Get invited more and increase your weighting

Ten days ago I reported here how in recent surveys the weighting given to Sun readers was almost double that attached to Guardian and Indy readers.

After doing that piece I decided to see if I could improve the chances of me being invited to take part in polls by changing the basic information that YG have stored on me and, presumably, is used to determine which of the 50,000+ members on their panel are invited for a particular survey.

The result has been astounding. In just nine days I have been asked to take part in three opinion polls

Site users who are on the YG panel will back me up when I say that to receive so many invitations in such a short period is extraordinary. So what can you do to increase your chances? This is what I did.

Say you voted Labour in 2001. YouGov operate on past vote recall weightings of C 28 Lab 56 LD 13.4 so Labour voters would seem to have a better chance. By contrast ICM’s weightings are C 30.1 LAB 46.5 LD 17.6

Say you read the Sun. In almost all of their surveys they do not reach their target for Sun or Star readers.

Deny that you ever watch Newsnight This question would appear to be there to identify those with a bigger than average interest in politics.

Down-play your personal economic position. This is what I did.

The amazing thing is that YG’s system allows you to go into your personal detail pages and change what you told them when you first registered.

Mike Smithson