By Pierre-Loic Assayag and Laurent Liscia (Traackr.com)

Summary

The concept of electronic town hall has been kicking around since Ross Perot coined the term. The data we’ve been collecting on Traackr (a social media campaign tracking site) suggests that social media such as YouTube and MySpace are turning it into a reality. While successful campaigns online, like their “real-world” counterparts, still hinge on crafting the right message, they also require that the candidate address the audience without artifice: in the current primaries, for instance, citizens online have a preference for grassroots campaigns that convey authenticity and a theme of change.

1. Not all campaigns know how to use social media

One of the key measure of influence in Traackr is “buzz”, defined as the ability to initiate a topic and make others discuss it. Obama and Ron Paul both show a much higher buzz score than their opponents. How do they do that?

Most candidates operate on a fundamental misconception of participatory media: they think of them as an extension of their TV ads – only free. Not so. Users on YouTube, for instance, tend to perceive a candidate’s views through the lens of other YouTube users’ comments. They rely on the community to qualify the candidate’s statements, and form their own opinion only after they’ve read several comments. (To our knowledge, there is no reliable study at this point of how users read the comments page).

In that sense, using YouTube as a broadcasting platform prompts viewers to ignore you at best and despise you more often than not. Instead, encouraging viewers to relay your message by making it their own generates tremendous buzz: this is where Barack Obama and Ron Paul have done so well and where others have failed to date.

2. Social media can stimulate new voter participation

The unexpected good results for Barack Obama and Ron Paul in Iowa and NH can largely be chalked up to their success in bringing new voters to the ballot.

We would argue that participatory media have played a pivotal role in this process. They have given a voice to many citizens who have traditionally felt isolated, powerless or disenfranchised. There are two immediate consequences to this: first, it should come as no surprise that this audience is particularly sensitive to the theme of change, since their “political apathy” stems from their feeling that they have no power to change the way things work; second, this audience expects authenticity openness, and availability from their candidates.

If you can’t deliver – stay out! That said, with new media increasingly focusing on the campaign process, presidential hopefuls have no choice anyway.

3. Social media add speed and authenticity to the marketing mix

Why is it so hard for candidates to engage voters on new social media? For the same reason that metrics tools like Traackr have emerged: traditional “one to many” marketing, which made the fortune of the likes of Karl Rove, is on its way out.

In case you’re skeptical, think about the rate of change on the Internet: the last presidential election was in 2004. In four years, E-commerce has become a significant chunk of the economy, and Google has risen to prominence as the engine of E-commerce. Now, buyers seek out products – they don’t wait for fliers and catalogs to come into their physical mailbox.

No need for a crystal ball to predict that this trend will continue. Let’s apply this knowledge to the primaries: most campaign managers work hard to create a candidate’s image based on a consistent set of values and corresponding sound bites that can be repeated at every opportunity.

On social media the traditional rules of marketing are modified – while image still matters, speed of communication matters even more, as well as a willingness to engage users in debate, even if they disagree with a candidate’s ideas. That’s the “town hall” piece in “electronic town hall”. As uncomfortable as virtual debates might be, candidates should jump on this opportunity and strengthen the perception of their character; or better yet, strengthen their actual combativeness.

4. Success in social media may predict overall success

While there is still no front runner among the Republicans, Barack Obama is clearly erasing Hillary Clinton’s lead. We would posit that Obama’s online buzz, as measured by Traackr, might serve as a good predictor of future progress throughout the campaign.
To learn more about what Traackr can do for you and your campaigns, visit us at www.traackr.com

[digg-reddit-me]

Tags: campaign, election, marketing buzz, social media, viral marketing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Influence in Politics, MarCom 2.0, We Search, We Score, We Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.