I’ve been shouting about Facebook groups for the last six years so I’m professionally fascinated at how they’ve played an important role twice in 2024.
The campaigns in question are Labour in the UK General Election and the US Democrats in the upcoming Presidential campaign.
The single idea shared by both is this. People trust people like them more than politicians so why don’t we help them to talk about the issues of the day?
It plays out like this. A politician talking about, say, the NHS gets treated with a degree of scepticism while your neighbour’s struggles to get an appointment at Thorns Road surgery around the corner from you gets a hearing.
In fact, the politician may not even be let into the community group to have that conversation.
Both Labour and the Democrats have recruited local teams of volunteers to talk about their own experiences on key issues and share content in Facebook groups, Nextdoor and WhatsApp groups.
This strategy was a key reason why Labour won a 167-seat majority and it’s a factor in Kamala Harris being a short head in front in the US elections.
There’s research that underpins this. In short, if we see something from someone who look like us, we’re more likely to listen. We know this. The Edelman Trust Barometer puts ‘someone like myself’ behind scientists as the second most trusted people in the UK on around 70 per cent.
The theory of normative social behaviour tells us that we are more likely to listen to someone we know.
How Labour won using an army of advocates
The Times [paywall] reported in a story headlined ‘The army of digital sleeper agents who propelled Labour to power’. The story reports that Labour may well have spent £6 million on online ads but it’s the conversations online that were a new battle front.
“An unobtrusive but effective guerilla campaign was also launched, to softly target those in the comparatively new battleground of community Facebook groups with what one source dubbed “digital sleeper agents”.
“Community Facebook groups have exploded in recent years, with millions of people sharing local news, opinions, and getting into spats, and Labour is understood to have used them all over the country.
“The tactic is not new and has been used by the Conservatives, including the setting up of local community groups, but Labour believes its approach was “more organised” and rejected “vanity metrics” of likes or follower count.
“It’s about encouraging people to be active in the online space, in their community, and basically encouraging candidates to go into these groups and say ‘Hey I’m standing in the election, what are the local issues?’ If you’re a local candidate you should be visible in these places because that’s where people report and talk about antisocial behaviour or services not working. You have to be visible,” the source said, adding that “genuine local people” needed to be delivering the messages.”
The piece went onto say that WhatsApp groups in Muslim communities proved to be damaging as there was not the same ability to gain access.
In the USA, this technique is also being used by Democrats with national memes and images being distributed and shared locally with a local spin.
But this is not just in Facebook community groups.
The impact of Taylor Swift
The ability to encourage people to come onboard and share their own content is exactly what’s electrifying about singer Taylor Swift coming out for Kamala Harris.
There is no more dedicated fans than the Swifties who bought a billion dollars of concert tickets in her recent global tour.
Mariana Spring, the BBC Misinformation reporter, in a recent edition of the Today Podcast, said the benefit to the Harris Walz campaign is that it dominates the algorithm.
“That fandom are able to generate loads of their own content memes, videos and posts. They make that for free and it’s organic. It doesn’t look sponsored by anyone. It’s coming from real voters real people. It’s coming from a genuine other voter who might be like you and that stuff keeps cropping up at the top of your feed and that is the thing that’s most valuable.”
Here, the impact isn’t in local Facebook groups but across a community of interest – Taylor Swift fans. The strategy is just as likely to reach a fan in the UK as it is in the swing state of North Carolina. But by keeping the Swifties for Harris star’s name at the top of feeds this can only help the Democrat campaign.
The ideas remain the same. Get real people to talk about it. It’s organic and free.
What does this mean for the public sector?
Often when I’m training people will see the benefit of actively sharing content in community Facebook groups. There’s some good examples where sharing to Nextdoor or Facebook groups has had real results.
But the most common barriers are a lack of time and the fear of abuse.
These are reasonable issues to flag. Time is finite. People are busy. How can people be everywhere all the time? They simply can’t.
Organisations can certainly start the ball rolling on sharing their own targeted content in targeted Facebook groups.
But wouldn’t it be good to have fellow travellers who can share what you are doing?
Thinking about it, this would work best on a micro-level. The Friends of Barnford Park already have a network. Could they share something about the new play equipment or the fun day?
Or the leisure centre user. Could they be enlisted to share about the New Year drive to get fitter?
When I worked in local government we tried to start a Facebook page for parents and children. It was to pull together things from leisure, libraries, schools and events which mums, dads and carers would benefit from. It failed. It didn’t work because we had nine admins and everyone else thought the other person was taking the lead. But could you recruit a group of advocates from them?
Maybe.
Yes, we do have share icons on a lot of content. But when was the last time you used them?
What Labour and the Democrats have done in their campaigns is to recruit advocates who are passionate about a topic.
So what are people passionate about? They may be passionate about their library. They may be passionate about being a parent of young children and sharing things that people can do like park events.
This leads me to what is the most popular content in Facebook groups. It is events. It’s things with dates, times and places where people can do things.
So, museum exhibitions, town centre fun days, leisure centres, fundraising campaigns, police information days, fire and rescue information all feel like people will put their hand up to be advocates.
I help deliver ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER to help people communicate more effectively in a changing landscape.