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We spoke about @ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ElectionBot to Rebecca Gregory-Clarke, a Producer from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Connected Studio who has been working with ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ News on the project

What is it?

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ ElectionBot is an automated tweet service that sends the election results from your closet matching constituency straight to your Twitter feed. Just tweet it the first half of your postcode, and it’ll reply with voting results and a link for more info. Easy peasy.

Why did you make it?

We thought it would be nice if people could get election news in a way that suits them best. People are using Twitter more and more to find out about important events. ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ ElectionBot makes it really easy for them to find out the results in their local constituency.

We also wanted to build on the idea we had for the @ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½WeatherBot, which works in a similar way.

Why is it special?

Twitter is a popular platform that lots of people are already familiar with. Thanks to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ ElectionBot, social media-savvy citizens can now use it to ask for election information from the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. This makes it easier for people to get news about their constituency, even if they don’t know where to find it online. Users are also sent a link to a page with location-specific information, so they can find out more on the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ website.

Who is the audience?

The audience is likely to be people who are using Twitter already. They may already be merrily tweeting about the election, and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Electionbot will help them to find and share information.

However, some parts of the audience may not normally see Twitter as an obvious tool for getting ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ information. By introducing them to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ ElectionBot, we can show them that there are many ways to bring a bit of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ into their lives.

What do you hope to learn?

We’d like to find out if there is an appetite for this kind of tool amongst our audience. We’d also like to know if people would be interested in other ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Twitter bots that might work in a similar way.