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| Source of Graph: OhMyGov! |
So apparently, in addition to all the wonderful things social media can do for us in terms of procrastination, business, keeping in touch, and just generally saving us from boredom, add a new one to the list. Political Polling. We all heard about how President Obama was the first Presidential candidate to use social media, which gave him an advantage in younger markets in terms of connections, but now apparently all candidates and politicians are onboard with social media. In fact, Republicans who tend to sckew slightly older, and who may not have used social media as much in the past, have apparently been gaining and then passing the popularity of democratic candidates on the social web this summer, as indicated by the article above. What might be interesting to see is how predictive Facebook activity levels are of actual voting behavior come November...All reports seem to indicate a pretty big shift in Congress, and potentially the Senate as well...so I wonder are political scientists now using Facebook data as much as marketers are using Facebook data?
I've been following Rand Paul on facebook and twitter for a while now. And I feel like he has a great social media strategy. He (or a P.R. firm) posts updates daily if not twice a day on his facebook page. I think this is a great way for him to react immediately to a new development in his campagin or in the world.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! I personally have not backed political candidates via FB, but after reading this I plan on looking up a few pages. I wonder in terms of marketing, how campaigns could use facebook to further their progress. It seems come election time, all efforts are spent on the campaign trail and through mudslinging commercials. Like you said, Obama used a social media campaign centered around "hope" and building relationships. I wonder if we will see this shift in all political campaigns?
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