Odd Attacks and Interesting Data

A poll published by the Indepedent which shows Gordon Brown as almost the most unpopular cabinet member and that 54% of Labour activists would prefer someone else to be leader has received a lot of publicity as well as scathing attacks on the Ministry of Truth blog and Iain Dale's Diary. MoT's attack on LabourHome notwithstanding, the basis for dispute is "the poll had been commissioned by the Indy... where’s the demographic information that pollsters collect as standard in order to balance their polls and ensure their statistical validity and what’s the margin of error on the numbers......" Well it is not unusual for media organisations to commission polls and not state the fact, even when it is the phone in poll, and the article does say "an exclusive poll for The Independent". But the main problem is validity, but it was an online poll of an audience that is largely unknown. The invitation was to "With the Westminster Villiage obsessed with the question of leadership of the Labour Party, we thought it's time to find out what the grassroots thinks. Click here to take part in the Labour Grassroots Survey and we'll publish the results in the first days of Labour Party Conference." So the respondents, from a total population of unknown numbers, could be non-average (unrepresentative) just because the link was only there for a matter of days. There were 788 members, all of whom must have been checked to see if they were supporters as "Non Labour supporters who responded to the survey were stripped from the results" though this may have still been skewed by opponents claiming to be supporters. However, a serious question is how you get to the engaged and active supporters of a party. Chances are, in the digital age, they are online and accessing party communication and taking part in social networks. But is it really so wrong to do a poll online? It is impossible to offer the normal caveats or statistics beyond the number of respondents, and perhaps The Independent should have stated how it was conducted, and yes sponsorship should have been mentioned by Labourhome in the link as perhaps some supporters were a little too honest (though it does say data will be published), but are all the attacks really justified and why are the opposition attacking when really it is better for them and for Labour. As I understand it, Labourhome is independent of the party leadership and perhaps the one place where inconvenient truths can be aired, such things should be read by the party leaders as it may jsut enhance the connection between the party and their foot soldiers. For PR purposes, and if I was advising Brown, I would face this head on in the speech this week!

Is there going to be a revolution?

ITV news did an interesting translation of the local results into a national election, and half the cabinet lost their seats in the biggest landslide of all time. Of course this is rubbish but there is a serious point, if Labour's popularity continues to decline, or even if it flatlines, a lot of MPs are due to lose their seats. LabourHome is currently pretty quiet apart from one comment by Tony Hannon who says: "Thanks largely to national politicians, local councillors have been kicked out or shovelled in irrespective of the jobs they’ve been doing or are likely to do"; while he puts this in the context of the failure of local democracy, it is also could be a sign of things to come. Will there be a challenge to Brown?

How to target the online influencers

Given the CPS report on the importance of bloggers who have a significant share of the online readership and so assumed influence, and the fact that many PR agencies are seriously considering how to harness the power of the blogosphere, or sometimes counter and neutralise online criticism, Mark Hanson's article in PR Week is highly prescient. As media officer for LabourHome as well as a partner in Staniforth, Hanson is perfectly placed to consider these questions from a political perspective and offers the following advise on how to reach the bloggers who are influential.

Firstly parties need to trawl for hits of key phrases to check where the issues are being discussed; second assess the importance of each site in terms of the quality and relevance of the content and the amount of readers in order to discover where the potential audience is; this will represent a network in which there are the influentials and the long tail of readers who may contribute comments or simply lurk on the edge of the network [the theory is that 1 issue will picked up by 9 bloggers which will then influence a further 90 individuals as pictured below by Chris Anderson]; once identified the network is assessed to see how the party/candidate can use it; finally getting the network onside.

Advocacy and word-of-mouth promotion is a powerful tool of PR. If certain bloggers are influential and can promote a party, its leader, policies and initiate viral campaigns such as the one for Mark McDonald to be party treasurer, then it could be a kind of endorsement that could have an effect. Key for Hanson is that parties and candidates recognise that there are new ways to interact with the public/electorate (speak and listen to in his words), PR agencies have picked up on this Hanson suggests parties need to do likewise.

P.S. on a completely different not, is anyone else puzzled that blog, blogger and associated phrases are not in the 'blogger' dictionary?

Grassroot Power: Labour's campaign from below

Labour's grassroots are fairly silent, in fact dissatisfaction is largely only visible by the decline in members; one rarely hears discontent from the members. However LabourHome provides a forum for criticism, and is often used as such; but now it is also providing voice for a campaign to take back control over party finances and ensure members [especially Union members] fees are not wasted. According to PR Week, the "plotters" have learned their lessons from US political communication, particularly the Hillary Clinton campaign, that a key way to gain momentum is to target key groups via web-based fora. Though reading the site I am not sure if the language used by PR Week of 'plotters' or 'overthrow' is appropriate, but it is a concerted effort to get Dromey removed in light of questions surrounding party funding and those of his wife's campaign and install Mark McDonald described as "one of our own".

What it does indicate though is that such sites must be now reaching a critical mass and have become effective ways of reaching and mobilising groups such as party and union members. As the PR Week article notes political communication lags behind the US in web use; however the exchange of personell [such as Jag Singh who PR Week says helped in Hillary Clinton's super Tuesday success - did I miss that on the news] means the web will probably become a key tool and political communication via the blogosphere that attempts to have influence through the viral nature of the internet will become far more widespread.

Guess it is working, free publicity from PR Week and from me,

what more can a campaign ask for?