We helped get election vote out for Corbyn, boasts Twitter
TWITTER has boasted of how it helped Labour win the social media battle in June’s general election, which nearly resulted in Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister.
The news came after Facebook told how it helped the Scottish National Party “achieve an overwhelming victory” at the 2015 election after it set up a government and politics team to help political parties win campaigns.
Labour’s successful exploitation of Twitter will further draw unflattering comparisons with the Conservatives’ lacklustre social media presence ahead of polling day on June 8.
It will also leave Twitter open to accusations of partisanship, although the social media company said that its service was a commercial product that was available to all political parties.
Twitter’s website details how Labour used the First View service “to get out the vote on polling day”. It says the service gave the party “exclusive ownership of Twitter’s most valuable advertising real estate for a 24-hour period”. This means that “when users visit the Twitter app or twitter.com, the top ad slot in the timelines will be a Promoted Video from that brand”.
First View is more often used by high street brands, but Twitter said: “When @Uklabour wanted to encourage as many people as possible to go out and vote, it turned to Twitter, knowing a wide and engaged audience was at the ready to amplify its message.
“@Uklabour’s polling day First View campaign exceeded its expectations. It succeeded in reaching a vast and engaged audience, with over 6.6 million Tweet impressions, 32.5 million trend impressions, and nearly three million video views.”
Tom Lavelle, the head of digital campaigns at the Labour Party, said: “First View allowed us to reach everyone in the UK. We were also able to ensure our message was the first thing people saw when going onto Twitter.”
A Twitter spokesman said: “First View is a commercial product available all year round and is used regularly by a range of advertisers, and during elections we often see our paid-for advertising products used by political parties to reach a wide audience of voters.”