Don't Go Mad

This week sees the start of the televised election debate series, as the three main party leaders go head-to-head on the airwaves.

The BBC, Sky and ITV, together with the party leaders, have agreed 19 key principles about how the shows will work and another 76 points around the structure of the programme, the set, what camera shots are acceptable and to confirm that the leaders will shake hands at the end of the programme. It has all been worked out to precision.

Millions of voters may well tune in — but I suspect it’ll be the clip of a gaffe, a moment of triumph, or something that wasn’t even noticed on TV that will be played and replayed online, emailed around, voted and commented on. It’s this kind of online video that might be what’s remembered; using the internet to share and comment on it could turn out to be what really fires up the debate.

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We’ve published our Weber Shandwick guide to the election — you can read it below. There’s lots more also on our “Inside the Election Blog” at http://election.webershandwick.co.uk

Weber Shandwick UK General Election Guide 2010

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Does the amount of Twitter buzz around a party/candidate have any correlation with whether they’ll get elected? It’s a question that’s being hotly debated and you can follow one experiment in this kind of “predictive modelling” at Tweetminster.

Right now the site is predicting an outcome of 36% for the Tories, 33% for Labour and 22% for the Lib Dems. That’s pretty close to the latest YouGov poll which puts Conservatives on 37% and Labour on 32% — doesn’t do quite so well with Lib Dems on 19%.

Clearly there are lots of questions you could ask about how valid it all is, but, given Twitter is one of the many digital tools that simply haven’t been available to voters before, this will certainly be an interesting one to follow.

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So the nation’s worst kept secret is officially out. But while the battlebuses rev up their engines, the internet is well and truly bringing soapboxes to the 21st century.

Type the word “election” into Google this afternoon and suprisingly there’s no mention of Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems on the first page of the non-paid for results. Meanwhile, the BNP does feature.

Search is incredibly important in communications because it’s the way so many internet users discover stories and content. This particular search doesn’t look great for the main three parties.

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Handing over to my esteemed Weber Shandwick colleagues today with the latest edition of our newsletter:

33 & A Third (Issue 4)

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