There’s been lots of interesting discussion on the matter of local party branch websites that I raised in my last post. It’s worth spending a few more pixels on this, I think, because navel-gazing is something we on the blogosphere are awfully good at.

Before we go on, though, you should read Charlotte Gore’s post and at least some of the comments – they make for interesting and enlightening reading and show a little of the attitude which has lead to such woefully poor web strategies amongst many local political parties.

Online campaigning is a big deal, and if you don’t understand why then the first thing you need to do is work it out. First of all, though, I should mention…

It’s Not Just the Lib Dems

For a counter-example to my last post, consider the constituency in which I grew up: Watford. The Watford Conservatives site isn’t a whole lot more impressive than Derby Lib Dems site I was complaining about yesterday1, while the Lib Dem page is pretty good – Sal Brinton and her team have obviously done a lot of good work there and it shows. It also, of course, helps the Lib Dems cause that Watford Conservatives can’t be mentioned now without pointing out that they’re a bunch of crooks2.

I appreciate that what I said was largely an attack on the Lib Dems, and for that I suppose I am sorry – really it should have been an attack on my local Lib Dem party, since obviously branches vary depending on where you are in the country. Rubbish internet strategies are not a special preserve of the left, but the Conservative Party has actually started to make some headway on this now, and they’re leaving the others eating dust in many places.

Also worth pointing out is the fact that…

My Psephology Was Incorrect

I am reliably informed that the bedrock of my last post is, in fact, wrong – turns out there isn’t really much point in me tactically voting Lib Dem in my constituency. Despite achieving a massive swing against Labour at the last election, boundary changes mean that the seat is no longer a Lib Dem target seat, and I’d be just as well voting Tory as Lib Dem for all the difference it’ll make. I think this is a shame, because there’s an awful lot of anger about over the expenses issue, particularly amongst the demographic in my area, and Margaret Beckett is one of the serious offenders.

Anyway, after those two mea culpas, lets get on with talking about the internet.

Having the Technology is Not as Important as Using it.

In her post, Charlotte concentrated in particular on the Prater Raines ‘build your own website’ package, pointing out its flaws, and she received a fair amount of criticism for this because, as many people said, it isn’t what technology you use that matters, it’s keeping it up to date.

This is entirely true – the fact that nobody in Derby cares about the website is the biggest problem, and the fact the Derby site hasn’t been updated in six months is just the most obvious symptom. Everyone seems to be in agreement that not updating your news is actually worse than not having a website at all. I didn’t write a post complaining about the fact that Labour don’t have a site – I may have rolled my eyes, but it didn’t actively make them look like complete idiots.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Charlotte’s point is invalid. She’s absolutely right, in fact – a site in a box can often be counter-productive. Being handed a cookie-cutter site may be easy for local parties, but that doesn’t make it good for them. When the parties are handed an off-the-shelf package, it gives the impression that that’s all they needed to do. Oh, they say, we have a website now – that internet stuff is all taken care of!

Websites maketh not web strategies, however. By giving the impression that the whole internet thing is taken care of, the site-in-a-box approach does almost nothing to impress upon the local party the importance of actually using the thing.

At the very least, local parties should be appointing someone to co-ordinate their web strategy and learn about and make use of the campaigning technologies that are available. They should be taking videos of speeches and events and sticking them on YouTube, they should be taking pictures and posting them on Facebook and Flickr. They should definitely be keeping a blog. The great thing about all this stuff is that it’s free, and it’s really easy to use – if setting up a Wordpress blog sounds too complicated, how about using Tumblr or Posterous instead – in both cases, you can simply send an email to a specific address and it appears on the internet in a free, hosted, customisable blog – Tumblr can even automatically import your Flickr photos and YouTube videos too, so everything appears in one place no matter where you post it.

So simple even your local PPC can do it. More to the point, they’re already doing it, because…

This Isn’t Any Different To What You’re Already Doing

You don’t use the exact same leaflets as your neighbouring party, do you? Of course not, you make your own. And how do you make your own? Well, you write some content, proofread it, create a layout, send it to a pritners, they give you proofs, you pay them a load of money, you have a print run done.

Or, you find someone who’ll volunteer to design it and print it for you, and you thank them profusely and constantly for the excellent work they’re doing.

