A quick look through the main digital channels used by the Liberal Democrats. There are probably more—these are the ones that were easily found. Other posts looked at The Green Party, the party HTML newsletters, the Conservatives and Labour.

Website

I'd say this was a pretty good first page for a political party website. Decent, consistent colour scheme that's used throughout. Nice rolling images showing Nick Clegg out and about, with overlaid links that lead you through to further information (not Flash, phew). There are good call to actions and attention drawn to the manifesto, keeping up to date with party information (e.g. their newsletter), and the different policy sections down the left hand side. With so much information it does take a second or two to take it all in and decide where you want to go, but you can figure it all out soon enough. They clearly like the word 'Fair'.

After clicking through to see more information on their manifesto they have a really nice video. Before it plays you've to pick the three topics you'd like to hear about, then you're old mate Nick explains his thoughts on each of the selections. No fireside or pipe here, but it does get your attention. This page (and others) also show nice clear links/icons for downloading iPhone and Blackberry apps. They have links to audio versions of the manifesto, easy-to-read versions and you can even request a paper copy.

The manifesto can obviously be read online too. The options are a downloadable PDF (that is sooooo 2009) or you can read the fancier version in issuu.com. I don't think many of Joe Public have used that, so that's probably quite a nice surprise for them.

Their website is big, multi layered, easy to navigate, with links out to their Facebook page, twitter account and YouTube channel. No major complaints so far, though I did get a bit overloaded by head & shoulder shots of Nick. "Serious Nick". "Talking to the people Nick". "Man about town Nick". "Likes a joke Nick".

Oh, one last note on their website: .aspx extensions on the pages. Go Microsoft!

Facebook

The first thing that greets you on their Facebook page is a form to sign up for newsletters. Not that annoying really, and probably gets a few more signed up than otherwise might have.

29,000 fans on Facebook, and I think they're the first party to actual use the 'Favorite Pages' functionality giving you links to all the local Lib Dem groups.

Facebook tabs include the Facebook Wall, a mini-manifesto, a sign up form, PDF version of their manifesto, latest Twitter tweets and one with the rest: Flickr, posted articles and a discussion board.

Twitter

Their Twitter account has 14,000 followers and follows pretty much the same number. They're listed by 900 people. Their messages are pretty bog-standard. Few retweets and lots of messages such as "We need to be clear, open & straight with you on public finances -> Link." ... Lots of links to articles and there's the odd twitpic in there. I guess it's all pretty good stuff for a party account. People that are interested might retweet this stuff so that ticks that box. Big Nick has an account too, which also explicity says who is actually managing it. That's probably not necessary as there are 3.2 million people that actually think Barack Obama tweets. "OMG the North Koreans are really starting to annoy me. USA FTW!". Nick C's account has 17,000 followers, 25% more than the Party one does. Read into that what you will.

YouTube

No shortage of videos of guys in suits here. 2000 subscribers, 400 comments on the main page, and 100,000 channel views.

Community Site

Their community site is pretty good. Conversations, how you can help, how you can give them $$$, upcoming events, groups, videos and even banners/ads you can download for your site. I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find an 'I AGREE WITH NICK' poster. If this were America there would probably be bumper stickers there too. Buried in here there were also suggestions from party enthusiasts. Favourite was a suggestion for everyone to tweet 'LIB DEM FTW!'.

Flickr

If you haven't already seen enough photos of Nick Clegg, there are plenty more on their Flickr account. Great.

The Rest

That seems to be the main online outlets they've chosen - there were others I found by digging a bit, a Picasa page, a 12seconds.tv page... Was all pretty clear to me, pretty easy to find and if you're into this stuff, seemed decent enough to follow.