David Miliband tops chart of social media savvy

David Miliband is not only William Hill’s favourite to win the Labour Party leadership at odds of 4/9 but he’s also by far the most accomplished exponent of online pr and social media, judging by a review of the nine potential candidates’ websites.

Miliband’s smoothly designed website is the only one to include a blog and the only one to employ all of the most powerful core social media channels – Twitter, Facebook, Flickr & YouTube along with an RSS feed.

Ed Balls’s site is the nearest competitor for social media leadership, with Twitter, Flickr & YouTube channels appended to what is a very badly designed site indeed.

Harriet Harman and Andy Burnham are the only other potential candidates to run a Twitter account from their sites while the only concession to online pr being displayed by Ed Miliband and Alan Johnson is the inclusion of an RSS feed.

While I wasn’t particularly surprised that Peter Mandelson & Jack Straw haven’t bothered with a personal website at all (bravo), Ed Mlliband’s site is a bit of an eyebrow raiser – functional yes, a work of design beauty it is not. In Chrome the minute text over-writes the pictures, though they are so small it hardly matters.

At least they have set out their camp online, www.davidcameron.com is currently being squatted by people who appear not to share his views..quite strongly, amply demonstrating that the lack of a strong online pr strategy is not only bad for your online pr but a threat to your brand, political or otherwise.