So how did you learn how to write and print those leaflets? How did you work out what people respond to? Well, you learnt the hard way, of course. You put in the effort. You made leaflets, and they failed, and you worked out why they failed and you made the next ones better. You built a castle, and it sank. So you built another one, and that sank too. You made mistakes and tripped up and you took all those experiences and used them to get where you are now. The excellence of your leaflet campaigns is a testament to how much you’ve learned and how much hard work you’ve put in.

So why should your website be any different? Why should it suddenly become good enough to use exactly the same off-the-shelf package as all the other parties, and simply take a news feed from the London office instead of providing proper local news content? Why should you suddenly switch your brain off and stop thinking about what people respond to?

The medium may be new, but the tricks and the techniques necessary are exactly the same as they always were. A blog is just a newsletter that you don’t have to print or distribute. Twitter is just a town hall Q&A that never ends. A website is just a leaflet on steroids. You already have these skills. Put them to good use.

A competent internet strategy is no different to what you’re already doing – it’s just faster, more efficient, cheaper and more powerful. And it’s the future. Which means…

If You Can’t Be Bothered With the Internet, I Can’t Be Bothered To Vote For You.

A lot of people left comments on Charlotte’s post saying that Prater Raines were good because they made simple web sites easy. A typical example was Jeremy Hargreaves, who wrote:

[Prater Raines] aim to provide a good basic site to local parties and others who simply don’t want to spend very much time and effort on their website.

I’m not going to mince my words. If you’re a PPC, from any party, and that sounds like you, the answer is simple: Step. Down.

I mean it.

I can understand the idea that you don’t really get this whole internet thing, that it’s scary and new-fangled, that you’re not sure it’s going to win you any extra votes anyway. I can. It is scary, it has changed everything. It is new-fangled and you don’t understand it. It’s okay to feel apprehensive about change.

But, for Christ’s sake, you want to become an MP.

If you don’t want to actively deal with change and meet challenges head on, what do you expect is going to happen to you when you reach the Palace of Westminster? That you’re suddenly, magically, going to have an easy ride and never have to deal with anything challenging again?

I think a number of MPs might have to disagree with you on that one.

I’m not going to vote for you based on how well you campaign – I’m going to vote for you based on what I hope you’ll do in office as my MP. Why should anyone vote for you if you’re not even going to start trying to understand the world you live in? You can tell me how you’ll be all you like – but actions speak louder than words. Show me you’re prepared to put in the effort, and maybe I’ll be convinced that I should vote for you.

Maybe five or ten years ago you could get away with it. You can’t now. The world has progressed past the point where most people don’t know how to use computers. Those days are gone. Now, normal everyday people, people you meet in the shops and on the streets, use Google, and Wikipedia, and Facebook, to find out information and connect to other people. They’re not afraid of technology and they don’t expect you to be.

Becoming an MP is hard. It’s supposed to be hard. You’re supposed to work late nights, spend your own money, go out of your way to prove to as many people as possible that you have what it takes to make tough decisions on their behalf. And then, at the end of it, most people fail, they’re told they had their chance and somebody else should step into their shoes and see if they can do a better job at it. It sucks. The only way you’re going to get ahead is by differentiating yourself from the other guys.

So stop whinging and get on with it, or step down and find someone who’s actually willing to put the effort in.

The Alternative Perspective

Of course, it’s always possible that it won’t make the slightest jot of a difference – that the actions of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are, ultimately, going to be the deciding factor on who wins and who loses at constituency level. Perhaps fate will deal you a bum hand. Perhaps you’re in an ‘unwinnable’ constituency and you’re battling against impossible odds.

Perhaps I’m just being naïve, thinking that the way to win is to try hard and do as much as you can. I am, after all, no activist; not even a party member of any party; just some bloke on the internet who thinks he knows a bit about web marketing. Maybe I need a dose of the real world.

But when you activists reach a ripe old age and reflect back upon your life, would you want to look back on the election you lost and say ‘if only I’d tried a bit harder and connected better with people, perhaps that could have been me’?

Or would you rather say that you gave it your best shot, you did absolutely everything in your power, and it simply wasn’t to be.

  1. There is at least some new content on it, though it seems to be simply piped in from the CCHQ website instead of focusing on local matters. [↩]
  2. Yes, yes, that makes them ideally suited to MPs, of course. [↩]