Labour winning Twitter war
Monday, 25 January 2010 5:10 PM
By politics.co.uk staff
Labour campaigners have the edge over the Conservatives when it comes to followers on Twitter, a report has found.
Political Twitter aggregator Tweetminster's research into the state of the parties in 2009 reveals that collectively the Labour party has 113,201 followers.
The Conservatives, on 36,874, and the Liberal Democrats, on 32,202, trail significantly. This disparity is reflected in parliament, too. Fifty-nine per cent of Labour MPs are on Twitter compared to just 13% of the Conservatives.
But the report notes that the Tories are especially strong at distributing their message, comparing its Twitter operation to those of mainstream media channels.
"Based on our data we feel that the next election (on Twitter at least) will be between the Conservative party machine and Labour's grassroots activists," Tweetminster co-founder Alberto Nardelli said.
Its report noted that journalists and bloggers like @iaindale and @krishgm were more likely than the Sun to win it on Twitter.
Mr Nardelli added: "Individual journalists will be interesting to follow. Beyond the media organisations they represent they will play a critical role in influencing how a message is framed."
David Cameron was asked if he would consider taking up a Twitter account during his monthly press conference this morning, but said he was cautious of committing himself to another method in his "canopy" of communication.
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