

Stuart MacLennan could have probably done with some of this training.

And it’s why there will probably continue to be many more social media gaffes as the election campaign carries on. If MacLennan is the only political online casualty over the next month, I’ll be a very surprised man.

Yet these sort of fails also highlight the good side of social media and politics. For a start, it enables us to get an insight into prospective candidates, many of whom you’ll never have heard of, and have at least something to judge their suitability for office on. And if they fall up short, then that helps inform your vote.

This is something that, the few blogging MPs that existed in 2005 aside, simply wasn’t available at the last election and anything that brings politicians closer to the public is a good thing, broadly, in my book.

In many ways, this reminds me somewhat of a post I wrote almost a year ago, on the criticism around Gordon Brown’s YouTube video, and Hazel Blears’ comments that YouTube was no substitute for knocking on doors.

While I was critical of Blears, perhaps I was also a little disingenuous, although probably not in the way she was meaning. Yes, it’s good that politicians are experimenting with social media and using it to campaign with, but it’s not really a substitute for talking to the electorate. Fortunately social media allows just that.

But it’s a two way conversation and those politicians and political parties that get it right may reap the benefits. Lets not forget, 12 votes can be enough to swing a marginal, so engaging online could just be a seat-winner.

That is to say, those who talk with rather to to the electorate will help their case. A politician could just be on Twitter broadcasting his thoughts, on YouTube, blogging away, and encouraging people to become a fan on Facebook, but all this activity, while making the politician appear a bit more switched on, means nothing if said politician doesn’t get engage.

The really good ones will chat back and forth and listen over Twitter, respond to comments on their blog, answer questions on their Facebook page, and be an active member of the YouTube community. Now that becomes a bit more likely to get a precious few extra votes. But more than that, it shows the politician is prepared to listen, engage and respond. A bit like a 21st century version of door knocking.

It’s also one of the reasons why, in my mind, the whole Cash Gordon debacle wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Many of the most effective or notacable online campaigns tap directly into the zeitgeist of that particular moment. Think Trafigura and Jan Moir.

They are a swift, sharp, popular movement that gains traction because people feel strong enough to, at the very least, Tweet about it. The story or campaign then takes on a life of its own from there, and becomes a story in itself.

But trying to tell somebody on a social network what they should be getting angry about is unlikely to go beyond the traditional supporter base unless it touches a nerve, and the Labour / Unite issue wasn’t enough to get worked up about. Had the Conservatives done something quick and cheap around the hiking of cider tax or the Digital Economy Bill, then they might have got more widespread support.

Again, this shows the value of listening and responding – and is possibly why having something cheap and ready to go isn’t necessarily a bad idea. It’s easy enough to spot something developing on Twitter if you know how to listen, and if it ties in with a political party’s ideals, then there’s certainly possibilities, providing it’s not done in a completely top-down manner.

And if the online campaign is very top-down and has an indifferent response, you’re much more likely to see the politically agnostic hijack it for a bit of fun (leaving the page open to a very simple barely-even a hack is just stupid. As is claiming it’s still a victory. Sometimes it’d be nice if political people were prepared to say they made a mistake).

Those MPs who understand the sensitivities of a social media environment and listen and respond are those who may well benefit. My own MP has gone up in my estimation for a very quick response to my email about the Digital Economy Bill, although it’d be nice to see them on Facebook and Twitter. It’s little things like that which can sway where an individuals vote will go.

Social media, as with its relation to most aspects of life, isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to politics, but it is an incredibly useful communication channel to get an insight into the person behind the politician, as well as a chance to ask direct questions, something we so rarely get the chance to do.

Come the end of the election, it’ll be fascinating to see how the three main parties – and the other parties – have harnessed social media and how well they’ve done, on both an individual MP level, and a party level.

There will undoubtedly be more mistakes. But there may be triumphs. And with the possibility of a hung parliament very real, that could make a huge difference. Or at least a difference between me actually knowing who I want to vote for in advance of polling day, as opposed to my usual dilemma of not being impressed with any candidate and having to resist the temptation to draw something rather crude on the ballot paper. Not that I’ve cocked up my vote yet, mind.

