2019 Australian Election: The Social Media Campaign. Week One.
Australia will see its biggest social media election a decade after social media began to influence Australian politics. The 2019 election will see the parties trial an increasing number of social media platforms — but do they have what it takes to win the hearts and minds of all voters and demographics in this very fragmented world of new media?
So who won the first week on social? Well, we’ll get to that. But let’s highlight some of the best and worst content over the first week of the election.
The PM announced the election on the 11th of April. This came after a number of cosmetic social media changes to his social platforms on the prior afternoon. The PM’s team changed his profile photo to a slick new portrait image and uploaded a 2-minute video marketing a 10-year vision for Australia, emphasising the Coalition’s economic credentials. When the election date was announced for May 18, a second 1-minute video capturing the ideology of aspirational Australians dropped as the PM asked them to vote Liberal and National.
There might not be nation-building policy ideas in this social content but there are real aspirational messages to hard-working Australians that should resonate with the average punter. Messaging we haven't seen from the Liberal party since former PM John Howard connected with the ‘battlers’.
After the PM visited the Governor General all parties ramped up their social media advertising and content engagement strategies. The Coalition led with a very positive message to voters for the future. Starting with storytelling videos to sell who the Prime Minister is, what he stands for and his economic credentials. The video has an approximate 1 million plus impressions with over 610,000 views and over 11,000 interactions. To work out how effective the video has been at engaging the voters it targeted, we’ll divide the interactions against the views and this results in an engagement rate of approx 1.8%. That’s above the worldwide benchmark of 1% for politics. Not bad for a few thousand dollars.
Their partners, The Nationals created an original song with a country singing female lead to show who they represent and why they’re the right party for the bush. Catchy aye? Nah, not really, a bit cringe-worthy. It’s the same old messaging with a newish twist, but seeking to remind country voters not to risk (subtly in a lyrical rhyme), choosing another party, like the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. Lucky for the Nats the SFF have no more money to run candidates in the federal election after the state anyway, so the Nats only need to worry about One Nation and any hungry Independents.
The Labor party’s first suite of social media ads is similar to Turnbull’s 2016 video-ad strategy. Like Turnbull, Bill is in the same Sydney Commonwealth offices — portraying that he is ready to govern. Possibly a result of focus groups’ concern that he’s not. In 30 seconds, Bill and Labor acutely round out their policies with their fair go messaging. That is so tired in 2019 — both parties have over-used that phrase in the past few years. Still, add fair into any focus group and the group participants end up collectively agreeing that all things in policies being equal, the end result should be fairness; a fair go. The message aims to tap into the hearts and minds of middle-class voters, because, as Labor state over and over at this tight economic time “Big corporates have more profits than ever and workers haven’t had a pay rise in years”.
The first headliner ad for Labor has performed very similarly to the PM’s headliner ad with similar viewership counts and slightly higher engagement. It’s uncanny just how similar Shorten’s ads are to Turnbull’s from 2016.
And the Greens, rather than focus on their policies for two days launched with a follower and fundraising drive for two straight days before moving back to basics to oppose coal and promote climate change.
Following campaign launches, the parties took a negative tone, unlike anything we’ve seen since the 2013 election.
Labor and the unions are attacking on health and education claiming ‘cuts cuts cuts’. This is resonating with social media voters, if you believe the comments.
The Coalition is hitting a nerve with “big taxing Labor”.
The Coalition’s quick grab and splice of Bill Shorten on a merry-go-round to illustrate the notion that Shorten will tax at every turn is masterful.
You’ll find yourself cringing as you watch him go round and round and you’re left, oddly, wanting more. It’s been viewed over 41,000 times on Twitter, on Facebook, it’s had a whopping 233,000+ views and had over 4,000 shares within two days and the reach amplifies as it gets virally shared.
Setting the content agenda on social media
There’s always an opportunity to create new content with a designed purpose on social media channels. Often the political parties and their leaders miss the opportunity to hone in on fragmented audiences that now live on social and don’t read papers or watch broadcast TV.
You can’t win an election without a digital marketing strategy. But you can’t win one soley with digital marketing too. Ground game campaigning, volunteers at booths, PR, creative advertising and policy all play a significant role in winning integrated campaigns.
Over the years, ScoMo and Shorten have done plenty of Facebook Live content videos where viewers get to ask questions. This election there’s an opportunity to leverage and connect to voters who don’t watch broadcast TV anymore. Imagine a real debate exclusive to Instagram TV “IGTV”. Or a policy announcement on mental health; splashed over Snapchat, exclusively and followed by traditional media announcements for the media that would see a fully-fledged integrated marketing approach to connect with all audiences or having a participating media outlet involved with the political party and Snapchat/Instagram. It would gain mass media attention but the delivery would have to be well crafted, and carefully designed as to not offend media outlets.
Where the election could be won: Instagram and Snapchat
The two leaders have adopted Instagram with ease but are finding it harder to be relevant and resonate on Snapchat. For starters, Bill Shorten isn’t on the platform. There might be some daggy Dad reasons why.
There are 6.4 million active Australians using Snapchat. Compare that with LinkedIn’s 4.5m. Seems like an awful lot of potential voters to not tap into.
Source: Social Media News Australia.
Hats off to ScoMo dedicating his first original video content on Snap. But are Gen Z and Millenials watching? Snapchat is not easily measurable and there’s no form of commentary that can be viewed publicly. If the PM continues to drive content here then it's proving successful. The Greens at the 2016 election reported to Buzzfeed that they saw strong results. The PM should casualise his snap to fit in with the audience a little more, at least change your handle to ‘ScoMo’ — it’s lit! Shorten, ya basic!
