This article was recently featured on Red Liberals, a blog effort focused on changing the landscape of Canadian politics.
Politics and social media have a lot more in common than just the Obama campaign. At the epicentre of both institutions rests one crucial similarity: connectedness. What a tangled web we weave… or so the old saying goes. But Canadian politics lack the layered finesse of their American counterparts.
Obama’s campaign points out what professional communicators have always known: targeting your audience appropriately is key!
Social media marketing is the practice of targeting your social media initiatives to sell a product, drive traffic to your website, boost awareness, etc. And it’s sort of like fishing.
Imagine you’re out on a lake populated with all types of fish. Your mission, though, is to catch a big, fat salmon for tonight’s dinner. If you want to catch a salmon, you do two things:
1. You use the appropriate lure (i.e. you don’t use a lure built to catch a bass)
2. It’s a big lake, but you know that salmon generally hang-out at moderate depths, so you fish where they hang-out (i.e. you don’t fish off the shores, where you expect to catch a bass)
In Obama’s case, his proverbial salmon were the American youth (18-34 year olds). And where do youth, now more than ever, spend a considerable amount of time? Online! Advertisers have known this for years– and the fact that Google’s #1 revenue stream comes from online advertising, of which they own nearly 3/4 of the market, is a testament to the internet’s influence.
Never has it been easier to find a group of like-minded people than with the advent of social media– there are blog communities for every topic from Star Trek fans to bacon recipe lovers. There are also other benefits to investing in social media marketing:
1. Canada’s population density is four times less than the United States. This means people are far more spread out and less connected. We know that social media communities typically reside more in metropolitan areas than in rural ones. This is largely due to word of mouth, the most powerful form of marketing. What this phenomenon has done is create hyper-groups — folks who have a similar interest in a very specificied topic. We also know, however, that an interest in social media often overpowers the specificied interest. The result: communities like Twitter, where micro-bloggers initially follow people of like-minded interests and then branch out to other contacts as they explore the contact base of their contacts. What we see here, then, is a pangea effect: islands of people drift inwards to form entire communities.
2. It’s cheap!
3. It’s the perfect two-way communication initiative. What we get with social media platforms like blogs or discussion forums is the opportunity to pull, rather than push, our information. People naturally respond more favourably to the former and maintain their connection longer. Two-way conversations promote collaboration, and this is an essential step towards building the loyalty needed — and lacking — in the Canadian political atmosphere.
4. It has the potential to go viral. As mentioned above, social media campaigns breed word-of-mouth, and more word-of-mouth means more brand awareness. In an election with one of the lowest voter turnouts ever, what could be more essential?
Consider this a call to the folks in parliament. Step down from your archaic model of promotion and get people talking– er, typing– in red and white!
