Political campaigns are changing. Or they should be.
The influence of television commercials is dying. Yes, TV ads have historically been effective in shaping public opinion. But with the introduction of time-shifting technology (specifically DVR devices) and the increasing availability of TV shows on the Web, less and less people are actually watching TV ads.
As of March 2009, 30.6 percent of households have a DVR, according to Nielsen. This is compared to a mere 12.3 percent in January of 2007.
At the same time, broadband penetration is surging - the national average is 89%. Even people in rural areas are quickly adopting broadband technology - penetration rates in rural areas have been growing at a 16% rate over the past two years.
Of all Americans who are online, more than 80% are active in social media - either creating, participating in or reading some form of social content at least once a month.
Corporations have already begun to realize the increasing power of social media and the diminishing value of TV ads. For example, the Gap recently decided to dump its TV advertising campaign for Facebook marketing. Be sure to check out its awesome Facebook Fan page.
While TV ads still bring some value-added to political campaigns, a television advertising campaign cannot be the fulcrum of a long-term campaign strategy. They are most valuable when used in a media blitz during the last few months of a campaign. This is when passive voters begin to pay attention and decide who they will cast their vote for. The problem is that 8 weeks of TV in the fall do little to raise money and less to organize the activists and influencers who play an increasingly important role in our electoral process.
Social media, on the other hand, should be viewed in the same light as a field organization – it should be used heavily for the entire duration of the campaign. Social media strategy should be invested in sufficiently from the very beginning to identify and harvest solid grassroots supporters who will volunteer and spread the world about the candidate and the candidate’s message. These activists will not only spread information to their online networks, they will also use word-of-mouth techniques to encourage friends, parents, and grandparents who are not active online to support their candidate – much more effective than television advertising.
Of course, TV ads still have a place in the campaign. After defining your argument with polling, using social media to spread message and building solid grassroots support, then TV ads can be used in a media blitz in the last few months of a campaign. But letting the short term media budget cannibalize budgets and strip campaigns of much needed infrastructure around the worlds largest water cooler is myopic and bound for failure. A system to attract grassroots supporters through social media will be a more valuable aspect of victory or failure in the 2012 Presidential race than TV ads if for no other reason than the market is saturated with good Media vendors that, with some exceptions, churn out largely equivalent products; however, there are only a handful of firms that do solid work at building and mobilizing donors and activists online.
An obvious example of the power of social media in political campaigns is the success story of the Obama campaign, which relied on online social networks from the beginning to help them topple the Clinton machine:
[B]y bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain. –The New York Times
Investing in social media strategy is especially important for lesser-known candidates who have significantly less money in their campaign coffers than their competitors and need to introduce themselves to voters and get their message out.
Of course, having a strong, convincing message is the most important part of a political campaign. Without a message, there is no real campaign.
But the bottom line is that political campaigns are changing. The influence of TV ads is dying, and social media has proven itself to be a significant part of impressive and successful political and corporate campaigns.
