But Julia, whilst you do look a lot more personable,changing your 'do and putting on some glasses isn't going to sway the voters- you need to connect! I'm not going to let this get to personal, but just to state a fact (objectively of course), Tony Abbott can be a bit of a pig.. I'm sorry Tony, no hard feelings- but a few things you've said, probably should've kept them to yourself. Remember these quotes? That's what not to say, when trying to attract voters.. And here's where Julia may have a bit of a leg up- her Twitter follower count currently stands at 344877 and Tony's is lagging (just a bit..) with 100877, if she were to utilise this to connect with voters on a more personal note, she may just take it out.
Of course, your political campaign promises are important, but so is image. The 2011 census data retrieved showed that 34.9% of our population is aged between 19-44. A report conducted by Pigdom shows the age distribution among Social Media websites and Online Communities- indicating that 67% of users are aged between 18-44, with 69% of Twitter users also within this age bracket. Clearly there are many voters online and when it's cheaper and quicker to connect with them on this platform- why wouldn't you. Well, maybe you don't know how... Julia, here's some tips:
Just be yourself, and make friends. It's like school..only more public..with more pressure. We're in a participatory culture, like it or not.. you need to be involved to fit in, and you need to fit in because, well, a lot of us live half our lives online. So every Tweet Counts!
- Entertain. You obviously need to maintain credibility and not deter the 'less-fun' voters, but keep in mind 18-25 year olds are voters too- and we like entertainment. Get personal- Kevin Rudd replies to tweets, voices his opinion on non-political topics, shares what he's doing with his day. People use Twitter to pry into others' business- please try to liven your posts, just a little bit.
- Take to Facebook too- I understand that this will probably require you to actually make an account and 'friend' people, which can some with a few problems..but your voters want to feel connected. As Jenkins sates, we're in a participatory culture- you need to encourage the public to participate, and facilitate forums in which they can.
- Research. Lurk through blogs to see what your public wants, what they think. If you look, I can guarantee you'll get a few ideas on how to interact with us, or it may even just inspire the development of a campaign. We use the internet to voice our opinions, to discuss- and since the Prime Minister of our country and hows they're running it is kind of a big deal..I'm sure there'll be plenty of reading material out there.
- Be personal- not aggressive or soppy. Just let us know a little about yourself. K-Rudd made mistakes, but he was honest- he addressed his public (including when he was no longer PM). I like this. We got the gist of what Kevin liked and what he didn't- outside of politics. We know you're interested in politics..its a little obvious. What's your favourite past time? Do you like going to the zoo?
- Don't try too hard and don't exaggerate. We're well versed on the art of trolling, many of us are getting pretty good at smelling out a fake.
Just be yourself, and make friends. It's like school..only more public..with more pressure. We're in a participatory culture, like it or not.. you need to be involved to fit in, and you need to fit in because, well, a lot of us live half our lives online. So every Tweet Counts!
Image source: Every tweet counts, Twitter, accessed 15 July 2012, <http://blog.twitter.com/2008/11/images-of-day.html>.
No comments:
Post a Comment