I”™m getting tired of receiving phone calls during the day and night for polls, candidates and to make sure that I remember to vote. It used to be bad enough that people knew which party my wife and I are registered to. But today, it seems more than that. The polling questions are often too intrusive and at times I wonder if the point of many of them is to produce segmentation variables that candidates will be able to use for future, not current, elections.
In 2012, the Obama campaign employed a new level of social media usage and segmentation analysis in its successful political campaign ”“ and every politician took notice. Now, even for local elections, campaigns are employing social media consultants to reach potential voters, fire up supporters and provide an emergency response should their candidate do or say something potentially disastrous. The news cycle is truly 24/7, with no timeouts and limited do-overs. If a politician makes a misstatement, it can instantly appear on some social platform and almost immediately evoke comments from a large and outspoken audience.
Primarily relying on ”“ but not restricted to ”“ Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, politicians are increasingly using social platforms to employ many of the social marketing strategies that are commonly used for business: namely, the providing of content to like-minded individuals and encouraging them to share it with friends, subscribers and followers. They can also receive feedback from supporters and detractors and respond accordingly.
Most importantly, politicians can take advantage of social media”™s immediacy to quickly determine reactions to existing, new and touch-point issues. They now employ consultants who monitor every post by and about their candidate along with their opponent. The use of hashtags, in particular, is very useful ”“ and potentially dangerous, since it provides a major focal point for negative instances, as well.
The power of Twitter and Facebook
Social media is a rapidly evolving worldwide presence. Twitter and Facebook were extensively utilized in recent elections in Afghanistan and India to influence opinion, create dialogues, foster relationships and break news. The hashtag #TwitterElection (India) produced more than 56 million election-related tweets. Its widespread use required that every serious politician have a presence on Twitter.
Can Twitter and Facebook predict elections? Several 2012 studies concluded they provide a good indication of how people will vote. According to a study by Fabio Rojas at Indiana University, “We believe that Twitter and other social media reflect the underlying trend in a political race that goes beyond a district”™s fundamental geographic and demographic composition. If people must talk about you, even in negative ways, it is a signal that a candidate is on the verge of victory. The attention given to winners creates a situation in which all publicity is good publicity.” (I am a little skeptical about this statement since it was applied to a study group in which there is limited turnover ”“ members of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, it is indicative of the rapidly growing influence of social media and the importance of analytics.) As analytics and methods of obtaining data continue to improve, the determination of key predictive indicators will likely also improve ”“ along with Internet-based pundits.
Future avenues for political social media
By its very nature, the need for great content will continue to grow. Regardless of its business goal, every successful marketing campaign will still require word-of-mouth marketing, quality and consistent content and the tracking of analytics. Political social media will better utilize the segmentation data while significantly increasing its presence on mobile.
On a cautionary note, negative advertisements ”“ when done properly ”“ can be very effective. The availability of a social platform devoid of content verification will allow political campaigns and political action committees to wage inexpensive and often anonymous negative campaigns that can generate much buzz ”“ along with a response from traditional media if some threshold is reached. It may also influence an election result, particularly if it is close.
So, instead of those annoying phone calls at night, in the future you can expect an increasing number of targeted communications on a variety of media. The intrusions will only get worse.
Bruce Newman is vice president at The Productivity Institute LLC and a regular contributor to the Business Journal. He specializes in content creation and digital marketing. He can be reached at bnewman@prodinst.com.
