In June this year this blog will celebrate its third birthday. With the rise in use of social media, blogging has become an important way in which an elected politician or activist can communicate with residents.
Whilst there can be many pitfuls for politicians using social media I strongly believe that blogging has helped the public engage in genuine political debate.
I was pleased to see an article in the Southend Echo this week to reflect this growing trend. As the article mentioned, there are currently six councillors in Southend which use this medium to communicate with residents but I can claim with some pride to be the first southend councillor to start this trend.
2 comments:
My first blog was in 2005 for the Daily Telegraph (online edition) in the run-up to that year's General Election. I was ever-present on the front page.
I do wonder, though, whether it makes any difference. As you once described me, I am that failed Labour politician.
Julian
Many thanks for commenting. I have had similar said to me that blogging is a waste of time and I did have similar thoughts about 18 months ago.
I am however coming to the opinion that blogging and social media will eventually replace newspapers as stories/news is instant. I have also noticed that the Echo are routinely using stories which appear in my blog.
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