Local campaign offices around the country are stacked high with leaflets, social media is awash with awkward selfies of canvassers on the beat, and no doorbell is safe – it can only mean one thing: local election season.

It’s no secret that political campaigners will knock on any and all doors (physical and metaphorical) to get voters’ attention. But new data from the Party Members Project shows that Reform UK are least likely to show up on your doorstep, but the most likely to show up on your Facebook feed.

70% of Reform members reported using social media platforms to help campaign during the 2024 election, outweighing 57% of Labour and 45% of Tories. So, what are Reform doing online?  

Targeted demographic advertising

Spending big on Meta ads, specifically Facebook, seems to be the answer, with Who Targets Me finding that Reform is the single-biggest political party in terms of ad spend on Meta platforms. Advertising space bought by Reform makes up over 16% of all political spending on Meta platforms, with over £140,000 spent from 14th March-12th April this year.

The major theme of the ads is “stop the boats”, however the audience settings selected by Reform is telling: publicly available data from Meta’s ad library shows us these adverts are targeted at predominantly male users, or all genders above the age of 65, which is closer to Facebook’s core demographic. Data from the British Election Study found that voters aged 66 and above were the most likely age to vote in the 2023 and 2024 local elections, so Reform knows the audience to target. There has also been a recent campaign to save British Steel, which appears geared towards attracting support from targeted northern communities.

Most of Reform’s spending is not focused on promoting content from its own page, but rather on Nigel Farage’s. He is the figurehead of the party, which Rupert Lowe recently found out to his detriment, which also proves the preference for content coming from individuals rather than entities, making it appear more genuine.

Turning advocates into influencers

There has been an increase in general conversations around grooming gangs in Northern England, and social media is playing its part in this. Whilst difficult to quantify, social listening tool Talkwalker has identified a peak of over 56,000 mentions of “grooming gangs” online on April 9th. Reform is using organic content on platforms as a lever to co-opt the topic as a rallying call for followers through accounts such as Elon Musk on X, messaging which was amplified by micro influencers in Facebook groups. There have been reports of Reform content and talking points being shared into local Facebook groups, which are working to shape discussions. Recent media coverage, such as Nation.Cymru has identified individuals sharing pro-Reform content into local Facebook groups, a method which cannot be monitored nor quantified effectively. This has contributed to increased pressure on the Government and has certainly allowed Reform to agenda-set key issues ahead of the elections.

Tapping into trends

Reform is also finding ways to reach and create conversations in disparate audiences across social media through organic content. A recent example is Reform’s video announcement of local council candidate Stiliyan Petrov going viral on ‘Football Twitter’ for sharing the same name as his Premier League footballer father and being reposted by numerous accounts. While the football link is an interesting angle, the high production value of the video for what should be a relatively minor candidate announcement should also be noted as a sign of the resources being spent on these elections. This demonstrates that they can generate conversations across age demographics, but it remains to be seen if they are shifting opinions or remaining an echo chamber for those already pre-disposed to support Reform.

So why should anyone care? Well, social media is seen by all political parties as a vote swinger, allowing candidates to reach voters directly and set the political agenda (see the role that Elon Musk found for X in the US election). If Reform can set the conversation around elections, as they are looking to do via ads and Facebook groups, then issues where they are strongest can become the crux of local elections. Ahead of the next general election in 2028 or 2029, parties like Reform can use local elections as a testing ground to refine and improve their digital tactics. This is a space to watch – true to American stereotype, the US election was impacted loudly and openly via X and Elon Musk, but perhaps our local elections are being impacted British-style; a reserved and under-the-radar approach.

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