Labour supporters are the new One Directioners

Labour supporters are using tactics similar to the ones pioneered by One Direction fans to get hashtags to trend on Twitter, an expert has said.

Since Saturday more than 400,000 tweets have been posted with the hashtag #cameronmustgo. It follows more than 90,000 people tweeting their support for Ed Miliband under the hashtag #webacked earlier this month, as part of a campaign to counteract alleged bias against the Labour leader.

The hashtago was started by Labour supporters @jon_swindon and @CharlieWoof81 on Saturday evening, with the pair urging their followers to tweet under the hashtag from 6pm.

As Eb Adeyeri, Strategy Director at We Are Social explained to i100.co.uk, their tactic of concentrating tweets around a particular phrase is similar to one previously pioneered by One Direction fans. The difference is that as Twitter is bigger, it's now harder to get things to trend.

“You’d have a few hardcore One Direction fans who were able to whip up other people around them”, he said. “It used to be that if you got a small group of people tweeting the same things in the short space of time it would trend. As it gets bigger and bigger it gets harder because you’ve got to have more coordination.”

He added that part of the success of #cameronmustgo is that is has become a “lightening rod” for dissatisfaction with the prime minister

As for the bad news? It’s only going to get worse as we get into election season. "Facebook and Twitter are going to be the big ones. You will see a lot of adverts promoted into the Facebook newsfeed. Twitter is the big one because it's an open network and it's real time," Adeyeri says.

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