Presidents used to shake hands, kiss babies and have lunch at small restaurants to win the hearts of voters. This no longer makes the cut. With the new generation hooked to their devices (mobile phones, tablets, computers, etc.) they need to change their campaign strategies and go online. Never has the battle been fiercer to win over voters via online campaigning than now during the US presidential election 2012!
Here is a quick overview of the social media campaign battle between Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney on the many different social media platforms:
(all images retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/08/technology/campaign-social-media.html)
“The more people you talk to, the more likely you are to win” is whats edging on the online campaign. Their goal is to reach as many people as possible and hope that it will increase their amount of votes. Both camps have large internet-adept teams that are specialized on social media platforms trying to coordinate their strategy and message across the net.
Both Obama and Romney rely heavily on Facebook and Twitter to solicit donations, put up reminders of events and share articles and other news items that support their ideals. Flickr and Instagram are used as a scrapbook of the campaign tour and all the dinners and lunches at the small town diners. Tumblr and Pinterest are used to highlight photos and share the material of their supporters. Although Obama and Romney don’t actually have a Pinterest account themselves their wives do, sharing their favorite hobbies and recipes.
Reasons why both Obama and Romney use the social media platforms above can mostly be seen as self-explanatory but why would they both share their Spotify playlists with the public? It doesn’t really have anything to do with the election and it does not really seem like taste in music should encourage a person to vote for Obama instead of Romney or the other way around. The truth is they don’t really know what the effects are of sharing Spotify playlists but they don’t want to miss out on anything. So basically if it’s not hurting the campaign they may as well try it!
“What’s the return on putting your pants on in the morning? We don’t know,” said Jan Rezab, the chief executive of Socialbakers, a social media analytics firm. “But we just know it’s bad if you don’t do it.” (Wortham, J. 2012).
Sophie de Jong 341927
References:
Wortham, J. (2012) Campaigns use social media to lure younger voters. Published: October 7, 2012.
