Yesterday Bomber Bradbury over at Tumeke had a great post about the way political parties use Facebook to communicate with the people they’re representing. There were some clear winners, which was great to see. Not only has the left wing embraced social media effectively, they actively communicate with people to gauge what the public thinks.In stark contrast is National’s horrendous effort with only 10% as many Facebook supporters as the Green party of Aotearoa.
National has also failed to properly utilize what should be a formidable tool in any political parties arsenal; a Twitter account. They've continued to simply use twitter as a broadcast medium rather than engaging directly with people.
Twitter Followers for 2011
May August Increase
Greens 3054 3701 647What is apparent is that National MPs are a bunch of technophobes. Their only MP to fully embrace tweeting is Tau Henare, which has been disastrous. He seems incapable of controlling his abusive and disrespectful tweeting self.
National 1616 1954 338
Labour 1117 1336 219
Act 509 651 142
Just to highlight one example, a while ago Philip Lyth corrected Tau Henare about yet another thing Tau had got wrong. It wasn’t a biggy, just whether it was warmer in Auckland or Wellington;
Instead of taking the correction like a man, Tau
Henare responds with insults;
He doesn't understand that there's a certain amount of proper conduct that is required from our so called representatives. Without it people lose respect for politicians. It also inhibits people from engaging in politics, which is presently a serious problem.
National doesn't even have a blog site... talk about social media failure.
