This article is from the January issue of Total Politics
Obama’s use of social media during the 2008 presidential campaign was nothing short of revolutionary. Back then, he built his own social networking platform (MyBarackObama), gathered millions of pieces of data about supporters and the target voters, and built an army of online activists that helped deliver his historic victory.
It did not take long before other campaigns were on to it, and by the 2010 midterm elections the Republicans had surpassed the Democrats in their sophistication of organisation and vote-grabbing online. But, even then, there was a twist. Though Republicans managed to achieve the biggest power shift in more than 60 years, many of the candidates who won were not backed by the party establishment.
The infamous Tea Party activists stirred up dozens of grassroots movements, bubbling up from economic pessimism and a general disillusionment about politics, and delivered numerous high-profile wins. Their successes were only made possible by social networking outlets that enabled them to publicise their activities to millions of voters.
This year will see the first presidential campaign where candidates from the top to the bottom of a ticket will have these tools at their disposal. The question is, how will they use them? Campaigners will be more savvy about how to use data on supporters and voters for voter contact, and there are a number of new tools that enable campaigns to match voters’ data with the personal information supporters have about their contacts through social networking sites. By combining the information, a campaign can then ask its supporters to make direct contact with friends and family to promote the campaign’s messages and ask for support.
A few thousand active supporters could have an exponential impact on increasing a campaign’s reach. And messages from those we know are more powerful than communications from a seemingly anonymous campaign organisation.
Obama’s 2008 campaign piloted the friend-to-friend approach, but this cycle’s outreach will be dramatically more precise, allowing campaigns to send individual, targeted messages through social channels. Previously, social media platforms were merely an adjunct; now they are the main form of interaction during a campaign.
Republican candidates have already participated in a live debate that enabled YouTube users to submit and vote on the questions put forward. Many candidates are also using their Twitter accounts to speak directly to voters, instead of just pushing out mini-campaign updates.
But perhaps a bigger question will be whether or not it will be campaigns themselves that are the most influential users of social networking during the election.
Putting aside American political campaigns, web 2.0 has unleashed a new force for democratic activism across the world. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, the street demonstrations in Israel, and the rioting in the UK, are just a few examples of movements that were made possible by a critical mass of like-minded people using social networking tools.
Campaigns will need to contend with the possibility that small groups of opponents or disillusioned activists can use cyber-platforms to influence a candidate’s image, or even the entire course of a race. A quick Google search for the 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum offers a perfect example of how one person, who has an issue with a candidate, can make a definitive impact on his presidential fortunes using the internet.
For the political world, social networking has arrived, and the best candidates will devote significant resources to making sure they reach as many people as possible this way. But perhaps the bigger victory in 2012 will be for the active citizens who want to be heard: the internet has become their megaphone and candidates will have to listen.
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