From the Beehive desk to ‘boomer tiles’: how politicians are battling for your attention

Saturday, 4 October 2025

More and more, politicians are bypassing the media to share their unfiltered thoughts online, straight to their voters. Senior journalists Thomas Manch and Harriet Laughton investigate.

Winston Peters keeps a social media rig with a light, microphone and phone holder next to his Beehive desk.

ACT celebrates more than a million views of a clip of David Seymour paying tribute to assassinated American activist Charlie Kirk.

The Labour Party almost exclusively makes a mockery of Christopher Luxon, while every few days the prime minister leans into a selfie camera to talk economic growth.

Social media has become ubiquitous in recent years, and with it politicians and party strategists are increasingly preoccupied with using it to reach voters directly.

But not all political parties compete on the same platforms. Some are finding success where others are not playing.

A survey of the success of political parties, their leaders, and their social media stars shows the Labour Party has a strong showing on Facebook, Te Pāti Māori is large on Instagram and TikTok, NZ First leader Peters is out-competing his coalition partners on X, and Luxon’s following is buoyed by being in the top job.

Party strategists across National, Labour, ACT and NZ First, speaking on the basis they would not be named, all talked of using social media to target voters in a way not possible through traditional media, reaching voters who might not consume political news elsewhere, and analysing the feedback to each post’s messaging.

But such access to the public is not without difficulty. Algorithms change without explanation, making some content sing and some sink without explanation. Social media users can actively mislead about a party’s policy, without recourse. Understanding how success on social media translates into on-the-ground support is mostly opaque.

A popular PM

The international stardom and resources of being prime minister have clearly benefited Luxon’s following online.

Luxon’s 159,000 Facebook follower count exceeds that of Peters at 135,000, Seymour at 101,000, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick at 89,000, and Labour leader Chris Hipkins at 67,000.

Similarly, he beats the competition on Instagram, with 235,000 followers.

He is followed by Swarbrick at 214,000 Instagram followers, Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi at 82,100 and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer at 39,200, Seymour at 38,300, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson at 32,400, Hipkins at 28,600, and Peters at 7455.

The strategy for Luxon’s social media has shifted in the 18 months since he entered Government.

Previously, “TikTok King” Luxon posted Gen-Z trend videos -- such as of his claimed morning skincare routine and a dance on the steps of Parliament to promote a tax relief policy. Some can still be found if you scroll far enough.

His videos are now more often selfie monologues from the Ninth Floor or the back of a Crown car, or splashy clips of his meeting world leaders, filmed by his ever-present senior digital adviser Jake O’Flaherty.

The shift from “catchy” videos to grab attention was described as more of a natural, than conscious, shift. Now in Government, there was a need to push policy messages.

The same messages were often repeated - as a short video of Luxon speaking might be the only three seconds of politics a social media user consumes in a week. Hence why Luxon continues to make videos about the Family Boost policy, from the 2024 Budget.

Facebook is also the platform on which political parties have their largest followings.

The Labour Party has the most followers, at 318,000, and the party has begun focusing on Facebook again as it has resumed promoting political content, after suppressing this for some time.

For reasons unknown, text-based posts are doing well, including “boomer tiles” – blank background images with a message in bold text, posted as an image.

Luxon ammo for Opposition

The primary focus of Labour’s strategy is to “tear down” the Government. Looking at the party’s 30 most recent Instagram posts, 23 of them attack Luxon or his Government. The rest are about Māori Language Week.

As the party releases policy in the coming weeks, this almost exclusive focus will change.

“Remixes” of National Party videos have done well for Labour.

A 2019 clip of Finance Minister Nicola Willis crashing an e-scooter has been re-purposed for claims to tell voters “everything is getting worse under Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis”.

Luxon videos are chopped to make him look goofy or worse. A video of him cutting pumpkins has been re-purposed for an attack line about him cutting sick leave, jobs and women’s pay.

Content cut from recordings of debates in the House was used because there was thought to be an appetite for seeing the Opposition prosecute issues.

