Amnesia Razorfish launches ‘The Social Election’

Sydney full-service digital agency, Amnesia Razorfish today announced the launch of its blog – The Social Election 2010, developed to take the pulse and analyse how the political parties and the community use social media to sway votes.

Launched last night at http://thesocialelection.amnesiarazorfish.com.au/ and on Twitter @socialelection, the blog features commentary on how – and how well – Australia’s political parties are using social media, plus the latest Tweets from Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown.

Amnesia Razorfish claims to be the only digital agency publishing its fullinsights into the election and the political parties’ use of socialmedia, including monitoring and analysis.

The 2010 Federal Election, widely touted to be the ‘digitalelection’, comes after recent examples of the US and UK elections whichused social media to engage and stimulate support and demonstratedsocial media’s ability to impact an election. Australian politicalparties, however, are struggling to understand how to use social media.

Amnesia Razorfish Social Strategy Manager Karalee Evans said: “Whenthe Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced the election for Saturday21st August 2010, I, for one, believed both the Liberal and Laborparties would hit the ‘activate’ button on pre-planned socialcampaigns. Just like the war chest of above-the-line campaigns ofattack TV commercials, print ads and pamphlets, I was expecting asocial barrage – but I’m still waiting.

“The social media efforts of Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and to acertain extent Bob Brown and the Greens, have been embarrassingly poor,even arrogant. More and more, people are seeking information,participation and validation from our three party leaders via Twitterand Facebook. And in return people are getting a lot of talking at -not to.

“The social movement is happening, with or without Gillard and Abbott.”

The Social Election will look at how social media provides a fingeron the pulse into how people are responding to each party. Results willbe reflected in weekly articles and polls, the social pulse of a feedof online conversation, a real-time share of voice worm-board andaggregated content.

Topics and issues of most importance, and who they matter most towill be analysed, along with how each politician is resonating with thepublic, and who is really being heard.

Amnesia Razorfish will consider share of voice between who is beingtalked about most and will analyse social media sentiment, trendingtopics, key influencers and reach of each party and leader.

“These insights are critical to understanding which way theelection will go and how the voting community engages with social mediaduring the election. We hope it will also assist in solidifying socialmedia’s place as a credible channel for people and brands to achievetheir own business objectives,” Evans said.

More content and elements will continue to be added to the blog,such as YouTube, Facebook and other online and social platforms, hopingto demonstrate that Amnesia Razorfish is the only one publishing thewhole of the social media election insights.