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The full effect that online social networks and "web 2.0" will have on the 2008 election may never be known entirely. It will be difficult to quantify, to say the least. The effects have proven substantial enough to confidently state that not a single candidate in the next election will be without a social networking advisor / blogger on the campaign staff.

As with all online marketing campaigns, political campaigns which emphasize social networking and web 2.0 can be broken into two major parts:

1. Article writing, blogging, monitoring and responding to positive and negative blogs, articles and comments about the candidate.


2. Developing circles of influence in popular networking websites like Facebook.com and LinkedIn, as well as Twitter and others.

The benefit of article writing, blogging and monitoring the "blogosphere" can be described to a lay person in this manner:

• A blog or article is written about Joe Candidate. His staff immediately receives notification and takes action. The action might be a comment outlining that the post is inaccurate, it might be a comment response that substantiates the information or it might even be "just a link" from another site to the post because it was well written and was favorable to the candidate. (Increasing the link popularity of information that is favorable so that it recieves higher ranking on search engines)


• Staff members write blogs and articles, videos and images that are favorable to the candidate and submit these at websites like DIGG or Zimbio, YouTube or eZineArticles. This increases the odds that favorable information is displayed on search engines when someone searches for information relating to the candidate. These networks also reach millions of people everyday.
  
• Staff members maintain Wiki information that is accurate and fight inaccurate information or opinions that may have a negative impact on the candidate's campaign.

We did preliminary research on the number of Michigan political candidates that have Facebook accounts and the number of "friends" that each of these candidates currently have (research done a few days before the election).

Approx. 65% of all candidates have a facebook account and approx. 1/2 of those with an account are actively using those accounts to self-promote. The number of "friends" that a candidate has ranges from 40 to 50,000. It was slightly more likely for a Democratic candidate to have an active account compared to a Republican candidate.

Fully two-thirds of Americans age 18-29 say they use social networking sites like Facebook, and more than a quarter in this age group (27%) say that they have gotten information about candidates and the campaign from them – including 37% among those ages 18-24.

Nearly one-in-ten of people under age 30 (8%) say that they have signed up as a "friend" of one of the candidates on a site. And the numbers are even higher for each of these activities among young registered voters.

...and this is just the tip of the iceberg .. there are PPC campaigns and RSS feeds and Press websites .. more to come!

Labels: Blogging, Politics, Web 2.0

posted by The MBD  # 1:10 PM