What with their being an election on and all, you’d think that reporting in the media would be more realistic… oh, wait. Scratch that. What I meant to say was infuriatingly biased and incorrect.
Many people, myself included, feel that one of the decisive battles in this election will be fought within the social networks and a recent research report by ‘An Award-Winning PR and Social Media Consultancy’ has got me brow-furrowingly angry.
One of the statistics jumped on with glee by the media was the revelation that the Conservatives have the most friends (23,800) with the Liberal Democrats (7,080) and Labour (7,100) trailing way behind, although after a quick search on Facebook I can guarantee you that (as of today) 21,281 are NOT voting for Cameron and 1,918 people prefer Penguins. But all of these statistics are utterly pointless, the figures in the report cover the period between the 5th January and the 14th March. 14th March? This is the real-time internet. Numbers from over a month ago are about as useful as checking volcanic ash reports from the same period to see if your European holiday is still a go’er.
I’ve seen with my own eyes the astonishing way in which ‘friends’, or as of today ‘likes’, can be added to a Facebook page. At one point during Marie Curie’s Great Daffodil Appeal we were adding people at the rate of 1 every minute, so you can’t rely on figures taken an hour ago let alone a month.
As of this posting, the Liberal Democrats have 48,042, Conservatives have 51,627 and Labour have 26,127 so the blues are still leading, but perhaps a more interesting story would have been the speed in which the Liberals following has increased and almost overtaken the Conservatives. Make of this what you will, but in the end their are much more important things to base your voting on. As you all know, my favourite colour is yellow so let me leave you with this party political broadcast on behalf of the Liberal Democrats and say… “I agree with Nick!”