Election social media 2015

Charlie BeckettPolis/LSE@CharlieBeckett

Why are you doing it?

• Traffic/sharing• To drive to your other content• To enhance your brand reputation• To engage citizens with election• Public Service obligation• To create better journalism

Educational toys

Appropriated narratives for engagement

Make data tell the story

Be true to your brand when social

Dismantle the stage management

Limits on engagement

You can still have production values

And you can just have fun

Lessons from 2015

• Keep perspective: social media is selective• Proportion: social media is NOT representative• Facebook is much more important than twitter

– so is instagram, whatsapp etc• Do the data, then get away from the screen• It’s not like usual journalism, but it is still

journalism: must gain attention, add value, offer engagement and share-ability

• Oh…and mobile, mobile, mobile.

Laugh and the world…

Social media loves Labour:but not always

The best viral is amateur but it isn’t always the best politics

Bad photoshop but great content

As you laugh at their digital output, remember who won the election

Election social media 2015

Charlie BeckettPolis/LSE

@CharlieBeckett