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E-Campaigning: Ros Scott is doing it right


by Jennie Rigg    
September 2, 2008 at 1:26 am

Those of you (I would guess the majority of you) who are not Lib Dems might be wondering what Ros Scott’s campaign to become party president has to do with anyone outside the party. Well, listen closely, because you are about to find out how a baroness who was, well, not exactly a household name just last year got to a position where she looks to be a shoo-in for a position which generally entails at least a LITTLE handbags at dawn in the election.

If you read any Lib Dem blogs at all, you’re almost certain to have seen the above badge. I have it on my own blog. Click on the image and you’ll be taken to Ros’s campaign website, and bloody hell it’s a masterpiece. Whatever you think of the colour scheme and choice of fonts, from a campaigning point of view it’s one of the best sites I have seen. Full of information, simple, clean, easily navigable, encouraging of interaction… Ros and her team have clearly grasped what people want from a campaign website and delivered the goods. Even the usually phlegmatic James Graham is impressed, minor gripes aside. It went live this afternoon, since nominations are now officially open, but the secret of Ros’s campaign is that the official campaign website is merely the icing on a very well-constructed cake:

  • the campaign started small and progressed by means of volunteers and legwork by the candidate – Ros has visited most of the country over the last few months to chat to grass roots members in person.
  • the early start means that the idea of Ros as possible president has taken root in such a way as to seem entirely natural.
  • one volunteer is worth ten mercenaries. No expensive paid advert is ever going to be as good as the enthusiastic and noisy support of a person who really believes in a candidate. Ros has literally hundreds of such people.
  • the “I’m4Ros” badges have been quietly spreading from blog to blog, to the point where they have been ubiquitous for ages now.
  • from starting her own blog in January, Ros has gone to #12 Lib Dem blog in Iain Dale’s Beauty Contest – which, self-selecting or not, flawed methodology or not, means that she is getting herself not only noticed but popular.

The only fly I can see in Ros’s ointment right now is the very fact that her campaign has been so far so all-conquering that it’s difficult to see anyone even bothering to stand against her, and we Liberals are a contrary bunch, and prefer an election to a coronation no matter how deserving the candidate…

So what lessons can others draw from this?

  • It might sound obvious, but start by being/selecting the right candidate. Ros is popular not just because of what she is, but what she isn’t. She is a liberal and an intelligent, resourceful woman. She’s a real, genuine, grass roots party member, and thus she appeals to other grass roots party members. She isn’t the sort of person who gets parachuted in by party central. She isn’t someone who has been put forward because they are a media darling. She’s not doing this for self-publicity.
  • Make your stance plain, and publicise it. Give examples on your blog of how you think and how you react. Let people see how you work, what you feel strongly about, what makes you tick. Be honest, open and transparent.
  • Be politely relentless, ever-present but never pushy. Meet people. Interact with people, in person and online. Make it easy for people to contact you. Welcome and encourage offers of help.
  • Design your website around principles of usability. Use every avenue open to you – blog, and website yes, but also facebook and other social networking sites. The more ways people have to see your message, the more it will be seen.
  • Be interesting and innovative. People tire of the same old same old very quickly, but something new will be spread around quickly.

So far so obvious, you might be thinking. But if it’s so obvious, why does hardly anyone follow these principles? I tell you this, internets, I am very much looking forward to Ros’s presidency of the party, but more than that I am looking forward to her campaigning methods being picked up by other people – not just people on our side, either. Because once all parties not only grasp the power of the internet, but how to use it (preferably without outright stealing other people’s stuff *coughcoughnumber10website*) then things are going to get very interesting indeed around here.


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13 responses in total   ||  



Reader comments

I put in my local postcode… damn she is doing some serious touring!
Will come back with some more comments tomorrow…

2. Mike Killingworth

I’ve absolutely no view about her candidacy one way or t’other, but that front page is a mess.

Sunny: yeah, she’s been all over the place (including up here) and doing it all by train too.

Mike, in terms of coding, or in terms of design? I quite like the layout, but obviously YMMV.

4. Mike Killingworth

[3] Well, I like sites which, like this one, have their title at the top and fit onto my screen!

Mike, Jennie has a widescreen laptop, so it does fit on her screen. I concur with you though, it’s my principle complaint, the second being the TITLE tags make no sense and thus bookmarks and SERPs are going to be messed up.

But the site itself once you get past the frontpage is quite well put together overall, and her campaign strategy has been very good.

But then, when she started it, her then fiancĂ©, now the Honorably Lady Mark said “I’ve adjudicated a lot of these things I thought I’d show people how I’d run a campaign” (he’s a party returning officer and is normally neutral in selections &c). So it shouldn’t surprise me that it’s going as well as it is. I wonder if anyone else (ie Lembit) will actually bother to run…

6. Mike Killingworth

Oh those bl**dy wide-screen jobs, a classic example of demand creation. Things just don’t look right on them to me – isn’t there something called “the golden mean” which provides a clue to the most user-friendly shape of a flat object?

7. David Matthewman

What’s wrong with the home page? No alt text on the images (and it’s almost *all* images, so there’s nothing on the home page for anyone browsing without images to latch on to). A home page that’s a lot more inaccessible and a lot less informative than the rest of the site, and has no visible navigation unless I enter a UK post code. It doesn’t say *why* it wants to know this, but just sits there grumpily insisting I enter a post code.

The *rest* of the site’s fine, but that home page put me right off. It looks like classic style over substance (which I know is a misleading picture of Ros Scott), and gives the impression of wanting to know stuff about me before telling me more, which gives me privacy hives, and if ever there was a button you shouldn’t push with Liberal activists, that’s it.

If you think that’s a usable web site, look at the home page in Lynx and weep (but please note that I think it gives a bad impression as a home page in Firefox with every extra turned on too). It’s a pity, because most of the rest of it is spot on, and if I’m honest, I’m only really giving it a hard time because so many bloggers seem to think the design’s great. That said, if I hadn’t been told by so many people that it was a good web site, I’d have looked at the home page, shrugged, and moved on.

8. James Graham

Have to admit, I did notice the lack of alt tags this morning, which is unfortunate.

For a campaigning site it is deliciously purposeful and seems to successfully deter time-wasters. But for a generalist portal to engage and entertain the public… hmm

10. James Graham

Her audience isn’t the public though. The public don’t vote in this election.

11. Lee Griffin

Thumbs up for actually embracing the year 2000 though, hopefully more politicians will follow suit.

12. David Matthewman

The public may not vote in this election, but for the record I do. I don’t view accessibility for the partially-sighted (and anyone else inconvenienced by the lack of alt tags) as ‘time wasting’, but Ros isn’t likely to lose my vote over it, so maybe that is exactly what it is. As I said, I’m really only bothered because this is being touted as a model of good web design that others should follow.

An additional point: Google isn’t likely to index anything that only gives you meaningful content once you give it a post code (it’s possible the site’s authors have considered this, I realise, and serve different content to search bots). That doesn’t matter so much for a site that’s aimed at a small subset of people who can be told about it anyway, but anyone following this model who wants a wider exposure is going to get a nasty shock.

Lest I be seen only as an armchair critic, I’m happy to add alt tags to the source if someone gives me access, but I’m not at all sure anyone would be willing to do that to a random contributor to a blog thread.

David, while you’re right and it’s unlikely that you’d be given access, it is more than possible to pass your comments on to the site manager directly, which I’ll be doing later on this evening as I need to contact him on another matter anyway, so thanks for the critique, as you’re right on the ALT tags point, they are essential, especially for an image heavy front (which I’m personally not as keen on as I am on the inside content, but I’m a search/usability guy so you’d expect that)…


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