Here in the UK, we're about to have a referendum. In their 2010 election manifesto the Liberal Democrats promised to bring in the Alternative Voting (AV) system and a referendum is the compromise they have reached with their Conservative counterparts. The question is, can we use online presence to predict the winner?

Please note: While the disclaimer at the top of this post tells you that the views expressed in this post are not those of SEOmoz, I would also like to add that the predictions and discussions in this post are not the opinion of my employer, Fingo Marketing Ltd. This post does not seek to aid either campaign, but to compare them without bias.

Which Factors to Look at?

There are a whole range of factors to look at when discussing online presence, but I'm going to stick with a few that were discussed during the US presidential elections in 2009. Namely,

• Google insight volumes
• Newsletters
• Websites
• Social Media involvement

Hopefully these factors will give us an idea of who is engaging the public more, who is marketing themselves better, and through this who stands a better chance at the referendum on 5th May.

Google Insight Volumes

We're looking at how these campaigns are engaging people online. So, first question – is "yes" or "no" searched for more often? Well, as the screenshots below shows the answer to that is pretty conclusive. The first shows some of the most important information-based terms, the second their domain names (without their .org TLDs) and it seems that the "no" campaign is way in the lead.

To answer the inevitable questions about flyer drops affecting volumes, my girlfriend and I each received a "yes" flyer in early April, and she received a "no" flyer on the 19th April. I have yet to see a "no" flyer even though we are both on the electoral register as living at the same address.

Newsletters

So far the "no" campaign has won the search popularity contest, but what about newsletters? Could the "yes" campaign claw some points back by engaging those people who sign up to the campaign with a fantastic newsletter?

The answer: I don't know. I have signed up to both the "yes" and "no" campaigns – a bit naughty I know, but all in the name of research – and so far only the "no" campaign have sent me an email.

Now, in a blog post a while ago SEOmoz talked about Barak Obama's newsletters. To quote directly

"I'll leave the politics at the door and focus purely on the newsletter. The Obama newsletters rarely get sent out with images, yet they don't feel bogged down with text"

It's a relatively short message, is cleanly formatted, and breaks up the chunks of text with links, bolded sentences, and quotes. I also especially like the titles of their newsletters--I saw "Watch this video" and it immediately caught my eye. If it were titled something like "Barack Obama Campaign Update for May," my interest wouldn't be as piqued and I'd be less inclined to open the newsletter right away."

Now look at the "no" campaign's introductory newsletter

I think someone's been taking lessons: there are no images outside the top banner; the newsletter is short, fairly clean (apart from those big bits in bold) and it has short paragraphs; the subject line is "Thank you for supporting the NO to AV campaign", which is nicely inclusive. I would say that it is missing social media links, but it does link out to the no2av.org website. So, no top marks to the "no" campaign, but at least they have acknowledged my existence....

Websites

The "yes" and "no" websites are rather interesting in that they take similar yet rather different approaches. Both use a two-column layout with top navigation and calls to action in the right hand column and both use their main column in a similar way – the traditional pre-election slanging match. Their right hand columns, though, say a lot about their online strategies.

Both have their "get involved with us" calls to action abopve the fold, but what is interesting is the very top: while the "yes" campaign sets out why we should vote "yes", the "no" campaign asks us to sign up. In terms of targeting, I would hesitantly suggest that the "no" layout works better: we already have reasons for wanting to vote "no" and by encouraging us to sign up to their campaign newsletter the "no" campaign can keep us interested. It seems that while the "yes" campaign are calling the "no" campaign staid and old-fashioned, it is the "no" campaign who are applying the principals of inbound marketing. The "no" campaign also show their latest blog posts in their right hand column – possibly someone needs to tell the "yes" people about QDF…

Both campaigns make similar use of their blogs – celebrity endorsements, publicising online their election broadcasts and the usual gumpf (possibly an English term? For the Americans, clutter or rubbish) – but in terms of format I feel that the "no" campaign is much more spacious, giving the reader the benefit of larger videos: the "yes" campaign video is a tiny 190x165 affair on the main blog page and you need to click through to see a larger version. This makes the "no" campaign blog easier to engage with that that of the "yes" campaign.

So far? It's fairly subjective, but I'm going with the "no" campaign on this one: they've embraced inbound marketing, they show of their rich media more often and in a better format, and their blog is easier to engage with than the "yes" campaign's. The "yes" campaign have a well-designed and easy to use site, but one can't help feeling that the "no" campaign are being that bit more sophisticated.

Social Engagement

So far it isn't looking good for the "yes" vote. Unfortunately for them, the "no" campaign continue to display a greater degree of sophistication when it comes to social media and sharing the message. While the "yes" campaign hides its social media buttons below the fold, the "no" campaign puts them clearly above the fold and uses colour to make them stand out.

Interestingly, though, in the battle of the Facebook Likes the "yes" campaign is winning – 11,000 Likes vs 8,000 for the "no" campaign. Neither are exactly making waves with the number of shares they have: 13 for "no" vs four for "yes". On the other hand, the "yes" campaign has a grand total of 185 followers while the "no" campaign has 4,903. The two campaigns are again taking very different approaches when it comes to following people who follow them: "yes" are shying away from it – they only follow ten people so far – while "no" are embracing it and follow 4,867 people. Looking at Retweets with retweetrank, the "yes" campaign comes in at 78,971st most popular and the "no" campaign comes in at 25,020th.

So, in the skirmishes of social media it seems that "yes" have superiority in Facebook and "no" are closing in on victory in Twitter.

Can we Predict Anything From This?

Before I try to, I would just like to say again that this post tries not to reflect any bias I may have. It just looks at how well the two campaigns are engaging with voters online.

Looking back at our four criteris:

• "No" is much more popular than "yes" in the search engines
• "No" also engages people straight away with a welcome email, while "yes" does not
• I feel that "no" has produced a more engaging website, using the principals of inbound marketing to create the appearance of a more sophisticated offering
• Facebook is currently in the hands of the "yes" campaign while Twitter is dominated by "no"

Obviously there are many factors to take into account, but I feel that these four are the main indicators. They certainly had something to offer when looking at the last US presidential elections.

My prediction, then: a relatively low turnout with a definite win – but not a landslide – for "no"