Campaigning on Twitter during the 2022 Australian Federal Election

Pencils are being sharpened, barbecues cleaned, and poll workers are staffing early voting centres. 

With Election Day just around the corner, here are some additional best practices and key information to help candidates make the most of Twitter through this election and beyond.  

Start a conversation, seek a conversation 

Twitter is an open, real-time, and conversational service. Twitter audiences are keen to interact and discover information in a transparent and interactive way. That’s where the magic really happens on Twitter – when you are talking with people, not at them.

Join a conversation. The election conversation is in full swing on Twitter. Candidates can listen and engage with communities, constituents, and organisations on Twitter, just like they would out on the campaign trail. 

So, where do you begin? Use hashtags for discovery. The best time to use hashtags are for time bound, live events because they allow you to easily join in on active and thriving conversations. 

The hashtags that activate the official Australian election Twitter mascot – the beloved democracy sausage emoji – are:

• #AusVotes
• #AusVotes22
• #AusVotes2022
• #Auspol
• #DemocracySausage
• #SausageSizzle
• #MyFirstDemocracySausage

Candidates can also consider adding key election hashtags to their Display Names and bios on Twitter to help increase profile discoverability in the conversation. 

Reply and reply often 

Don’t ignore your Replies and @ mentions. Show people you are listening. Where appropriate, reply back to or Like a Tweet @ mentioning you. Respond to the conversations coming to you and signal that you are open for interaction.

Think strategically about Trends 

It’s not about how many times you Tweet in a day, but rather focus on timeliness and relevance. Trends are an indication of how quickly a conversation is happening. If a Trend is hanging around, it’s a sign that the conversation has ongoing relevance and might be worth joining. 

Additional tips and tricks

• Keep it brief – short Tweets perform well
• Use space and line breaks to make text based Tweets visually interesting
• Use your analytics as a guide for what is working and what might need tweaking  
• Save Tweets you want to remember in Bookmarks 
• Keep Lists of accounts for inspiration – remember, lists can either be public or private
• Use Twitter Spaces to chat with others and humanise your voice  

Check out the Spaces below to hear how news organisations using them to cover the Federal Election.

Accounts of official candidates for state or national level public office must be registered with the appropriate election authority and must also fulfil the following criteria: 

• Account references that they are a candidate and what office they are running for;
• Account links to URL of campaign website;
• Individual is officially registered with the appropriate election authority in a state or national level public election that has not yet occurred; and
• Account must satisfy the criteria outlined in the above category denoting “active” accounts.

Access to the application to request Verification is now available to everyone globally. If you’re ready to apply, head over to your account settings to get started.

On web

• Navigate to Settings and privacy
• Your account
• Account information
• Once you enter password, go to Request Verification

On Android and iOS

• Tap on Settings and Privacy
• Account
• Verification request

Policy enforcement to protect the election conversation

It is against the Twitter Rules to share false or misleading information about how to participate in a civic event. As is part of our company-wide efforts to fight misinformation regarding participation in civic events globally, our existing Civic Integrity policy applies to election related content to ensure the conversation on Twitter remains healthy.

In Australia, we’re also currently testing a feature allowing people to report Tweets that seem misleading. When you select the ‘Report Tweet’, you will find an option to flag a Tweet as “It’s misleading”. We're starting small to assess if this is an effective approach, learn, and iterate. We may not take action on, and cannot respond to, each report in the experiment, but the input will help us identify trends so that we can improve the speed and scale of our broader misinformation work.

As part of our efforts to protect the public conversation and uphold the integrity of our service, Twitter is also a signatory to the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation. If someone thinks a breach of the code has been made by signatories, it can be reported here.

Campaigning handbook 

Find more best practices, tips, and examples, please download Twitter’s 2022 Government and Election handbook: 

Candidate Handbook - Campaigning on Twitter during the 2022 Australian Federal Election