Web start in politics: the campaign of Ségolène Royal on the Internet (2005-2007)
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Note: This case study is from the current 2.0 Being an elected official and manage their online reputation on the Internet given by Pierre Guillou to local politicians (councilors and President of Community of Communes) January 30, 2010.
The Web has become a political reality in France during the campaign for 2007 presidential elections. It was indeed the first time that the Web was used strategically and on this scale as part of a political campaign. The players in this adventure were pioneers. They built as and when the campaign methods and tools that met their current needs. Everything was to create in the field of "Web Policy" which is today all elected officials and future elected officials, local and national. Out of political considerations (left, right ...), the campaign team of Internet Ségolène Royal deserves a big nod.
Recalls the situation of Ségolène Royal in late 2005: the outsider
At the end of 2005, Royal was not a presidential image. At that time, she had little support at the national office of the PS, it does not appear in the polls to take on behalf of the PS presidential election campaign and had little money. In a word: it was an outsider.
For his campaign, the issue then arose as follows: to make an underdog candidate for him to win the primaries of the PS 2006 and the 2007 presidential election.
Objective 1: To make known the candidate
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Step 1: end of 2005, Royal goes on television and pounded the Web address of its website desirsdavenir.org.
- Consequence: supporters connect more and wondering how they can act.
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Step 2: Internet team replied that everyone has to create his own blog (if possible on a theme that matches their interests and their community of contacts) and relay ideas and lead debates or in connection with the candidate (each Blog should point to the site desirsdavenir.org but also - and this is very important - to other blogs).
- Result 1: creation of a network (the Segoland) by weaving a web of blogs and websites on the Internet in favor of the candidate or his ideas (about 2000 blogs around the main site with cross-links between them).
- 2 result: Segoland the network becomes the first political Web in France, ie at that time on most of the research on a political topic on Google, it was a blog in favor of the candidate who appeared in the first results.
- Step 3: Planning Policy web by mapping the Web French politician (definition of the list of sites and political blogs) and request the network to blogs Segoland to create web links to other blogs / sites relevant to their theme.
Objective 2: to win the primaries through participatory discussions
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In early 2006, it was to keep the same site (same address: desirsdavenir.org) not to break the network Segoland and ask people to discuss the site desirsdavenir.org.
It was then:
- desirsdavenir.org post on a web-based online discussions that takes the shock and technically that is simple to use for all (important point: the issue was not to be technically advanced but easy to use)
- and provide evidence to Internet participants that their contributions were actually taken into account (the user - future voters - must be able to verify for himself that his contribution is used)
- Result 1: establishment of a simple tool with 10, 20, 30 people to read and process manually contributions by syntheses. But at some point, the number of contributions has become too important.
- 2 result: implementation of a system then based on that vote for the consumer on the Amazon site. The new forum then allowed Internet users to contribute not only to vote but also on the contributions of others. The best entries dated back then naturally above the other. However, the number of contributions to be treated has continued to increase and it took further improve the system.
- 3 result: the system has been improved by giving weight to contributors (if a contributor "well noted" voted for a contribution, his vote had more weight than that of another user Lowest Rated). The best entries dated back then naturally above the other.
- Syntheses were made from the best entries. They were published in the summary report and used by the campaign team.
- With this method, Segolene Royal was seen by activists as a candidate who was listening and who was closest to them. She won the primary PS.
Objective 3: to occupy the territory by creating Web buzz
- It was to occupy the Web: unlike the strategy of the UMP, the goal was there throughout the area of Web information (text, video ...) Ségolène Royal and not a single centralized site. For example, a video should not necessarily be viewed on the site desirsdavenir.org: it was available where the users are (DailyMotion, YouTube, social networks ...).
- From summaries from discussions on participatory desirsdavenir.org, the buzz has been launched to develop the first media event.
Goal 4: listen and learn all about using a method of Internet monitoring
- A monitoring system on the Internet was established in 2006 to keep track of declarations left camp, to see what the other side and told to "feel" the trends of citizens on matters related to the campaign.
- Technically, we had to make a selection of sources (media, blogs ...), set keywords for Google search, retrieve the results of day (registration web pages, RSS feeds ....), sort the important information in a ranked wiki and add comments (waste watch), then develop features of instant creation of press based on a specific issue.
- This required a dedicated back office team to do the monitoring work but this method was more effective than the conventional technique and vertical saver.
Goal 5: organize militant action in the field
- From February 2007, he was to face the political opponent and occupy the field of "real life".
- Internet tools (event management, ...) were then used to organize and coordinate activism on the ground (the new social network of PS lacoopol is based on this concept).
