FreshNetworks Blog

We’ve written before about the ways in which politicians are using social media, from US President Barack Obama, to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. These politicians, like many others, are using social media as a way of engaging directly with the public. They often use they use these tools as a way of focusing on specific topics or issues that are of interest to them. And social media can be a great way to open up and bring people inside the organisation and see what is going on and feel like they have a direct connection with those people making decisions. Just as this is beneficial for brands, so it is also beneficial for organisations and governments

The latest world leader to start using social media is Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山由紀夫). On the 1st January 2010, he started Tweeting (@hatoyamayukio) and blogging (Hato Cafe).

He currently has almost 150,000 followers on Twitter, not bad for his 12 updates. He says in his bio that this account is not just to talk about politics and the updates so far range from politics to insights into Hatoyama’s life and routine. On cold mornings he likes a warming cup of tea and a walk, apparently. Even sharing a video of the pigeons in the garden of the residence from one such walk. On the blog – Hato Cafe (or Dove Cafe) he has reported on his trip to India and his discussions with Japanese astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, from the International Space Station.

On the blog, Hatoyama explains what he is using social media for:

I started this blog as a first step to burying the gap between people and politics as well as changing this country together.

It will be interesting to watch how this use of social media develops and changes. The update so far have been a mix of personal reflections, insights into the Japanese Prime Minister’s life and reflections on official trips and events. He talks about engaging the public in public policy debates via both the blog and Twitter and this would be a fascinating development in the Japanese political landscape where traditionally engaging people online has not been part of policy during elections or governments.

But there is a lot to be said for just using social media to engage people and let them see behind the scenes and into the live and perspective of the Hatoyama himself. Social media tools can be a great way to let people understand more about the individuals – what they do, think and experience. This is, on its own, very important – breaking down barriers between the public and politicians in a way that has previously not been possible to do on such a large scale. Whilst a small number of people might once have heard a Japanese Prime Minister’s story of the birds in his garden as he takes his morning walk, we can now all know about this and even experience it with him through his video. Do not underestimate the importance of this. The more we understand about people the more we engage with them.

Image by youngrobv (Rob & Ale) via Flickr

There has been a lot of talk over the last year of Obama’s election as the first social media election. And it is certainly true that there is much we can all learn from how Obama used social media as a candidate during the election process. But over the last couple of days we’ve seen another use of social media in elections – reporting on the fallout from the election results in Iran.

The presidential election in Iran was held on the 12th June, between incumbent Ahmadinejad and rival Mousavi. The result was a landslide for Ahmadinejad, and opposition supporters have since been protesting the results. There has been mixed coverage of this in traditional media – with many criticising CNN for its coverage, and the BBC seemingly blocked in Iran as a result of its reports on what is happening.

It is in social media that the wealth and depth of information is to be found. And some of this is quite remarkable:

• Twitter is perhaps the best place to follow what is happening in real time (#iranelection). And it is also the source of some particularly unique insights, such as the Tweet from Mousavi saying that he had been placed under house arrest.
• Blogs allow coverage in more detailed form from bloggers both inside and outside Iran and from all parts of the political spectrum
• YouTube is a source of video content from inside Iran, often in a raw and unfiltered manner.
• Flickr is building a library of user-created images of riots and the aftermath of the election.

In all, the amount of information that is being shared about what happened, and is currently happening in Iran is huge. People are creating content and, thanks to efficient search, others are able to find it.

If Obama’s use of social media showed how candidates can harness it to support their own campaign, and to build their own brand, the case of the Iranian elections shows how the public can use social media to express their own opinion and to show what is happening.

One of the real developments that we are experiencing at the moment online is a exponential proliferation of information. Cases like the aftermath of the Iranian election are a great example of this. We can follow things in real-time thanks to services like Twitter, but we are also documenting the events for the future and doing so through the words, voices, eyes and ears of users themselves. Perhaps that is equally important.

This week Gordon Brown made a major announcement on YouTube that totally backfired. The UK press has been right to jump on this poor use of social media as a disaster for the Prime Minister. But let’s be clear, this is an example of how not to use a social media tool, it is not an example of the tool being broken.

Brown’s mistake, in this instance, was poor management and a lack of empathy. On a matter dear to the hearts of all MPs – their pay and expenses – rather than consult, he pronounced his verdict. That he used YouTube to do it is a sideshow. But it does provide a valuable lesson.

Social Media tools are just that. In the hand of a craftsman they can achieve great things, but if used in a sloppy manner they will not magically give great results. It’s the same for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and online communities.

And it’s exactly what I found myself talking about on a Social Media Panel at Internet World Expo this week. There can be an unhealthy obsession with getting a brand page up on Facebook or being sure to have a company Twitter account.

Don’t do it. Unless you have a good reason.

Separately, I noticed that Gordon Brown turned off the ability for viewers to comment on his video. Closing down the conversation – perhaps something purists would rally against. However, I suspect in this case, it was pretty good crisis management. Sure, people took the conversation elsewhere, but it did start to die down.

As ever, we’d be interested to hear your views.

