The power of social networking plays a pivotal role in who will win future elections, both in the United States and around the world. Today, the Internet has become as critical a medium as TV and newspapers have been in the past in reaching out to voters and forming public opinion. Welcome to Politics 2.0, a world where social networking, blogging, podcasting, text messaging, grassroots email campaigns, video-sharing, and a persuasive web presence are must-haves for any serious political candidate.
Netroots campaigns, grassroots political campaigns that take place on the Internet, aren’t really new to this election. From their inception, savvy political activists have utilized social networking sites, blogs, and more as a way to spread the word. But now it’s reached the mainstream. All demographic groups—young and old, liberal and conservative, urban and rural—use the web as a means of information and communication. Netroots campaigns reach beyond the United States as well. The web played a strong role in influencing recent elections in Australia, France, and other countries.
A 2006 study conducted by the E-Voter Institute revealed the significance of the web on political communication and campaigning. More than 70 percent of political consultants feel that the Internet is effective in getting supporter email addresses, taking surveys, motivating supporters, and raising funds. In addition, the percentage of consultants spending more than 20 percent of their campaign budget on the Internet will more than double between 2006 and 2008.
Social networking sites are becoming active in the political process as well, knowing that political content will continue to drive traffic—and profits. YouTube, for example, launched the YouTube You Choose ’08 channel (www.youtube.com/youchoose), providing nonpartisan video content about the candidates and relevant issues, as well as the opportunity for site visitors to comment and submit their own videos.
ABC is providing the Facebook audience with election news, blog content, and photos, while allowing Facebook users to influence its election news coverage.
MTV and MySpace partnered to present presidential debates featuring real-time interaction between the candidates and the public, who can submit questions via MySpaceIM, mobile devices, and email.
It’s clear that, to get elected, a candidate needs a strong web presence. Savvy politicians know this and are developing web-based campaigns to reach out to this vast pool of potential supporters.
Barack Obama, for example, earned nonpartisan praise for his campaign’s savvy use of social networking as a means to engage voters. In February 2007, he launched his own social network (http://my.barackobama.com/). The site received positive comments from the social networking community for its design and stability and quickly became popular with voters, too.
The Obama team members weren’t content with just having their own network, though. They also created a compelling presence on almost all the other prominent social networking sites, including MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, PartyBuilder, Gather, MyGrito, Twitter, and iTunes. Each presence is targeted to the demographics of the site’s particular audience, which helps potential voters connect with him as a candidate. For example, Obama held a question and answer series on LinkedIn that focused on start-ups and small business, key issues to this site’s audience.
Although mock elections and the number of social networking contacts that a candidate has may not be the final deciding factor in who wins an election, it’s impossible to ignore the widespread impact of this new means of connecting with voters. The benefits to candidates are many. Social networking campaigns are relatively inexpensive, reach millions of people, and provide a more personal view of the candidates, their platform, and their personality. This impact is so great that a number of websites are now exclusively dedicated to tracking the influence of social media on the election, such as techPresident (techpresident.com).
Social networking fame isn’t always good, however. Although Hillary Clinton’s official Facebook profile had more than 118,000 supporters as of February 2008, the Facebook group Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary) had more than 850,000 members. In addition, the media immediately brought it to the public’s attention that Rudy Giuliani’s teenage daughter indicated that she supported Barack Obama on her Facebook profile. After the uproar, the younger Giuliani withdrew from the Facebook Obama group.
It’s clear that the power of the web can influence the outcome of an election. But to do so, candidates need more than a static website. They need to engage with the public on a personal level. Only by truly connecting with potential voters can candidates reach the full potential of the Internet and social networking.