DISCLOSURE: I’m not a member of any political party and have no idea who, if anybody, I’ll be voting for come May 6th.

written by Gary \\ tags: Conservatives, general election 2010, Labour, online politics, politicians on Twitter, Politics, politics and social media, Stuart MacLennan, YouTube

Gosh, there’s nothing like a few well placed words for kicking off a party political crisis. Or, rather, there’s nothing like a slightly weird video that presents the Prime Minister of this country looking like a strange gurning alien for kicking off a party political crisis.

Earlier this week, Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, wrote in the Observer:

“YouTube if you want to. But it’s no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.”

It’s pretty obvious what her target was here: the YouTube video where Gordon Brown announced plans to reform MPs expenses without telling Parliament first. It also contained a few somewhat frightening impromptu smiles that didn’t help his image one jot.

Sadly, this kerfuffle has somewhat shown British politics in a somewhat unfortunate light again when it comes to social media. You’d think when you’ve got Barack Obama and his supporters embracing the web, that politicians in the UK from all parties could learn from this.

But, no. We’re still on either dismissing tools like YouTube out of hand or, worse still, condemning any attempt to engage online as a waste of taxpayers money. 

Take this rather ignorant post from Conservative MP Nadine Dorries on her attitude to Twitter.

In some respects it’s no different from what you’d hear from others who don’t get or don’t want to get Twitter. But to hear it from an elected representative is somewhat disappointing.

It essentially implies that she’s quite simply not going to bother engaging in a growing platform that provides an excellent way to directly connect with voters. As Chris at Clicking and Screaming says:

“I see little difference between the banal comments of the Twittersphere about ‘In the Loop’ and the banal opinions of a Member of Parliament on anything outside her remit. If it’s interesting to you, follow it. If not, don’t. But don’t lash out at those who do.

…

The compulsive need of those not involved to discuss it at length shows a fear of the unknown which, for a politician (and I generally have more respect for politicians than most do), is short-sighted.”

Let’s come back to Blears’ comments that You Tube is no substitute for door-to-door canvassing or taking the soapbox on tour. Again, it’s dismissing a wide-reaching social media tool used by a lot of the voting and non-voting public. It sounds a lot like one of those people back in the day who thought email would never catch on.

Local electioneering still has its place but YouTube has the potential to reach millions – many more than the town centre soapbox [1].

A few MPs even have their own YouTube channel, including Blears’ colleague Sadiq Khan [2]. But even then, this reveals a whole new set of problems. The most popular video on Khan’s channel has 227 views. The rest average somewhere between seven and about 150. Still, it’s a start.

The problem, to me, is one that’s all too common in any business or organisation or industry. You have some people who get social media and want to engage. You have some that know that they should probably be on these sites in some way, shape or form but aren’t sure how, and you have those who just don’t want to know.

Politicians, largely, are in the second and third groups. Brown’s office is probably in the second – they’re making the right moves but aren’t really utilising it properly.

So, for Brown’s YouTube videos, it has a feeling of somebody suggesting it as a good idea but with no real strategy behind it or a proper feeling for how YouTube works.

It feels somewhat like The Thick Of It special where the opposition MP’s advisor starts a blog, while the politician himself doesn’t really care.

In all honesty, it probably wouldn’t take a lot of work to join together all the aspects. There’s no reason why, say, Brown couldn’t have announced the expenses measure to the chamber and then had a YouTube video posted immediately after the announcement (sans gurning, you’d hope) and then followed it up with, ooh, a blog post and the like.

Then, on the other side, perhaps Labour (or perhaps an apolitical body) could pull together all the politician YouTube videos, and Twitter accounts, in one place so it’s easy for constituents to find and engage with their MP (which is, after all, one of the main reasons why they were elected, right?).

And there’s no harm in giving the Twitter feed or YouTube channels a plug. I only stumbled across Sadiq Khan’s feed when I was looking for something else – in 18 months living in Tooting, I’d never had information offline that he had a web presence and it wasn’t top of my agenda to look. Many other voters probably have similar mindsets.

As The Register points out, moderating comments isn’t that difficult (and it doesn’t seem as if Downing Street had even thought of it) and there’s so much untapped potential for politicians in this country to get involved in social media, engage and perhaps win back some of the trust that they seem so keen to squander on a regular basis.

