The Labour Party has appointed a dedicated employee to work with social media influencers to share positive messages about the party ahead of this year’s general election.
The move has been made as Labour looks to work with smaller microinfluencers, in the hope that content creators with a smaller but more loyal following will be able to connect with voters who may otherwise be missed via more traditional platforms such as TV and radio.
Head of digital influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy Thomas Walters told The Guardian “Gen Z are glued to their phones and get a lot of news from TikTok. They also get a lot of of opinions from creators.”
Labour’s move illustrates that political parties are increasingly shifting resources away from traditional news-based media outreach as they look to connect with audiences who are consuming news from other sources.
“It’s less about finding people with a million followers. It’s more about finding authentic people who talk about an issue and can deliver a good message,” another campaigner told the paper.
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While it is common for political parties in the US to pay to work with content creators, they do not have to label it as paid-for content. In the UK it must be clearly labelled as such, which means that political parties working with influencers must tread carefully, as any paid partnership risks looking disingenuous.
Marco Ricci, from influencer agency Takumi, said Labour’s influencer content will only work if the public believes an endorsement is legitimate, something he expects to see becoming problematic as the election campaign hots up.
Political parties could also appear on UK streaming platforms, despite having been banned from TV advertising from 1955, in a bid to avoid the type of campaigning that occurs in the US.
However, with the decline in linear TV and the guidelines last updated in 2003 before the popularisation of streaming, politicians are seeking to exploit the loophole.