Labour is aided on Instagram and TikTok by a group of anonymous accounts such as luxury_marmite_sandwich_ and its 12,000 followers, which exclusively make joke content attacking the Government.

Despite suspicions around parliament, the party says these accounts are not linked to Labour or its social media staff.

Where parties find their audience

Instagram is home turf for the political left, with Te Pāti Māori holding the largest following at 169,000 and the Greens close behind on 99,700.

The Green Party declined to speak for this story, but offered to produce a written statement, which was declined. Te Pāti Māori did not respond by deadline.

It is not Luxon who has the largest audience on Instagram, but Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, whose tearing up of a copy of the Treaty Principles Bill in the House late last year went viral globally. She has 252,000 followers on the platform, while Luxon sits at 235,000.

Following Luxon is Swarbrick on 214,000. Waititi has 82,100 followers. Another strong performer is Green MP Tamatha Paul, with 57,800 followers.

Paul likens posting on Instagram to video calling a friend.

Her videos are generally little more than talking into the phone camera, she said, as opposed to any sort of curated social media strategy.

“It's vibes, it's something that I don't need to think a lot about because I was raised in the generation with the Internet.”

Young people weren’t reading the news, she said, but they were tuning in to watch two-minute clips of her sharing her views, often with clips of news headlines pasted over top.

Paul said this meant she did not need to filter her messaging through her party or a journalist. She could talk with people responding to her videos through the comments or direct messages, and said she often received insider information as a result.

Right-leaning parties NZ First and ACT place less emphasis on Instagram. Seymour has 38,300 followers, and NZ First leader Peters has 7455.

Strategists for ACT say they consider Instagram to be a more left-leaning platform and not their target audience, with their posts more prone to “trolls”.

NZ First was previously an outlier in that the party lacked a TikTok account, but has recently joined because an imposter had been posting under NZ First branding.

ACT is unique among parties in spending considerably on Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram, to advertise to potential voters.

In the three months to September 20, ACT spent $45,500 on advertisements. The National Party spent $11,800, the Green Party $8,900, Te Pāti Māori $1900, Labour $68 and NZ First nil.

Because Meta adverts can be targeted to specific groups, ACT has been using the advertisements as a way to push their content in front of potential voters they consider likely supporters, that are not otherwise seeing their material -- and it has worked enough for them to spend this much.

Other strategists queried the usefulness of advertising spend, instead prizing organic engagement as it translated to greater reach.

ACT and NZ First are also placing greater stock in YouTube, with NZ First having the greatest following at 20,600 subscribers.

ACT has garnered particular attention for publishing full-length videos of Seymour in routine press scrums with the media, called “Seymour vs the media”. These videos were popular and suited Seymour’s strengths, presenting him for who he is.

Strategists say the platform is taking the role of traditional TV, data showed subscribers were watching to the end of the content, and the comments were more thoughtful which demonstrated engagement.

For NZ First, YouTube and long-form videos on Facebook suited Peters and deputy Shane Jones in a way that a video update from the back of a Crown limo did not.

NZ First has transformed and professionalised its social media strategy in recent years. It thought of platforms as akin to a public meeting, but one in which more people were willing to give their view, because it was online and not in-person.

The engagement and comments of each post were analysed for the public sentiment and feedback on both the message and policy idea.

ACT and NZ First also make more use of X, formerly Twitter, than parties on the political left, which, with the exception of the occasional posts from Chris Hipkins, have largely abandoned the Elon Musk-owned platform.

Seymour has 55,700 followers, and ACT itself has 24,100. Peters has 88,300 followers, and NZ First itself 10,100.

That both NZ First and ACT have recently converged on certain issues such as immigration policy, the Paris Accord, former Labour ministers not appearing at public Covid-19 inquiry hearings, and the death of Charlie Kirk, has been interpreted outside the two parties as a demonstration that both were competing for a small cohort of voters more likely found on X.

However, strategists at both parties instead viewed it as a natural convergence of interests.

Regardless of the platform, there is a fundamental tenet for social media strategy employed by all the parties: simple, tight messaging is critical.

Keeping MPs on message matters most -- particularly as an election nears.