But instead Labour (and, via Dorries, the Conservatives as well) have managed to get social media, their strategy and response so spectacularly wrong. Which leads to another spat. Which turns voters off even further.

Add to this the smeargate emails, and the media’s obsession that Iain Dale, Gudio Fawkes and the unlamented Derek Draper, are the only web-politics that matter, well, it just doesn’t want to make you get involved online.

In the US, Obama used social media and the web to bring about a positive movement that engaged the average voter in politics. In the UK, all we can do is sling political mud at each other online. How very depressing.

[1] It’s worth saying that the soapbox offers politicians a direct way to engage and spend time talking to constituents, but there’s no guarantee that the constituents want to engage. With social media – You Tube, Facebook, Twitter et al – you can measure the level of success much more effectively AND engage in conversation.

[2] The only reason I’ve chosen Sadiq Khan is he used to be my local MP so I’m slightly more familiar with his online presence (he has a Twitter feed as well) rather than any particular like of dislike of the politician.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: Gordon Brown, Hazel Blears, Nadine Dorries, politicians on Twitter, politicians online, Sadiq Khan, You Tube, YouTube

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqX-tkDXEk]

For a bunch of aging comedians, the Monty Python crew have always been a bit ahead of many of their younger contemporaries when it comes to the internet. Now they’ve gone where many other TV shows would fear to go – uploading their content for free onto YouTube.

As the Guardian reports, they’ve used the site’s Video ID system to identify their material that’s been uploaded (without their permission), replacing it with better quality footage on their own YouTube channel and attaching adverts to the clips urging watchers to buy their DVDs. That immediately appears to have paid off:

“And there is method in the Pythonesque madness of giving away valuable content for free – Monty Python’s DVD sales are up more than 1,000% following the launch of their YouTube channel, and that’s on Amazon alone. Fans must have been listening to the Python message: “We want you to click on links and buy our movies and TV shows. Only this will soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years …”"

As a fan, it’s a great idea – high quality clips for free, while there’s no better way to get you in the frame of mind to buy some classic Python. The quality of the clips is definitely a key hook – why trawl through poor-quality stuff when you’ve got the official stuff in all its glory?

Would this approach work for other shows? Well, the Python team are in a pretty privileged position as they’ve got an established brand and a very large fanbase – not to mention (I’d imagine) hundreds of people searching for clips on YouTube every day.

Whether it’d work for a smaller show trying to make a name for itself or a lengthy drama is an interesting one – but it certainly couldn’t hurt to try.

YouTube is a massive player in online video, so it makes sense to try and utilise it – and if the content’s officially sanctioned, it does give the show’s owner some degree of control. And, as the Python team have already shown, it can have a positive effect on sales.

It’s all part of the more social experience that viewers come to expect online today, and shows that YouTube is hear to stay and should be considered in any promotional strategy. Quite how you then drive traffic from there to your own website, and then ensure you make money from it, is another question entirely. But if you’re not engaging in some way with these sites, there’s always a risk of becoming a dead parrot.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: Monty Python, TV clips, video, YouTube

Out of the many strange habits that have developed during my office-based working life is to dive onto YouTube at various points in the day to have a quick blast of music. Usually it’s out of a desire to hear a specific track or a specific band that isn’t on my iPod. It’s quick, easy and generally satisfies any urge I may have to listen to Hoddle and Waddle’s Diamond Lights [1].

Like Homer Simpson squeezing juice out of an orange by pressing it against his forehead, I’ve always suspected there’s probably an easier way to satisfy my arbitrary musical cravings. Certainly Muzu looks like it does the job a lot better. Largely because it’s nothing but music on there.

There’s a few interesting features, especially the bit that allows fans to upload their own tributes, video and footage directly to the artist’s profile, and the video player’s embeddable to blogs and social networking sites. It’s also quite artist-friendly, as they share their advertising revenue with the artists and anything fans upload has the copyright assigned to the artist, which is an interesting solution to the age-old problem on copyright v filesharing.

