Momentum are winning the social media war

Alastaire Allday
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

Before GE2017, I suggested that Labour should pursue an “us vs them” strategy as a rallying cry to excite their core audience and maximise their vote share.

The offical Labour campaign pursued a softer “for the many, not the few” line, but the unofficial Momentum campaign took a stronger approach.

Their ‘nurse vs banker’ ad was one of the strongest of the campaign, demonstrating a brutal simplicity of thought the Tories appear to have forgotten.

The election is over, but with the Tories in disarray and a fragile coalition government that could split at any moment, the campaign continues. In many respects now we’re in a ‘phony war’ stage. There may be another election in the autumn. There may not be one until 2022. But it would be foolish to stop campaigning.

This is Momentum’s latest offering, released today.

It continues the ‘us vs them’ theme, although here you only see ‘them’.

I have a few observations to make:

1. Keep your core energised

My first thought was, well, you tried this at GE2017 and it wasn’t enough to get you over the finish line. There were more of ‘them’ than there were of ‘us’. Ads like this won’t change anybody’s mind.

Then I realised that’s not the aim of this ad. It’s not about reaching out to a new audience, it’s about keeping the pot simmering over, keeping your activist base fired up and ready to fight again, should it be required, later on this year.

This is less an ad and more of a ‘two minute hate’.

2. The Tories really don’t have anything in their arsenal to combat this

What must CCHQ be thinking now? They must feel like generals fighting with an army of muskets when their opponents have developed tanks.

Labour dominate social media. It helps that they have an army of willing followers ready to repost and retweet everything they see — Conservative minded folk in the UK tend to be more private and less likely to share content.

As a result, the Conservatives must either pay for their views, or cede this vital territory to their enemy.

But of course, they need something to post first.

Here’s their latest video:

It’s far less effective and far less shareable than the Momentum one.

3. Momentum’s strategy of using “real people” to rebut stories is effective

Although they’re paid actors, the “film a typical conversation between ordinary people” approach is an incredibly simple and effective way to rebut videos like the Conservative ‘U-turn on fees’ one, above.

Yes, social media matters. But in many respects election campaigns have always been a million conversations, in pubs, around the family dinner table, in the office kitchen, and so on.

Simulating these kinds of conversations in social media is important. It’s cheap to film and more personable than traditional rebuttal videos.

Notice how many more retweets it has than the original Conservative attack.

Again, advantage Labour.

4. The momentum is behind Labour

Of course it’s not quite Labour that’s doing all this — it’s Corbyn’s unofficial fan club, Momentum.

But again, this puts the Tories at a significant disadvantage. Labour have, to borrow an analogy rather than speak literally, a paramilitary army of social media warriors on their side.

The closest thing the Tories have on their side is Moggmentum. But the truth is the Conservatives just haven’t adapted to the social media age.

To me, this all points to one thing: when the next election is called, the Tories will be starting from a long way behind.

They need to modernise their approach to social media and start coming up with tweets, posts, videos, memes — anything in fact to combat the vastly superior Momentum campaign.

There may well be another election this year but 2019, with May stepping aside after Brexit, feels like a more plausible date.

The Tories are currently nowhere to be seen on social media. And those who fail to prepare prepare to fail.

Alastaire Allday

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