Politics online: Social media great for staying in touch with electorate, says Ciara Conway TD

Although politicians can use social media to promote the work they do, others share a bit more of their personal life.

Perhaps the most famous example of this is Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, who details the trials and tribulations of his rubber ducky and his teddy bear Ted to his 90,000 Twitter followers.

Labour Party TD Ciara Conway is happy to share some of her personal life with her online followers and constituents.

#sneachta I hear from my bro in mayo pic.twitter.com/UhSNXzzBwJ

— CIARA CONWAY she /her (@ciaramconway) December 12, 2015

“I think it’s really interesting that often it’s not political discussion or posts but the human interest stuff that gets reaction,” said the Waterford TD.

She said one of the biggest reactions she received was to a picture she posted of her 14-year-old daughter doing her homework outside after she became locked out of the family home.

“My daughter was locked out of home and she was sitting on the window when I got home, I took a picture of it and wrote something like ‘working mothers out there will understand’.” The image, which she captioned “The perils of a #working #mother .I was late .....very late #sorry”, received numerous responses and more than 100 likes.

She said many people contacted here with their memories of sitting on the porch waiting for their own mother to come home from work when they were younger.

“Often I find the stuff that makes me more human is the stuff that is the most popular and people are most interest in,” she said.

Quality chrimbo shopping @Hodges_Figgis 🐞❤🐞 pic.twitter.com/CYer1tjz3p

— CIARA CONWAY she /her (@ciaramconway) December 10, 2015

However, she said being on social media is an important way of conversing with voters on important issues. She has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat accounts. Constituents who would not normally attend clinics held by politicians feel more comfortable around raising issues or concerns with their local representative online.

“I would get direct messages from people all the time who may want to raise something with me,” said Ms Conway.

“It makes you more accessible to people. If a person has an issue or something they want you to work on or to help them with, I am always reachable and available.

“Particularly younger people. I think that they will be really engaged in social media in the lead up to the election. More and more news stories are breaking online so it’s really useful and important in that way.”

However, Ms Conway insists that social media does not replace canvassing, meeting people, or attending public events.

“At the end of the day, we are traditional, we like to meet our politicians,” she said. “In the last general election, for example, 76% of people voted for someone they had met and Facebook and Twitter can’t do that.”

She also added that the message must be altered to suit different social media tools and simply linking the same post across all media does not work.

“I find Twitter friendlier than Facebook, I think Facebook can be nastier, where on Twitter there is more of a community there,” she said.