How to Run for Political Stardom
By Ben May 8th, 2008
In Customer retention · Networking · Online PR · Politics · Social media · Stories
Several recent posts on this blog have criticised the (lack of) social media creativity in UK politics. Many comparisons have been made between ours and the slick US online political campaigns. Turn now, if you will, to the liberal land of the Danes for how to really do it well.
Danish PM, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is, apparently, the European Champion of Facebook, whatever that means. He certainly has a few supporters on his Facebook Page - 14,330 as I type this post. He gets on Facebook, he engages in dialogue with his fans, in person; and they love him for it. So what does a modern politician do with that kind of support? Take a hundred of them out for a jog in public, of course.
That is PR platinum right there - spot on. And you know what, he probably even enjoyed it too.
1 Karl / sthlm // May 12, 2008 at 9:17 am
Another interesting politician who seized the new medium is Carl Bildt, currently foreign minister of Sweden, previously of the RAND Corporation, who corresponded with Clinton over email in 1994, opened an official second life embassy, and started a youtube channel for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bildt#Internet_activities)
What makes Bildt interesting is that he has not used the channel lightly or as a PR tool - he has been writing digital newsletters since 94, and has a serious blog presence (including images which appear to be taken with his mobile phone):
http://carlbildt.wordpress.com/
K.
2 Ben // May 12, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Thanks Karl.
That Wikipedia entry cites Mr Bildt as having sent the “first … ever electronic mail … between two heads of government”. What an accolade.
I wonder how far the world’s leaders have delved into digital communications. I can just imagine George Bush waking up Gordon Brown by pinging him on Messenger for a chat.
Dubya says:
BoJo, Mayor of London, OMG LOL!!!! ;-)
UKPM says:
I know, WTF?