Who thinks advertising on Facebook is only useful for firms has it wrong: nowadays politicians are exploring the benefits of social media-advertising more and more. Though 2017 will be the year of Dutch elections, now it is already clear that the use of social media will become extremely important. This blog will give you a few examples of how Dutch politicians are using Facebook to connect effectively with their target groups.
If you didn’t know it yet: Facebook knows quite some things about you ;). This information can be used to adjust a message for its target group. GroenLinks (Dutch political party ed.), for instance, is using a different starting point of their video, depending on the gender of the person that views it. This is because research has shown that women tend to watch the video more frequently if the party leader of GroenLinks, Jesse Klaver, is in the center of the first shot. Men, on the other hand, like it more when they see Klaver into discussion with another politician. Hence, the starting point of the video has been adjusted to the gender of the viewer.
But political parties use Facebook for more than only advertising. When Diederik Samson (current party leader of PVDA ed.) announced his candidacy for the party leadership position, he did this via Facebook only. The traditional media followed a day later. In this way, politicians can completely determine the image they want to transmit: no difficult questions about other topics or the risk that you get wrongly cited. This will be the new norm for political parties during coming elections: decide yourself what message you would like to convey, to which group and via which medium. After the most recent political debate, this resulted in many campaign teams uploading asap parts of the debate, all in which their own political leader was the star of the shot, of course.
Another trend in politics regarding social media is the use of micro-campaigns: a small campaign, aimed very specially on niches of voters. Your neighbor will probably see a completely different video (of the same political party) than you do, all based on preferences Facebook ‘knows’ about you. Though this is still a relatively new concept in Dutch politics, its already quite normal in the US, as the New York Times is asking US voters to share the advertisements they see on their newsfeed. They do this to somewhat get an overview of the different campaigns, which otherwise would remain underneath the radar.
I’m very curious what I will get to see on my own newsfeed the coming months! Are you?
Source:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/op-facebook-is-de-verkiezingsstrijd-al-ontbrand~a4387173/
Hey Machiel,
Although I am not suprised that politicians started using social media in this way now, I am curious in how this whill change the next elections. As social media can be a great advantage for politicians, if it is used in a wrong way it can also become a disadvantage (like Weiner in America: http://blogs.uoregon.edu/carlosdanger/social-medias-influence/).
I can agree with you to say that I am also very curious in what we will see on social media about the upcoming elections, and actually also about mistakes which will certainly be made!
Dear Machiel,
Thank you for your interesting post on the use of facebook on elections.
Especially your last paragraph sparked my interest, seems like a very solid way to target specific user groups. Do you happen to have the link to the article of the New York Times describing this?
Thanks in advance,
Luca
Interesting trend you are writing about! It is likely indeed that the use of social media campaigns for political purposes will increase. In my opinion certain advertisements could definitely work since parties can use the fact that people are sensitive to a personal approach.
Are you solely talking about sponsored advertisements on your personal newsfeed or especially about videos on a social media page of a political party? I can imagine different videos based on personal characteristics but I do not see how Facebook can determine one’s political preference and, therefore, knows which party to show.
Do you think political parties will use social media during presidential debates as well? For example, by using a fact checker as they do in the U.S.?
Dear Machiel, I think I am already getting this! Not on Facebook, but on Instagram. After Brexit, I got Instagram sponsors feed for Dutch parties that were pro-Europe. Very interesting! I am certain that when the elections come, we will be targeted on Facebook as well. I think this will help a lot of people in choosing who they want to vote for, but it might also make them a bit narrow minded, since they might not look at other parties anymore. It will be very interesting to see how each party uses social media.
Hi Machiel,
Thanks for your post! I’m not only curious of the dutch situation, but also on the US situation at this moment. If you see how much the US politicans, Trump and Clinton, spend on marketing and combine it with the extensive use of social media within the US. I would expect a big part of the expenditures of the politicans would go to the online marketing of their plans and Facebook would be a very effective way for this. Especially when I now know that it is possible to aim your different marketing campaigns on the best target group. How would Trump and Clinton make use of these features? How much can you do when you have a way bigger marketing budget then all Dutch politican parties combined? Interesting article!
Hi Machiel,
Thank you for your post, it was very interesting to read about the way political parties make use of social media and especially Facebook. I never realized how big the influence of this channel was on the votes and that it is the most important social environment for politicians.
Your blog raised a new question to me; in what way could politicians reach their audience best? By making use of different approaches for different target groups with the help of a big publicity agency, as you mentioned, or by being completely transparent and posting very personal, real and authentic messages?
As you stated, the use of small campaigns to a niche of voters has proven itself already in the US, but this costs lots of money. Wouldn’t it be better if this money is used for other (political) purposes of parties and make the investments in social media presence close to zero? Everyone knows how to use Facebook and if political parties present themselves in the same way individuals do; it seems to me that they wouldn’t have to put a lot of money in it.
Let’s take a look at for example the Dutch political party DENK. This party only possesses two chairs in the ‘Tweede Kamer’, but they are the second largest political party on Facebook when it comes to the number of followers. They achieve this by making videos with a mobile phone, which makes the message really personal and comparable with messages from friends and family. Besides that, smaller parties are easier to approach and it is possible for individuals to engage in an online conversation with them, because this page is not just an online advertising brochure.
That’s why I would say that I totally agree with you that social media is extremely useful and important for politicians, but that the bigger political parties could learn from the approach of the smaller ones. It would be better for them to focus not only on personalized, but also on personal messages in the online environment!
Additional resource: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nederland/politiek/politici-jagen-op-jouw-facebook-like-en-het-wordt-alleen-maar-erger
Thanks for your interesting article! I think that social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube allow politicians to speak directly to voters because not all social media have the same value, for example Twitter and Facebook are the best one to use and have become instrumental in organizing campaigns because of their capacity to spread content virally. They allow voters to easily share news and information such as campaign events etc… using the “share” function on Facebook and the “retweet” feature of Twitter, this way candidates can reach more people. Thinking about it, right now social media are doing some parts of the work for the candidates.