As British Columbia readies itself for a Liberal leadership race, I am wondering if any of the hopefuls will take a page from recently elected Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi’s use of social media, in this case, to attract new party members. While it might not be an election, if they don’t use the tools now, it’s unlikely they will when the provincial election rolls around in a year or two from now.
A quick review of the Twitter habits of the individuals pundits have identified as likely candidates suggests otherwise. George Abbott (@GeorgeAbbottMLA) has said if he runs, he’ll step down as Minister of Education so he’s not derelict in those duties as he puts full effort into becoming the leader of the Liberal party and the Premier of the province. Maybe once he does that, he’ll have more time to grow his 77-person Twitter following into something more substantial and Tweet more than his current average of once every two months, and maybe even follow back more than his current list of 3 – all Liberal party related.
Unlike Abbott, Kevin Falcon (@KevinFalcon), our current Minister of Health Services, doesn’t think he’d need to give up his portfolio to run as leader. If it were only about numbers, Falcon would be well ahead with his 858 followers. But he hasn’t said a word online since July, and when he did tweet, the entries were about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Rich Coleman (@colemancountry), has been identified as another possible contender. Coleman has 594 followers – fewer than Falcon and not enough to get elected unless his only competitor was George Abbott. But while Abbott tweeted a total of 9 times, and Falcon 84 times, Coleman is more prolific at 312, and a lot more current as well, having tweeted as recently as yesterday. The other advantage Coleman has over his soon to be rivals, is that he sounds real and he both engages and responds – and I’d put money on the account being his alone.
Surrey Mayor Diane Watts has also been identified as a possible candidate for the leadership race, even though she claims otherwise. I couldn’t find a Twitter account for her, so if we’re using Twitter alone to gauge election results, she probably won’t be running.
And what about the existing Premier? Could we have predicted his future based on his social media presence? Let’s compare him to Nenshi, Calgary’s new mayor. Gordon Campbell (@g_campbell), soon to be former Premier of BC, holds his own in terms of number of followers, with 6,725 to Nenshi’s 7146. Nenshi was listed 328 times to Campbell’s 365. So far so good. The real difference comes down to engagement – both the volume of tweets and the tenor of what is being said. Campbell tweeted 249 times, rarely more than once a week, while Nenshi found time to tweet 3,741 times. And unlike Campbell’s “I am now here, isn’t our province the best place on earth” kind of tweets, Nenshi shared who he was and really engaged. Campbell’s TweetLevel score on engagement verifies this – he gets a 9, the same score as his approval rating prior to his resignation. And in the end, HST aside, that’s what the pundits have always accused Campbell of – not being able to engage BC residents.
While none of the folks are active in social media – or on Twitter at least – my analysis predicts Coleman as the winner because of his style of engagement. Unless of course another candidate enters the race – and has a lot of Facebook friends.
Hi Patti,
Very interesting article. I think the use of social media will have a huge impact on the leadership race, and the next election.
I thought I’d draw your attention to the facebook battle that is brewing between BC Liberal candidates. As of right now, the leader online is actually James Moore, a Conservative MP from caucus who has expressed interest in a few National Post article (see http://ow.ly/36Wnt and http://ow.ly/36Wzg), unforuntely, none of the media have picked up on this story. Its quite incredible that we are beating -
Kevin Falcon – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kevin-Falcon-for-Premier/139165446135521
Rich Coleman – http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-Want-Rich-Coleman-for-BC-Liberal-Leader/139323019451175
Christy Clarke – http://www.facebook.com/DraftChristy
and Dianne Watts – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Draft-Dianne-Watts-for-Premier/158494390853777
This is clearly an interesting battle and could be quite an interesting article, especially if you were the first one to write on it. If you have any questions feel free to let me know – I am currently one of the co-chairs for the Draft James Moore Campaign.
Look forward to more of your posts.
Regards,
Geoff
Campaign to Draft James Moore for BC Liberal Leader
Campaign Co-Chair
support@draftjamesmoore.ca
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Draft-James-Moore-for-BC-Liberal-Leader/154625617913378
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/draftjamesmoore
Website: draftjamesmoore.ca
Not sure why you would want to draft a Conservative for the leader of the Liberal party. Have the lines blurred that much between the parties?
Since the collapse of Social Credit, the BC Liberal Party has been a big tent party comprised of both federal Liberals and Conservatives. It will be interesting to watch if and how this dynamic plays out in the leadership race.
Sandy — seems like BC votes for or against the NDP and the other party they’re running against benefits or loses from this decision. Maybe it should be different, but a big tent party made up of everyone is unlikely to make it so.
wow, amazing how similar your blog is to the Sun article.
Interesting that Kennedy Stewart posted: @PracticalRad Studies I have conducted show most voters ignore social media & base their decisions on more traditional contact methods.
I use social media to inform my choices, political or otherwise, but it definitely is not the deciding factor.
Since I published my blog a week before the Sun article, I was surprised too
Not sure people decide on who to vote for based on social media but candidates win if people who support them show up at the polls. I wonder if social media engagement isn’t another/better way to get supporters to go out and vote. Just a thought.