Political Communications
April 11, 2010
via Twitter/TwitPic, another fine example of why politicians should never ever be allowed to control the internet, or access to it…
How Not To Do It
So a few pointers…
- You really expect your voters to type in www.linlithgowandeastfalkirklabour.org.uk ? Get real. A quick search on any domain registrar shows that sites like LabourLinthgow, LinlithgowLabour, LabourFalkirkEast, and FalkirkEast Labour are all available – you could have those four snappy easy-to-remember domains all pointing to one site, and make it easy for people.
- And separate sites for each constituency? Really? I guess joined-up communications and corporate message just kind of got by-passed.
- A hotmail email account? For politicians? You’ve got to be kidding me. (Mind you, the actual site doesn’t even appear to list proper email addresses, and just uses a contact form) Hotmail’s OK if you’re twelve and don’t have any other ones. As soon as you’ve got a domain name of your own, use that instead of some freebie email that makes you look like a clueless twelve-year-old. Hotmail’s fine as a personal email address I suppose, but not for anything remotely professional or business like. (The same also applies to emails from yahoo, gmail, myspace and others)
- It really helps to have the proper names in your Twitter and Facebook contact details. Not “site.com/yourname”. Even more impressively, I can’t even currently find their proper account on Twitter.
And these people are indicative of the type of politicians who brought in the Digital Economy bill?
They’ve obviously no real clue, and have taken advice from either an SEO shyster (“Oh, you’ve got to have all your keywords in your web address”) or an agency who know some stuff but not enough, nor how to communicate it to their clients.
I’m in half a mind to send them a spec letter asking if they want it done properly.