Surprise, surprise! Labour wins online election war played out on TikTok, X and Facebook

It’s the TikTok election, being fought through social memes and sketches.

The Rishi doll, as portryed by the Tories

While social media may still be a foreign entity to many, it is key for the political parties to get their message through to a younger generation.

That means investing heavily in messaging on platforms like TikTok, X and Facebook.

The Labour Party appears to have found its home on TikTok and Reform UK is reaching the most Facebook users.

Ed Davey's exploits as displayed on social media

But, according to the data, the Conservatives have trailed behind in their effectiveness on social media throughout the General Election campaign.

Despite forking out more than £700,000 on Facebook adverts since the election announcement, the Tories and Rishi Sunak have managed just a quarter of the total interactions earned by Reform and Nigel Farage.

Meanwhile, there has only been one winner on TikTok since the country’s leading parties launched on the video sharing platform in May, with Labour racking up more than five million likes to the Conservatives’ 780,000.

“Social media is absolutely key to getting a message out to the UK voter,” Drew Benvie, a social media expert and chief executive of social media consultancy Battenhall, said. “It is one of, if not the most, influential types of media around today.In particular for the younger voters, those disenfranchised or disengaged or apathetic, those who just haven’t voted before – social media is the way to reach them.If we look to four years, eight years to the future, there will be a legacy there that is being built right now so it is a major battleground.”

TIKTOK

The three main parties have stepped onto a new electoral battleground during this campaign – TikTok – with the Conservatives, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats all launching their accounts within days of the General Election being called.

Labour has taken the platform by storm with about five million likes on their page so far, while the Conservatives have notably trailed behind with about 780,000 likes.

The Lib Dems have earned more than 600,000 likes, while Reform, which launched on TikTok in 2022, has nearly two million.

Labour’s popularity on the platform could be due to their use of internet culture to share their messages with their 208,000 followers, where they have leant heavily into viral trends and popular memes.