Sky News presentation - new newswall

Considering that I've watched every election night since 1983, I don't recall a lot of humour being used on election night programmes on the BBC. Now maybe it was done on other channels, but I don't recall it from memory. Even then, this is a different beast to just an election. This is a constitutional level event, with potential fundamental change here in the UK as a whole. This is not mere politics as usual, this is fundamentally different.



Sky do have the disadvantage of not being regional, but the flip side of that is that they can concetrate all their resources on the story, and find the angle that actually defines the night. STV and BBC Scotland have to focus on the Scottish angle. ITV and BBC have to focus on the UK angle. And, BBC have to split their resources to cover both angles. That's where Sky have an advantage.

...and you seem to think that social media is the holy grail of marketing. Too many others have thought that and when it came to the crunch, it couldn't replace more traditional forms of marketing where you have to spend money to market yourself. In marketing, you get what you pay for. You don't pay for it, you don't get much from it.

A couple of examples from the BBC right here.

Rory Bremner in 1992: http://youtu.be/ARifiLUKwxA?t=3m30s

I seem to remember that the female impressionist who did Margaret Thatcher was also on one of the election shows, think it was Election 79?

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how social media advertising works. Leaving aside the fallacy that anyone believed social media advertising would replace, rather than complement, traditional advertising techniques, what makes you think social media marketing is free? Paid, targeted adverts; boosted posts; sponsoring prominent people in social media circles - all these and more are examples of social media marketing techniques that require investment. Of course, there are the indirect costs of hiring staff to manage the social media outlets, and to ensure campaigns are successful.

Viral marketing, again, at least requires the initial cost of making the piece of media to be spread.

As someone who has been involved in social media marketing, I know that, for small businesses certainly, it can give much better results than local radio and local print advertising; your post makes you seem like a Luddite - something that seems to pervade your earlier posts.

So? It obviously didn't have much of an impact with me if I couldn't remember it. Furthermore, I fully expect that if you asked 100 random people to name a comedian who'd appeared on a BBC election programme, most people wouldn't be able to name one.

But, as I previously said, this is way beyond politics as usual.

The BBC also had the Election Night Armistice in 1997 on BBC2, and Channel 4 had their Alternative Election Night in the previous election but these were separate from the main coverage.

I'll give you one right now, Ian Hislop appeared on ITV's US Election coverage...

I'd agree with social media working for local businesses. It's certainly been effective in my part of South London where the niche shops have tweeted me to invite me to visit their shop which has got me to visit and spend money in their stores.

Social media marketing works for me when it's targeted personally at you, although the Sky viral works as a hook. It's a marketing tool in media which has been effective for decades. It's a modern day 'Shake n Vac' advert. Get them interested by having a housewife hoovering to a banal but catchy tune and the public buy the product in their droves.

You can't leave that aside, because it's not a fallacy. Around 2006, lots of businesses, including media ones, started to believe that social media was going to revolutionise marketing, and change the game beyond all recognition.

It hasn't changed the game beyond all recognition and it won't. It just adds another angle. Going viral is still regarded though as the holy grail of social media marketing, and everybody's trying to get that next viral video. Marketing works best, when it's a long campaign over months and even years. Viral videos may boost awareness overall, but it's not enough on its own.



First of all, define better. Do you mean more customers, more revenue, more profits?

Second, local radio delivers far better results, far more often. Clients get more visitors, more customers, and more revenue from advertising on local radio, than they do from social media and internet advertising, which is mostly ignored,despite what you may think. As someone who looks after a social media account for a broadcaster, interaction with social media posts, which by the way, for those who don't know, includes likes, clicks on links, comments and shares, comes in no higher than 5%. So if a post reaches 1000 people, a maximum of 50 will interact with it in some way or form. But then, you still have to turn that into a sale, and even then, you'll still need at least 1000 interactions to get maybe 1 sale. So we're talking about reaching at least 20,000 people to make one sale. I don't think social media marketing and internet marketing are all that good at turning awareness into sales.

Radio does better in that department, especially because as sound is the only medium, it is more difficult to ignore, so you end up hearing all the adverts. I have heard of some organisations choosing radio advertising as the only way to promote an event, and the event selling out in a matter of days. That's not something that social media advertising or internet advertising can claim.

Social media advertising and internet advertising is a useful string to add to the bow, but it does have its limitations in terms of effectiveness. It works better when used alongside traditioal media advertsing.

*shrugs shoulders* don't recall it at all. You can prove it happened, but ultimately, if it didn't resonate with me at the time, I wouldn't recall it.

I don't think people watch an election programme for comedy, other than interviews with known political jokes, such as Nigel Farage, Dennis Skinner and George Galloway...