I have been rather out of the loop today. Been on the road to Wellington for round the bays this weekend. I have just seen this article on the Herald website. It raises an interesting question. We can all remember when Colin Craig threatened The Civilian with defamation for their satirical post about him. That had to rank as one of the silliest things a politician has done in a while. However the question it raises is how will Colin Craig/The Conservative Party handle social media this year. I have a feeling they are going to be the party to watch for a disproportionate social media response. Most party/party leader accounts are run by people who know what tweets to ignore, what Facebook comments to ignore, which comments cross that line and require deleting. Even most of the youth wings of the major parties are pretty good at this. With the odd slip up. However, using Colin Craig’s reaction to both The Civilian and Russel’s comments, I have a feeling that any social media that the Conservatives run this election will not know where the line between acceptable and unacceptable is, and this will result in replies that are over the top, or comments that should stand being deleted.
Now at the same time it is important to also point out that there will be most like be a concerted effort by people form across the political spectrum to bait the Conservative Party social media presence, but the people behind it should expect this and prepare for it.
It will be interesting to watch how the Conservative Party handle their social media. Needless to say, I will be keeping and eye on it.
There’s quite a bit of Conservative social media activity that isn’t obvious. Colin’s little helpers get around promoting his party quite a bit.