The interactive team that spread candidate Obama’s campaign message through the funnel of social media was nicknamed the “Triple O Team.” Their strategy, in retrospect, was obvious to any social media maven, but for the vast majority of political operatives, consultants and campaign managers, it may as well have been voodoo dolls and smoke-and-mirrors. This team produced half a billion dollars in campaign donations nationwide, $10 at a time. They also gleaned truckloads of information about their donors. This was yet another example that no industry was safe from social media fever, and that certain industries, like the one of creating a leader, were inherently suited to social media marketing, its tools and its philosophies.
So if we learnt all this in 2008, why are some politicians letting know-how slip through their fingers?
Politics is a Social Sport
The Massachusetts Senate race is a textbook example of the triumph of these new tactics. Democrats had every advantage in this race, including data left over from Obama’s successful campaign in a state that he won by more than 20%. But Martha Coakley rejected social media in her approach. In fact she rejected almost any kind of marketing, until of course, it was too late.
Let’s consider for a second that 74% of all internet users look for political content online according to Pew Research Center Studies.
Martha Coakley and her staff decided to play by the old rules, relying on a static website, to list events on her calendar, They completely ignored the fact that she already had close to 14,000 followers on Facebook, miniscule when compared to Scott Brown’s 76,000 fans and his ferocious twittering throughout the campaign.
Coakley should have known better how to reach her audience. After all, it was the same audience that searched the web and shared content and information on live events during the race for the oval office in 2008.
Nevada is Next
The Nevada Senate race is heating up and we see 11 Republican candidates, including John Chachas, Sharrron Angle and Sue Lowden, running for Senator in a state where 44% voters are registered Democrats.
Knowing that most registered voters are in the Las Vegas and Reno areas I would love to see some of these campaigns stoke their internal creative fires. They could do this by doing what Coakley apparently could not, run a proper social media campaign that uses all the data that is available to them. The problem is these campaigns don’t even know how to do it.
Some campaign managers are starting including share buttons on their candidate’s pages while others are exploring the power of video with sites like YouTube. But there is a lot of ground to be covered, and the reality is that most Republicans and Democrats remain skeptical and threatened by social media. Instead, they should be viewing it as their most valuable resource, after campaign donations of course.
In addition I have yet too see a bilingual landing page for any of the candidates. In the case of Nevada, Hispanics make for 20% of the population and 12% are eligible to vote, this is higher than the 9% National average. Guess what? They too read political blogs: En Castellano!
Social Media, just as in politics, is a world where you almost always get one shot. Getting it right from the get go so that social media is embedded into the very DNA of a campaign is essential. The blueprint for online marketing as it applies to politics was well defined by the Obama campaign. If your heart is with any of these candidates I suggest you send your $10 dollars to the candidate and a copy of the New Rules of Marketing to the few campaign managers that apparently left their copies at home.
Image Source: David Paul Ohmer on Flickr