Over the Easter break, Scott Morrison had six Instagram paid ads targeting voters, Bill Shorten had none.
NOTABLE SOCIAL MENTIONS
There’s been some exceptional content from other candidates, MPs and Senators in the first week. Who would have thought someone wanting to make a mockery of the current sentiment of politicians would be so successful? The One Asian candidate (yes, that’s right, he’s a legitimate candidate) Michael Hing, not only extended his reach with his humorous video ad — he’s been able to do it in a matter of a few days.
He’s earned so much attention on social media, he’s since featured on the Project on Network Ten, the ABC — where breakfast anchor Virginia Trioli jokingly said: “..vote 1 Michael Hing” — and another influencer, former SBS Managing Director Michael Obied, publicly offered to vote and donate to his campaign.
Former PM, Tony Abbott has seriously shown he’s not behind the times with his dedicated video content team. The makers have done well to match Tony’s campaign style with new age tech. How do you connect your voters to the policy funding you’ve been at the forefront of bringing to your local electorate? By getting in a petrol guzzling car and meeting up with your neighbouring MP for a car ride borrowing from popular US social phenomenon ‘Karaoke Carpool’ to reveal where the new road in both electorates start and end and how this benefits voters, commuters travel times with their families in these two car-loving, populated electorates.
Would the Independent candidate, Zali Steggall, lobby for the same road funding, given they’ve been campaigning hard against the fossil fuel industry?
Former NSW Premier turned Senator; Kristina Keneally has been the leader in chief at Labor for social media gotcha moments when it comes to electrical vehicles (among other policies) and her content has generated large reach and engagement as it's easy to understand and palatable.
And finally, in the second day of campaigning ScoMo visited a bingo hall. The perfect earned social media moment was when a lady in the crowd with a typical Australian accent and remark said to the PM when he announced the next number “Don’t give up your day job!” — listen to his response.
This organic content is great for viral reach on social media. You can’t make this stuff up. Specifically, because it’s the kind of humorous content that voters and younger demographics remember and they like it, interact it with it and share it amongst their friend circles. “Did you see this…”
WEEK ONE GAFFES THAT WENT VIRAL
All campaigns have gaffes. But nothing shows the psyche and personality of a leader to the swinging voter. It can cement their views about their political leaders or create new ones. Gaffes like these demonstrate the toll of the 24-hour news cycle when leaders are on auto-pilot.
The most noteworthy of the week was when a journalist pressed Shorten to provide a clear answer on his party's policy on climate change. The video of him blocking and the sniping at the journo went viral during the day on social media.
But don’t sweat the small stuff…
Who won the week on Social?
The Labor party started badly last week. It was as though their digital media lieutenant went missing in action or was caught out by the Coalition’s disciplined campaign CHQ, not seen since 2013 when Abbott became PM. The minor parties barely registered a look in. The Coalition, particularly the Liberal party have armed themselves with rich content, consistent and disciplined content. But will it be enough for them to win week two? Neither major party is resonating on Instagram and the jury’s out on Snapchat. They’re broadcasting for the sake of being relevant on a platform but it’s a fair assumption that hardly any voters outside their bases are listening or following on these edgier platforms.
The Coalition and Labor have plenty of fun, sometimes silly but mostly on point and well-executed content that would distribute well to Millennials and Gen Z on these edgier platforms but they’re presently missing the campaign opportunity to hone their skills, there.
Last week the Coalition won social media by a mile, followed by Michael Hing’s One Asian party (literally a party of one candidate) second with his hundred thousand plus views and earned media attention as a result of setting his agenda from a social media video, and Labor coming in third.
One Nation is on their heals with newish content focusing on their one notion policy and Clive Palmer’s United Australia party are posting barely readable static content for voter’s devices that show they clearly don't get how to engage on social.
Cory Bernardi’s Conservatives’ content is very simple and appears to recently focus on a specific voting cohort: Religious voters. In particular, Lyle Shelton is seen here talking up this election on religious values for Christians. Why should Christians vote for the Conservatives over Labor or Liberal?
And the Greens are playing social from the same songsheet. Their content is mostly about Adani and their collective followers are opposing the Adani coal mine in the name of global warming emissions and this rhetoric is seeping into the national discourse on social media. This anti-fossil fuel content does elicit strong reactions on social media from younger voters that make up Millennials and Gen Z. Their message becomes part of the bubble of messages that the Independents like Kerryn Phelps and Julia Banks like to leverage too — but do their moderately conservative electorates care? to an extent but voters in those electorates rate more than one issue for them as we’ve seen in Newspoll and Ipsos polling over the years.
Week Two will see Labor-aligned with the Unions’ social media armada to sell their penalty rates scare campaign off the back of Easter long weekend trading hours. The Coalition looks to counter with investment spending on social services in mental health, medical health research, multicultural social services and no doubt circle back to the strong performance of jobs in the economy.
The challenge for the parties this week will be how they motivate the swinging audiences they targeted last week to stay interested in the coming weeks. Importantly, how do they wake up voters who have switched off or are just starting to wake up? Only time (and polling later this week) will tell.
Carrington Brigham was a senior social media adviser on social media and creative social content in the 2013 Election Campaign for the then Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott then won government at that election. Carrington continues to provide social media and creative content strategy for his clients at Thoughtbroker.