The teenage me would have probably loved the site, given how into music I was back then. Memories of taping every new entry off the top 40, collecting anything and everything to do with a band and the like. The older me isn’t quite so into his music anymore, views festivals as his idea of personal hell and rarely gets to gigs. But can see why music fans would like the site. As my more music loving colleague said when I forwarded her the link: “I love this. I think it’s broken my computer, but when it restarts I’m going straight back on.”

I’m still having occasional problems navigating around the site, but less so that MySpace. And what I’d really like to see is a ‘like this artist – try these’ recommendation on the channels, a bit like the related video bit on YouTube. But most unforgivably of all is a search for The Smiths brings up New Kids On The Block. That’s something that needs to be fixed before hysterical shaven-headed Morrissey fans start throwing vegan soup at the creators.

Techcrunch has been pretty complementary about Muzu and its nice to see YouTube and MySpace get a bit of competition in the music stakes, and music PRs could definitely find it useful, if it takes off. Thankfully, nobody’s uploaded Diamond Lights to the site yet either.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, this is the product the company who emailed me a few weeks ago was pitching. I’m writing about it as I quite like the site. If it was shite, I wouldn’t have. I’ve not got paid or even given a cup of tea for this. And I’m not planning on writing up any old PR bumf that I’m sent on a regular basis. But I thought it tied in quite nicely with the pitching to bloggers post, and theirs was a good pitch. And, as I said, I like the product. I’d have emailed it to a few friends regardless. Not that this write up will make any difference to their hits, I suspect, given that about 20 people read this blog. And not that I feel particularly ‘raaaah, I am TEH ALL POWERFUL BLOGGER, kneel before me puny traditional media’ for doing writing this, as I don’t really invite these kind of PR pitches and I’m not overly likely to write about them. In fact I’ve probably just destroyed any linger credibility I have now.

[1] I have only ever done this once, I’d like to stress.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: Muzu, PR pitching to bloggers, YouTube

I’ve just got back from a fascinating evening down the pub catching up with an old friend of mine, who now happens to be working for a local newspaper and it wasn’t long before we got onto the topic of online video – something which forms part of his everyday job.

[Enters broken record mode] 

What was really fascinating was to hear how his views matched mine and, at times, was even more vehemently critical of the efforts of some local newspapers when it comes to online video [1].

Chief amongst his criticisms were:

1. The idea that throwing video online for the sake of throwing video online is a good way to win readers.

2. Journalists aren’t trained properly and are given sub-standard equipment, so produce sub-standard videos.

3. Sub-standard videos damage the brand.

4. Local journalists simply don’t have the time to produce consistent good quality web content.

This isn’t to say he was negative, and could point to some examples of papers within his group producing well-produced web content, be it video, podcasts, or blogging. But the frustration was there – it wasn’t that he didn’t want to do online content, its just the resources and time available were nowhere near enough.

What was somewhat more terrifying was the attitude of senior management to online content. There was no consistent approach to RSS feeds and he’d taken to putting the videos on YouTube himself because it hadn’t occurred to anybody else in the office to do so. Tellingly, the YouTube videos appeared to be getting more hits.

Then there was the inflexible CMS, not to mention the fact that nobody was even mentioning blogging. He’d considered trying to start a newspaper blog but didn’t have time, although he did occasionally expand some of his print articles. The management attitude to online media players such as Bebo, Google, and Myspace was nonexistent. While it’s not surprising to hear these criticisms coming from somebody who works within the industry (and is by no means representative. A more casual acquaintance is much more upbeat about their paper), it’s worrying. Even more worrying is hearing that those who have some nous about harnessing online potential are just giving up and moving elsewhere.

Tonight was definitely food for thought. There were a lot of positive ideas bandied around, as you’d expect over a few pints, but also a lot of frustration. It’s a shame for his paper that he’s moving elsewhere – he’s not just a very good journalist, but also one who’s willing to embrace the web and can see where the problems lie with local papers’ attempts to move into the digital age. 

[1] I’ll freely admit I’m writing from the point of somebody who has done a bit of this and a bit of that, which includes print and broadcasting, but am not currently working on the front line, as it were, of newspaper’s online efforts. 

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: local newspaper websites, video journalism, Web 2.0, YouTube