Clegg's Twitter launch is nothing of the sort

According to page 11 of this morning's print edition of the Guardian, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg today eschews "the typical podium and press conference setup favoured by politicians".

Instead, he is launching his party's new policy for the young and out-of-work direct to his 6,892 Twitter followers, his 3,084 Facebook fans and a seemingly defunct Lib Dem YouTube channel.

The piece then goes on to outline the policy announcement in some detail:

A 90-day promise that would see young people claiming jobseeker's allowance for more than three months helped into training, a job or an internship. If they did not have any luck with these three, they would be fast-tracked on to a welfare-to-work programme, the flexible new deal.

But, of course, this is no digitally-inspired launch. This is classic press relations. The national press are suckers for stories about Twitter as they once were for tales of eBay and FriendsReunited. The Lib Dem press people know this very well and will be delighted by the secondary coverage guaranteed by five column inches in the Guardian.

A Twitter and Facebook campaign may generate a debate -- that's what social media can do when used well -- but it's a fair bet that most people know about this latest tweet-fest thanks to old media.

Jon Bernstein is the deputy editor of the New Statesman- and an occasional contributor to The Media Blog. This post originally appeared on The Staggers.

 

Comments

[Mark Pack]

A "defunct" YouTube channel in what sense? I suspect you may have been looking at something other than http://www.youtube.com/libdem as that's had three films added in the last five days?

A little surprised also you've not mentioned the Q+A on the Youth Parliament's forum, which made this an event with rather more chance for the public to participate than, say, a traditional press conference with only journalists present.

Not sure how you can evaluate an event properly without mentioning that?

[Jon Bernstein]

Mark, thanks for the comments. re. YouTube - I used the link available on Nick Clegg's website (http://www.nickclegg.com/2008/03/interact/) to get to the YouTube channel. Not denying one exists but not at: http://www.youtube.com/nickcleggmp