WA election: Social media audit uncovers fake followers and not so micro-parties
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Health Minister John Day has the highest number of fake Twitter followers among West Australian politicians, while minor parties are outperforming the majors on social media, according to digital strategy experts.
Key points:
- Audit finds more than one in six Twitter followers of WA leaders classified as 'fakes'
- WA Liberals and Labor outperformed on social media by WA Greens, audit suggests
- No WA Facebook page for Pauline Hanson's One Nation
As the WA election campaign enters its second week, social media is being used to target voters more than ever before.
An audit of the social media accounts of party leaders by public relations firm Cannings Purple found more than one in six of their Twitter followers were classified as "fakes".
Accounts were determined to be fake if they were inactive, had few or no followers of their own or showed all the signs of being robot accounts.
Overall, WA Labor was leading the Twitter race with almost 6,000 followers, while the Liberals had 3,800.
But Opposition Leader Mark McGowan had more than 1,700 fakes (17 per cent of his followers) at the time of the audit, while Premier Colin Barnett had more than 1,800 fakes (18 per cent of his followers).
The wooden spoon went to Mr Day, who had 22 per cent of his followers classified as fake.
Cannings Purple digital strategist Ruth Callaghan said it was not a good look.
"That doesn't mean he has done anything wrong, but he needs to clean out who follows him," she said.
"Here are the people that are going to be telling you how to run your lives, but if they can't run their social media accounts, it's worth having a good look at."
Ms Callaghan said it was hard to know if the politicians had paid for followers or if they had just accrued fake followers over time.
"For $60 you can purchase 2,500 followers on Twitter," she said.
Other politicians who ranked high on the list included Labor's Dave Kelly and Michelle Roberts, who each appeared to have a 10 per cent fake following, while most MPs recorded between three and five per cent.
Not-so-minor parties mark online territory
Seven registered parties competed at the 2013 state election — but this year, that has jumped to 16.
In a crowded marketplace, Facebook remains the major platform for minor parties to promote themselves and share their message.
The Australian Christians had the most Facebook page likes of the registered political parties, with more than 38,000.
They beat the WA Liberals by 21,000 followers and WA Labor by 24,000, in part because their appeal is broader than any one election.
The Australian Christians page is registered in WA but speaks to a national audience, promoting the party in the lead up to the state election while also covering federal issues.
Meanwhile, the Fluoride Free Party WA clocked up 5,000 likes, which was considerably more than the WA Nationals.
In what might also be a problem for the Nationals, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party had about three times as many Facebook fans.
WA Greens outperforming Liberal and Labor
Based on raw numbers, the Liberals may have more fans on Facebook than Labor, but neither of the parties were engaging users as much as the WA Greens.
As for party leaders, Mr Barnett had increased his personal following by 15 per cent in the past month, though he still had only about 2,000 fans.
Mr McGowan's growth had been much smaller, but he started the year with 11,000 fans and had a much bigger reach.
However, Greens MLC Lynn Maclaren posted an average of five times a day which was twice as Mr Barnett and won on shares, reactions and a range of other metrics.
Ms Callaghan said voter engagement on Facebook, including likes, views, comments and reach, could be more important than the number of followers a page has.
"It's about how much reach you can get, how angry and motivated can you get them, will they go and tell a friend?" she said.
"That's a much more effective way of the getting that message out.
"The Greens are very engaged even though they have fewer followers on both platforms. So it isn't always as simple as the number of fans equalling the amount of influence."
Big bucks for boosting posts
In a challenge for political parties, Ms Callaghan said Facebook was increasingly prioritising paid or "boosted" posts in users' news feeds in a bid to increase its revenue stream.
"Now if you aren't putting down $100, $500 or $1,000 to boost that post you actually get quite a small audience," she said.
But while social media advertising remains a relatively new area of expertise, parties on all sides are turning to young marketing graduates to help with their campaigns.
Madi De Jong is running the Greens WA social media campaign, which she said aims to communicate with voters at all moments of the day.
"If I'm driving past a billboard, I am not going to remember what is on it by the next corner, so online social media is so important because you can target people in homes, on their way to work, at the office," she said.
"Not only are you going to be influenced by what your friends are thinking and saying, you are going to see it pop up in your feed directly, which would give you more of an inclination to get involved."
Ms De Jong said while social media campaigning would not replace the traditional door-knock or phone call, it was a good way to contribute to a campaign without committing a huge amount of time.
One Nation WA absent on social media
Despite its rise in the polls and the party having pages in other states, Pauline Hanson's One Nation does not have a WA Facebook presence.
Ms Callaghan said Ms Hanson's personality and the extraordinarily high media coverage her party got meant a local Facebook page was not as important.
"It doesn't really matter who the candidate is to get that message across. Because the person at the front of the party, Pauline Hanson, is successfully delivering that message, over and over again," she said.
"So they don't need each candidate to have a Facebook page … their national presence is so high, they've captured the audience without even having to try."
Topics: elections, social-media, states-and-territories, political-parties, perth-6000, wa
