The Conservative Party has spent £500,000 on a campaign to launch supporters’ groups on four social networking websites: Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and iVillage. However, research by the Financial Times has found that the iVillage group had only drawn one new member.
Tim Montgomerie, editor of the Conservativehome website said, ”The party has very little to show for more than £1m of expenditure on internet-related projects over the last year. Eye-catching initiatives have always been favoured over using the internet for long-term relationship building.”
As the Financial Times reports:
All the main parties are suffering from declining membership. Mr Cameron appears willing to commit significant amounts of money to the internet to try to reverse, or at least mitigate, that trend. A revamp of the official Tory website earlier this year was reported to have cost a six figure sum.
But a squeeze on the party finances will increase the pressure on the Tory leader to show that future internet initiatives are cost effective. A recession-induced drop in City donations, allied to falling membership, is forcing the party to cut back on spending. More than a dozen jobs are being axed at the party’s headquarters.
“Like many organisations in the current economic climate, we need to look carefully at how we are using our resources,” a Tory official said. “Unfortunately, there is a need to make significant budget cuts.”
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5 Comments
Promoting yourself online is not something you can just throw money at: you have to devote time to actually talking to people and interacting with them; which is, of course, why we Lib Dems punch above our weight online.
Leaflets, word of mouth, jungle drums or internet.
If you ain’t got a message or a vision …….
I’m sure it all came out of some kind of ‘me too’ Obama/McCain-type brainstorm.
I think the key with those particular campaigns was that the target public was right i.e. networks for hispanics, muslims etc.
They clearly have too much money to burn on nothing in particular. Imagine what they’d do if they were in power.
There is little or no effort at consistency; thanks to Prater Raines and Mark Pack (bless his little cotton socks) we show a continuity and consistency (of course, with the odd eccentric element – this is the Lib Dems) which allows us to have a campaigning web presence from councillors, local parties and MP’s. The Tories seem to be at a loss in trying to address the opportunities and challenges posed by this new technology.
Mind you, some of my local Tories probably find the concept of the wheel a little intellectually challenging….
Possibly the least effective recruitment campaign in the world ever.
Doing anything like this requires careful research and testing beforehand. I’d hazard a guess the Conservatives neglected those steps entirely and fell flat on their faces…