With social media playing a bigger part in our democracy than ever before, politicians are expected to hit the right notes with their online communications.
More and more voters say they get their news from Facebook and Twitter rather than traditional media outlets and an analysis of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn’s Twitter feeds, by digital marketing company Builtvisible, has revealed the words they’ve tweeted most frequently since the election was called.
Top of the list for the PM, unsurprisingly, is ‘Brexit’ and there are no prizes for guessing ‘strong’ and ‘stable’ feature heavily.
A key narrative of the Tory campaign - that Theresa May is the only one who will be able to deliver strong leadership at the negotiating table when Britain leaves the EU - clearly runs through her Twitter presence.
Other words that feature heavily include ‘secure’, ‘plan’ and ‘best’.
Jeremy Corbyn’s favoured word is ‘people’ and he appears to have made good use of the #GE2017 hashtag, while tweeting 10 times as often as May.
The Labour leader clearly pushed hard on getting young people to register to vote last month, with all the key words you might expect from that message appearing frequently, as well as ‘NHS’, ‘transform’ and ‘protect’.
Labour is relying heavily on turnout among young people to achieve levels of success predicted in some of the more optimistic polls during the last week.
Danny Lynch, digital PR consultant at Builtvisible who carried out the analysis, said: “I wanted a really quick, at-a-glance view of the core themes of their messaging – it’s an interesting way of getting past the rhetoric and straight to the heart of each campaign’s focus.
“While Jeremy Corbyn tweets about the ‘people’ and the ‘NHS’, Theresa May focuses on ‘Brexit’ and ‘deal’, both in keeping with their manifesto pledges.
“What’s particularly interesting, however, is the stark difference in tweet volume, with Corbyn tweeting 10 times more than May.
“So while both leaders are encouraging people to get out and vote, far more effort is being channelled into social media from the Labour leader’s camp. Perhaps this reflects the Labour Party’s particular focus on and appeal with younger, tech-savvy voters.”