It is election season, which means it is info graphic season as well. Both parties have been using info graphics through out the current term. I have already blogged about Labour’s info graphics.
The first thing I want to say about this is, I think including the link to the source of information in the Tweet, as well as the citation on the info graphic is a great idea. It makes it a lot easier for people to verify the claims. This info graphic has easy to read information, it talks about the message, and keeps the reference to the other political party to a minimum, just the red broken bottle and text.
However, due to the nature of social media alluded to in the post about Labour and their info graphics, as well as the habit people have of being sceptical of government/political party claims, comments were made that the source of these stats did not include domestic violence. This seems to be based on this article. However, it appears that what changed was domestic violence being included in a specific, separate category. The people running John Key’s Twitter account and Facebook page should have expect this to come up, and have replied pointing this out, with evidence to back it up. Social media is a two way thing, and letting ideas like this one go unchallenged allows them to become matters of accepted fact.
Once again, this is a simple info graphic, with no reference to the other parties. However, it does fall down on some things. Firstly, it uses a different font to the previous info graphic, nor does it use any of the party colours or party logo. If a party is going to us social media, and info graphics, to promote itself and the issues it believes in, it needs to have consistency. Brand recognition comes from consistency in colours, fonts, logos and over all look.
If the aim of social media is to get people to share and re-share your content, it will end up in places disconnected from where it was originally posted, therefore to maintain impact, it is important that it fits within the party brand.
