Amid all the buzz about the influence of social networking sites like Twitter on political campaigning, we often forget about how the majority of people in the UK get their news online – through portals like Yahoo and MSN.
With 22 million unique monthly users, MSN (originally the Microsoft Network) reaches approximately 50% of the entire UK online audience. With Windows Live Messenger, MSN’s hugely popular instant messaging program, included the figure reaches 27million. In comparison, Twitter is used by around 3.5m people in the UK every month.
As the default homepage for all PCs shipped with Windows (and that’s a lot of computers), MSN reaches right across the wide online spectrum – including “silver surfers” and casual web users – very many of whom eschew traditional newspapers or TV news.
And that’s why the event we held this week at MSN – a Q&A webcast with David Cameron – was so important. It gave David the opportunity to engage with a really important community that includes a lot of people who will be voting for the first time when the General Election is finally called.
And the level of engagement was very high – we had a huge number of questions come in on a wide range of topics, and the live webcast on Thursday evening (filmed in front of an audience made up mostly of first-time voters) was broadcast to an even bigger online audience.
We’ll be holding a lot more events like this in the run-up to the election as we look to ensure that as many people as possible get the opportunity to put their questions to David and the Shadow Cabinet and hear about our plans to change Britain.
If you missed the MSN event, a replay is available to watch in full here. And if you want to find out first about future webcast events, click here to sign up for our regular e-mail bulletins.
Originally posted at http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2010/02/19/engaging-a-mass-audience-online/
Posted by Imran Khan on March 20, 2010 at 8:51 PM
I agree. There is a great deal of speculation that social media will transform this election. Most young people under 25 look online for political news but Twitter might not be the panacea some think it is. Iain Dale rightly pointed out recently that Twitter is a bit hit and miss – PPCs, for example, cannot easily identify which followers are even in their constituency. Unfortunately, the younger ones also vote the least!
However, silver surfers, as most people know, turn out in full force. Targeting Yahoo and MSN certainly hits the spot for older people. However, I do think targeted blogging also makes a real difference. It might help to comment on Operation Black Vote’s blog, for example – (http://operationblackvote.wordpress.com).
David Cameron and the shadow cabinet were in Peckham the other day addressing BME communities and as OBV’s blog indicates, The Conservatives are making significant progress in this area, especially in comparison with Labour and (The ‘Liberals’ – don’t make me laugh). For the rest of the campaign, I am going to follow OBV’s blogs and chip in where possible. We are a party of meritocracy. And it is through rigorously following this principle to its conclusion that we have recently achieved the following successes:
Bromsgrove – Sajid Javid
West Suffolk – Matthew Hancock
Spelthorne – Kwasi Kwarteng
Suffolk Coastal – Therese Coffey
East Surrey – Sam Gyimah
Stratford upon Avon – Nadhim Zahawi
I thnnk online communities are an ideal place to let others know of what we have achieved.
Cllr Imran Khan (Reigate and Banstead Borough)
Twitter.com/immikhan
Posted by It’s the economy, stupid… | Blog | Ben Sutcliffe | Creative Blog Contact on March 30, 2010 at 1:21 PM
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