Our digital dashboard team looks at how the main parties tout their policies online

We are now more than halfway through the election campaign and finally we know what most of the parties are promising in their manifestos.

Many people will not read the proposals in full and given that many get their news exclusively through social media platforms, what the parties are saying online about their policies (and what they aren’t) matters.

Today we are looking at how the parties are condensing their manifestos for Facebook and Twitter and badmouthing their rivals’ policies through Google search ads.

Facebook: Labour spent time and money promoting its manifesto

Labour has put several thousand pounds behind promoting its manifesto on Facebook, spending at least £18,000 on three adverts within the past week that have collectively generated more than 1.3m impressions.

The tone is chirpy: upbeat music plays beneath a one-minute video advertising Labour’s ambitions. The language is equally bright with references to a “hopeful” prospectus that will “transform” the country and “leave no one behind”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Facebook election adverts Composite: Guardian Design / Facebook

Facebook: Conservatives and Liberal Democrats barely mention “manifesto”

On Sunday, a Conservative cabinet minister explained the party’s risk-averse 2019 manifesto to the Times as follows: “If it’s not being talked about by tomorrow evening, that’s a good thing.”

If you were assessing this election exclusively through the prism of Tory Facebook ads, you might not realise they’d published a manifesto at all. Two adverts, each with less than £100 behind them, have reached just 3,000 to 4,000 people.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Facebook election adverts Composite: Guardian Design / Facebook

The Liberal Democrats have avoided the word manifesto entirely in their ads, instead opting to talk about “our plan” and linking back to the party website. However, the party has dramatically increased its spend on the same style of “Stop Brexit” Facebook and Instagram ads, propelling them well past the Conservatives and Labour in terms of spend.

Google ads: The Brexit Party, Tories and Labour go on the offensive

As the parties launched their manifestos, they took out Google search ads promoting select policies and criticising their opponents.

Last week, the Conservatives went on the offensive with an ad promoting a site which appeared to showcase the Labour manifesto. It was in fact a Conservative attack site. After their own manifesto launched on Sunday the party also took out ads on keywords such as “Conservatives schools” to promote their policy offers.

A number of Tory Google ads contain misleading information. Last week, the Guardian found ads claiming that each taxpayer would have to pay “£2,400 more tax every year” under Labour, which has been debunked by our Factcheck team.

The Conservatives also placed an ad claiming Labour would spend £1.2tn on the back of its manifesto, a figure based on the same faulty calculation. (Google has said it would bring in tighter regulation of “demonstrably false claims” in political ads, but it is unclear how these rules will apply in practice.)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google screenshot Composite: Google

Labour has also been on the attack, taking out a number of ads around the Tories’ record on the NHS, while the Conservatives have run their own ads countering the claims.

A search for “Conservatives NHS” returned a Tory ad promising to “invest in our NHS” alongside a Labour ad saying: “The Tories are failing the NHS.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google ads on the NHS election 2019 Composite: Google

The Brexit party is the biggest spender, taking out more than £90,000 worth of ads since the election was called. According to the latest Google figures,the party spent the bulk of its money on two ads seen on Labour-related search terms.

Labour spent £64,000 while the Conservatives spent £44,000. The Lib Dems spent no money at all during the period covered by the analysis.

Twitter: Labour and the Tories rely on their leaders to carry their manifesto message

Social media has fried our attention spans and we’re never going to get through 100-page pdfs. So on Twitter party leaders have tried to condense their manifestos into less than a minute of #content.

Corbyn put out a “60-second challenge” video running through as many of the party’s policies as he could, covering free education, a second referendum on Brexit, and a pledge to build a million new homes. It became one of the most successful Twitter videos published in the campaign to date, with 2.7 million views.

Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) How did I do?#RealChange #LabourManifesto pic.twitter.com/a1ryOvHvx4

Three days later, Johnson published a similar piece to camera with seven key pledges from the Tory manifesto delivered in just 50 seconds. The video naturally foregrounded Brexit but also flagged pledges on increased police numbers and immigration controls. It received just 170,000 views.

Google spending data covers the period 27 October to 17 November. Ads were discovered through keyword searches and were placed between 27 October and 25 November. Facebook viewcounts were correct as of approximately 1pm on 25 November. Twitter viewcounts were correct as of approximately 5pm on 25 November.

Digital dashboard team: Michael Barton, Pamela Duncan, Niamh McIntyre, David Pegg and Joseph Smith