4 Ways Social Media Impacted The 2012 Election

Posted on by

As more and more voters turn to the Internet to find information on campaigns and issues, more and more of our politicians have followed suit.

Did you know that both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have at least nine official resources online, not including their mobile apps? The New York Times recently took a comparative look at our 2012 presidential candidates’ social media presences and found each candidate has the following resources:

That’s a lot of ways for Americans to connect with the candidates during the campaign season! It was said in 2008 that Barack Obama’s campaign changed the way the Internet and social media were used for campaigning. It’s clear think that precedent has continued on the 2012 campaign trail.

So how exactly did social media impact the 2012 election?

1. Our involvement with social media influenced our candidates’ campaigns.

Because each candidate had a team dedicated to their Web and social media presence, tracking user sentiment, opinion, and spikes in followers, likes, or friends was very important.

Romney’s social media campaigning garnered around 6 million followers who connected to his campaign, according to Mashable. Obama’s social media campaigning leveraged a whopping 29 million followers through Twitter and Facebook.

If we follow these numbers, this suggests approximately 35 million people engaged with a presidential candidate online during the election. That’s 35 million people that Obama and Romney were able to analyze, follow, and make an impression on during their campaign using analytics, user sentiment, and measurement.

2. Social media allowed users to engage and discuss issues with our candidates in new ways.

It seemed that, during the 2012 campaign, Obama kept up with his 2008 reputation by including new social media platforms for users to engage with. Obama participated in an “Ask Me Anything” Q&A session on Reddit, which garnered more than 200,000 users viewing the session at one time.

Candidates also sent out registration information, statements about viewpoints, articles, and facts for users to consume and consider. This had the opportunity to impact independent voters, voters on the fence, and swing states.

3. The impact of mobile campaigning has yet to be seen — but certainly impacted volunteers and donors on the go.

Mobile campaigning is relatively new, but it’s a notable part of the 2012 campaign trail. Both Obama and Romney developed their own mobile app for iPhone and Android platforms. The apps targeted audiences in very different ways.

Obama’s mobile app targeted campaign supporters, allowing each candidate to harness their current supporters in a new way. It made facts, neighborhood lists, events, and polling information available instantly. Romney’s mobile app used the concept of novelty by giving users who downloaded the app VIP access to who he picked as his vice presidential candidate.

Either way, think of the information that each app collected from its users. Mashable reported that a user’s location was collected and used for campaigning and targeted messaging.

Photos also went mobile during the 2012 election with the use of Instagram. Over 100 million people use Instagram and now they can even follow the snapshots of their presidential candidates. This took the family photo and kissing baby shot to a new level.

4. Politicians connected with voters in more unique ways.

Our presidential candidates also took to newer social media venues such as Pinterest and Spotify to reach targeted users. With Pinterest, the first ladies of the campaign were able to share recipes, do-it-yourself projects, and book recommendations with the women of Pinterest. Very smart and very new.

Spotify was also used in a new way by sharing playlists from our candidates. Traditionally, politicians related to voters on a personal level, face-to-face. But now we can stream their favorite tunes directly from Spotify.

Only time will tell the true metrics and numbers surrounding social media and the 2012 presidential campaign. But innovation and connectivity continued to ring true during this election. Social media will likely continue to provide partisan and nonpartisan ways for us to discuss, view, and integrate politics into our lives.

How did you connect with the 2012 presidential candidates online? Was there anything missing in either candidates’ social media campaign?  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *