Best Google Review ever

After this morning's fantastic Tweet from South West Trains:

We are currently not able to run trains through Feltham as there is a fight on the platform with possible trespassers on the line.
— South West Trains (@SW_Trains) August 23, 2013

For some reason this made me think about the secure training centre, HMP Feltham. Plenty has been written about how online reviews on the likes of Trip Advisor can make or break hotels and restaurants.  I then saw this, contender for best Google Review ever: 



"If you are young, and are travelling Europe, this comes a close second to the Youth Hostel Association. Although slightly outside London, its ideal for Heathrow airport (a short bus ride), and local amenities are good. Accomodation is pleasant with garden views, but meals are served communally, and peppered by remarks like, "you gonna eat that, mate?". Shower-time take you back to the days of Eton, and Rugby............ Like many cheap hostelries, you have to see "The Beak" who will decide if you are free to continue your European Tour, or whether you are given a free airline ticket back to your home country....usually Australia."

I apologise to my Australian cousins and anyone else for the casual racism, that aside, it made me chuckle.

London mayoral race in social media

I thought it would be good to see how the social web commentariat is expressing itself towards the London mayoral race between incumbent Boris Johnson and previous mayor, Ken Livingstone. When we last looked at this Johnson was consistently getting more buzz than his Labour rival. Ken was only able to push above Boris after he made some "controversial" comments in an interview with the New Statesman. 

Looking at the number of mentions for each man across Twitter, blogs and forums we can see that Ken is now consistently jostling for position with Boris. High profile campaigns both for and against each candidate and the looming election date has slightly eroded the incumbency lead that Boris had held several months ago: 

In February both candidates had a net positive sentiment towards them in social media, with Boris having more detractors and fans, with feeling towards Ken more neutral. Just a month away from the election sentiment towards Boris has dipped, with him now receiving more negative than positive comments: 

Ken's results have markedly improved. He is now looking at a net positive result of 8%, against Boris' -2%. This suggests that the social media commentariat isn't swayed by the high profile negative media that the Labour candidate has been receiving recently.

Does it mean Ken will win? No, but it does give a useful insight into what the social web thinks about the two men in the bruising personality clash.

David versus Ed Miliband in social media

I wanted to see if David Miliband's New Statesman article and widespread news coverage of it had led to much social media commentary.

It clearly has, shown in the chart below detailing the number of mentions for each of the Miliband brothers over the last month:

This shows how mainstream news agenda is still driving social media and political commentary. Obviously. I'll keep an eye on how long the David bubble continues to fly.

Policing of TUC march

Yesterday I gave my comments to the Sunday Times and praised the way that the Metropolitan Police managed Saturday's main TUC march. I know there are other issues regarding the UK Uncut protesters and how they were policed. One problem with the latter is that some people were committing crimes which gave the police an excuse to arrest many of them. Back on the main march there was a family, almost carnival, but serious, atmosphere.

The police clearly tried harder here than they did with previous protests. The Met also tried to embrace social media to give marchers the opportunity to feed back their views on how they were being policed. Commendable, but it didn't work as the survey that they tweeted went down on Saturday morning. It only went up again when the Sunday Times contacted the company running the survey.

The police have moved on and demonstrated willing by opening themselves up to feedback. However, when an organisation takes first steps into social media they have to do it properly. Now the Met have paint on their face, just like their officers, as their foray failed.

If you pay for The Times you can read the article. If you don't, here is what I said:


Labour blogger and social media expert Tim McLoughlin, who was on Saturday’s march and praised the way it was policed, said the Met had much to learn about using the internet to communicate with the public.

“As someone who helps companies embrace social media getting the police to use it to better communicate with the public is commendable. However it is only worth doing if you know how to use it and that the survey site was down at the weekend suggests a lack of thought went into the Met's efforts,” he said.

McLoughlin also criticised the nature of the survey, which is based around multiplechoice questions and offers no opportunity for written answers.

“The survey doesn't give much scope for people to deviate from the small number of set questions asked or to give other feedback. For that the traditional, non-social, channels are the only means to communicate this to the Met.”

How companies and politicians are using social media

When I'm not writing this I'm working at Metrica, where I write for the Measurement Matters blog. I write a weekly column Tim's week in social media where I highlight the most eye-catching developments in social media in the last week. 


My work involves helping companies understand the impact social media is having on them and helping them to work out what to do about it. Yesterday the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones presented a short piece about this - in general, not about me - watch the short film below.







The lessons for politics should be obvious. Politicians and political parties have a brand image to protect and need to engage in the same way that the most forward thinking companies are with social media. In the past it was enough to talk at your target audience or voters but not necessary to engage with them. The benefits are the same: the more people are engaged with you and receive a positive response the more popular you are likely to be. You should not need to write a letter to your local representative or meet them at a surgery if you need help. Social media should make it easier.


Much has been made of Obama's use of social media to recruit and activate a huge volunteer base. Less has been said of politicians that use social media to engage their voters with their work ongoing. 


Mashable's account of how US politicians are benefiting from social media shows that by opening themselves up to feedback has added a human touch to communication and allows more of their constituents to communicate with them. It allows more people to see more from their representative and to communicate directly with them. Social media is creating a wider community around both brands and politicians that embrace it.  


Blogminster appraises the web presence if the UK's 645 MPs. This shows that there is a lot going on in the UK among politicians already. The best are taking part in conversations with the wider community while many more blog as another means of telling people what they think. 


Like any channel of communication social media is only worth engaging with if you have something useful to say and defined objectives. For the sake of it or because others are doing it doesn't count. Most politicians are missing out on an opportunity to speak directly with more of their constituents than they will ever reach by knocking on doors. 


Others like Vince Cable just look silly. "He" ran a Twitter account for the election, which he hasn't taken down. In a raft of posts he criticises his future Tory masters, including the gem about his current boss: "Osborne is totally out of his depth." 


What goes online stays online. Cable shows that you need to understand what you are doing otherwise you'd be better off leaving social media alone. Poor old Vince. It wasn't meant to be like this. 

Did social media revolutionise the UK's general election campaign?

This post first appeared on Metrica's blog, Measurement Matters. 

I have been looking at what other commentators have had to say on whether we had an internet election. Did social media revolutionise our election campaign or merely show an evolution towards digital media?

There were victims who committed their “crimes” in social media, though very few. The spoofing of election posters at MyDavidCameron were the most memorable social media aspect of the campaign. Tech Radar argues that social media has “diluted the power of political posters…and it’s done the same with newspapers”. This is certainly true. Was this a revolution? Not really. This election will be remembered as the television election. It was the first in the UK with televised debates between the main party leaders. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown will likely also be remembered for criticising a voter when he thought his TV microphone had been turned off.

In a detailed account of the internet election Mark Pack points out that internet polling was widely used for the first time. This enabled polling companies to deliver almost real time poll results after the leaders’ debates. The internet has certainly fed mainstream media outlets with faster access to voters’ views, either through polling or raw comments on Twitter. Social media and the internet has helped parties and candidates organise their campaigns and volunteers. Whether it really changed how anyone voted is unclear. The resources available online make it easier for voters to find out about their candidates, as Left Foot Forward suggested. 

Echoing the findings of Metrica and Fishburn Hedges’ Mood-O-Meter, Tweetminster concluded that “there is a strong correlation between online buzz and party performance.” Our Mood-0-Meter showed positive buzz for the party leaders in line with party performance at the polls. Whilst it wouldn’t be right to say that social media provides an online opinion poll, people talk about what matters. The huge increase in buzz for Nick Clegg after the first leaders’ debate reflected public opinion and polling surveys.  

The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones asked if politicians and voters are likely to be more inclined to use social media in the future. I think so, with many new MPs elected, many of them much younger than those they replaced, the appetite for social media will grow and is likely to become an integral part of future elections.  

The revolution hasn’t happened yet though. So far social media has played a role without taking centre stage, far more evolution than revolution.