You can watch the video is all it’s glory (including his special smile) here:

Some more reading

• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev launches video blog (freshnetworks.com)
• MP Expenses: Was This a Victory For Online Campaigning? (iaindale.blogspot.com)

I know that polls can be inaccurate – they are biased towards people with a fixed-line telephone (rather than just a mobile phone or no phone at all), they suffer from people projecting the response they think the interviewer wants to hear (they may not admit that they wouldn’t vote for a black man), and we know that how you ask the question can vary the response you get. However, most polls seem to agree about the outcome of today’s US Presidential Election. From CNN to Bebo and even a poll of Americans in the office at FreshNetworks all suggest one outcome – an Obama victory. Okay the Bebo poll did see Paris Hilton take second place above McCain, and there are only two Americans in my office – but the argument holds!

We’ve posted in the past about the 2008 US Presidential Campaign. Be it Obama’s lead in the web campaign during the Primaries, his team posting Democrat strategy discussion online, things we can learn from Obama’s use of online communities or what UK politicians can learn about social media from this US campaign. What’s evident is that this campaign has been one that has really embraced social media and online communities both as a way to campaign and as a way to engage people on the issues. Both main candidates have embraced social networks and online communities, although nobody probably doubts that it is Obama who has shown real innovation. Using strong calls to action on his site, building and engaging with the community both on his site and where they are, and involving people in the process he has shown a real example of how engagement should work.

My question now is how this might carry on into a potential Obama-Biden administration. How would they use social media and online communities to continue to engage with people when they are in power. Social media can really help engage people when it provides away for them to have a real exchange about things that matter to them, where they can find out information on things they are interested in, share ideas and thoughts with peers and with politicians, report things to them and feel that they continue to be part of a campaign. Whatever happens tonight and whoever wins the election, it is likely that it will be a difficult few years; involving and engaging those who have been such strong supporters to now will continue to be a priority.

Whatever happens, our advice to Obama would be to keep it simple and focus on what has worked so far. Find a way to inspire and involve those who have been passionate about your campaign so far, keeping their enthusiasm and advocacy on side. But move beyond this and think about the ways in which social media can actually help to make your life easier. Whether that’s automating and bringing online petitions and discussions on issues, allowing review and comments on policy ideas online and in communities or using social media as a way of getting your message directly to people you are trying to engage and in a medium that really engages them.

Our work with clients at FreshNetworks shows that using social media successfully can really make things easier for them. We’ve seen this in the campaign – in terms of reach, letting advocates do your campaigning for you or raising money from a broad body of donors. I hope that when in the White House, Obama’s team use social media to make it easier for them to meet the new challenges and issues they will have to face in this role. That kind of engagement can only be good for citizens, and it can be powerful for the administration too.

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Some more reading

• United States Election Day 2008 Coverage Online
• US election: Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago confident in his chances
• Using Social Media & Charisma To Brand
• US elections: the best of the rest on the web
• 2008 Presidential Race Tops $1B
• Top 10 election 2008 moments
• US Election 2008: Coming to a computer near you, live, tonight
• Can’t Miss This!: Election Day 2008
• Track the 2008 Presidental Election from your mobile phone

Earlier this week, the UK Prime Minister’s main website (www.Number10.gov.uk) was relaunched. We’ve seen recently that that Number 10 has been experimenting with the use of Twitter to send updates (follow them here) and the use of YouTube to answer questions from the public (see the YouTube channel here). The new website places social media at its core and is again an example of how the UK Government is trying new things in social media before many corporates.

The website is built on WordPress, and that should be the first indication of its mission and aim. News items look like blog posts and the feel of the site is much more social than the previous version (which felt like a traditional corporate site). When we talk about online communities at FreshNetworks, we talk about issue-centred navigation with calls to action. This kind of layout is typical of social sites, and even though the new Number10 site isn’t a community in the way that we would understand it, it does use this issue-based, call-to-action approach. The options you have are a mix of editorial content (News and History) with more social content (communicate, Meet the PM and Number 10 TV). For the user there is no distinction between the two types of content – they are presented equally and side-by-side.

This is also seen in the way the site pulls in feeds from Flickr, and Twitter on the homepage. This has the dual benefit of bringing a constantly changing source of media for the site and meaning that all the previous social media activities are being brought together.

So, do these changes mean that the site is a success? The answer is obviously not clear-cut. The building-blocks are now in place for a great, social portal into the Prime Minister’s office. The mix of editorial and social content and the use of media and feeds means that people will feel more like insiders. The website is less a place people go to to find out information and more one where they go to interact. This development is to be encouraged. The real sign of success will be how the site is managed, whether content is actively and continually created, whether the Flickr albums will update frequently and, ultimately the levels of user-interaction that are allowed. Giving people that feeling of being an insider is great; they will now want to talk to you directly.

Some more reading

• Brown’s website is Web2.0tastic
• Prime Minister, meet Flickr and Twitter
• New 10 Downing Street website launched
• Number10.gov.uk Launches
• New 10 Downing Street site runs WordPress