I must say that I am very impressed with the Democratic Alliance!
Their website is powered by WordPress – a blogging platform – which makes for very dynamic content. This allows the DA to keep their supporters up to date with what is happening at the DA and what they are doing for South Africans. It also means that instead of having to revisit the page everytime you want to check up on DA activities, you simply need to subscribe to the RSS feed (standard with blogs) and get the updates delivered straight to your feed-reader.
Although this is very impressive already – what really made my day was the news that Helen Zille (leader of the DA) joined Twitter! Not wasting a second I decided to follow her, amazingly, a minute or so afterwards Helen made a tweet. Now I get to be clued-up on the DA’s campaign and how their words are turned into actions – all in real-time.
Using social media in politics is surely not a new thing – but I believe the success of President Obama’s campaign and his extensive use of online social media has made waves – reaching all the way to South Africa. And what a great exhibition of how one can use social media in a “corporate” environment to reveal the human behind the organisation and make a connection with the with the client/consumer, who’s needs need addressing. Allowing for transparency, feedback and input will not only provide insight into those needs, but once addressed can reinforce client/consumer-loyalty. Perfect for politics.
The DA might be the main example here – but the ANC has in fact broken the Twitter barrier in January already. The big difference between their respective approaches to using Twitter is representation. Here is a little summary of both the ANC and the DA on Twitter:
The ANC
Joined Twitter: 8 January 2009
Followers: 86
Following: 81
Updates: 87
Find them at: http://twitter.com/ANC_info
The DA (Helen Zille)
Joined Twitter: 10 February 2009
Followers: 161
Following: 149
Updates: 6
Find them at: http://twitter/helenzille
I also found COPE – but there is nothing to report about their Twitter activity.
Filed under: News, social software | Tagged: ANC, DA, politics, Twitter, Web2.0
Nice to see South African political elite embracing the social media.I am not a of Hellene Zille but Twitter can provide a nice insight into the minds of our politicians!I wish our politicians here in Kenya would embrace social media,especially blogs and Twitter!