by The Conservatives’ launch of TikTok has been branded “perfectly pathetic” by an expert who hailed Labour’s “savvier” social media team.
Social media has been touted for years as a key battleground in general elections, but after launching in the UK in August 2018, TikTok was only in its infancy during the final polls in December 2019.
It is likely to play a bigger role than ever in this election, the Chinese app was banned from Government phones in March 2023 due to data security concerns but both parties have launched profiles in the past few days.
Despite the Prime Minister announcing the General Election last Wednesday, Labor launched on TikTok three days before the Conservatives – posting an 11-second video on Thursday afternoon of leader Sir Keir Starmer declaring: “Change. That’s what this election is all about.”
Since then, the feed has been a mix of clips from the party’s campaign trail, commentary and, successfully, memes mocking the Tories and the Prime Minister.
The Conservative Party shared their first TikTok on Sunday morning – a 50-second clip of Rishi Sunak in a white shirt announcing his plans to introduce compulsory national service for 18-year-olds if he returns to Number 10.
Journalist Chris Stokel-Walker, author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favorite App, believes the Opposition is on top of the scene so far – describing Tory efforts as “soulless and lifeless “.
“It is interesting that the two major parties have taken to TikTok to spread the word about their campaigns, especially given the concerns raised about TikTok’s national security threat – concerns that have not been supported, so far. up to any evidence,” Mr Stokel-Walker told the PA news agency.
“It’s quite clear that Labor has a smarter social media team that has effectively played down the demands of the Tories, especially their clever way of adopting memes to try to discredit Rishi Sunak’s national service policy trash.
“Meanwhile, for someone who is meant to be technologically savvy, Sunak’s TikTok presence was very unfortunate: not only are the videos pretty soulless and lifeless, but they seem to ignore of the fact that you need to grab the audience’s attention immediately, instead. going through Tory lines to adopt different policies.”
Mr Sunak’s pledge of national service has become a hotbed of memes on the Labor page.
A post with over two million views and over 316,000 likes, entitled “Rishi Sunak announces national service”, announces Lord Farquaad, the diminutive protagonist of the 2001 children’s film Shrek: “Some of you may die, but sacrifice it. I’m happy to do it.”
Another equally popular clip shows “Rishi Sunak turning up on your 18th birthday to send you to war”, with a viral video of the late TV host Cilla Black singing her 1980s track “Surprise Surprise” on the show of the same name .
While the Conservatives’ first post received more than 1.2 million views, it received 85,000 likes and over 10,000 comments as Mr Sunak asked questions about national service policy.
These questions included “what if I wanted to go to university” and “who is paying me to do it?”
In response to that second question, in a follow-up video on Monday Mr Sunak explained that the Government would provide “styles to help with living expenses” for those who join the army and would “fund training and administration”. available for community work.
Although it is early days – the Conservatives had shared just four TikToks by Monday evening to Labour’s 25 – Sir Keir Starmer’s party approach has been more successful.
Labor has more than 43,000 TikTok followers to the Conservatives’ 13,000 and has more than 10 times as many likes on the platform – with more than 930,000 to the Tories’ 87,000.
“Obviously the Labor campaign’s use of TikTok is likely to resonate more naturally with younger users but, in reality, I think you’ll find that it carries over to older voters as well,” a said Mr Stokel-Walker.
“Many of the memes Labor has used so far, particularly around national service policy, are ones that anyone who spends any time on Facebook, X or even a family WhatsApp group will recognize – and will probably laugh.
“We’ve heard for over a decade now that every general election is the ‘first social media election’, but there’s no doubt that online campaigning will be important in getting the message across to voters – especially younger ones .”
TikTok was banned from Government devices due to concerns about how the company’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance could use information such as contacts, user content and geolocation data.
Announcing the ban in March 2023, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden described the decision as “a prudent and proportionate step following advice from our cyber security experts”.
