Social Media, Politics and Me

Somedays, it feels like social media has been around forever, and I have to remind myself that I have only been using it since 2005. (My first platform was Facebook—I had to wait until I received my troy.edu email address because at that time it was available only to college students.)  But then I do some math—it HAS been around for a while. That’s seventeen years of liking, poking, Myspacing, tweeting, DM’ing, scrolling, swiping...  

When I read the ThoughtCo article from this week’s readings, "How Social Media Has Changed Politics,” I had the same feeling of altered time. Social media has been around forever, so why focus now on how it has changed politics? More math—I realized that especially specific to presidential elections, social media IS relatively new, considering that we only hold elections every four years. When Barak Obama first won in 2008, Facebook had only been open to everyone (of age) for two years (Abram, 2006). Twitter was just taking off (Levy, ). So social media has really only had the chance to influence FOUR presidential elections.  

Honestly, I think when you put politics and social media together, the two can age you so quickly it feels like we have been arguing online with each other for a hundred years. Especially when I compare that to how I have used social media from day one in my post-college, professional career.  

The ThoughtCo article listed ten ways that social media has changed politics, but they were all very similar to how social media had influenced...well, everything. I could apply the same logic to my career as a strategic communications professional easily. 

Direct Contact With Voters  

Before, if a politician wanted to reach a large audience, they had to rely on traditional forms of mass media like television, radio, or newspapers. They could advertise on these channels or simply receive coverage. But that was not direct access—with social media, there is no gatekeeper. A politician can communicate directly with the audience via social media (Murse, 2019).  

The same can be said for any strategic communications professional. Where we once were at the mercy of which outlets would pick up which stories or limited by an advertising budget (which we’ll discuss next) we can now have that same direct access to our stakeholders or prospective clients/customers. 

Advertising Without Paying For Advertising  

There are specific rules related to political advertising, and some of those rules are related to money. But politicians can produce content for free to share on their social media channels. The article notes that oftentimes, media will pick up on said social media content and create a story from it, which is even more bang for the politician’s buck—they produce and share the content for free, plus they get it shared on traditional media (Murse, 2019).  

At the community college where I work, we do a mixture of both traditional paid advertising, hope for additional earned advertising, and publish social media content. But earned advertising is not guaranteed, and the advertising budget isn’t limitless. We rely on getting messages out more and more via social media. In the same way, we have had several social media posts get picked up by traditional media and translate into free advertising for us.  

How Campaigns Go Viral  

The social aspect of social media helps politicians’ messages go viral. The ability for supporters to like and share only multiplies the politician’s reach. That is great for sharing your campaign message. It’s not so great when it’s your opponent’s followers who are sharing something negative about you (Murse, 2019).  

Strategic communications professionals face the same double-edged sword—social media can allow your message to extend even beyond your own reach. But by the same token, stories or posts that are not positive about your organization, brand or idea can circulate. Your only hope is that the good outweighs the bad.  

Speaking of the good…even if your message is great, the viral-ness of social media is fickle. There is a certain magic to videos going viral that you can try to create but are not really in control of. But although you may not be able to create a viral moment from thin air, you can capitalize on them when they occur.  

Tailoring the Message to the Audience  

Politicians can use the analytics of social media to their advantage by collecting the data they provide and using that to push their content in a specific direction. The article gives the example that if you know a certain platform is geared to 30-year-olds, you do not share messages that are targeting retirees (Murse, 2019).  

At my current employer, we can know the demographic breakdown of each of our social media platforms and can tailor the content to each. Our largest following on social media is on Facebook, but those demographics skew more toward alumni age, so posting achievements and activities of the college is a focus there. Instagram is slightly younger, so similar messages appear there. Since those have an older demographic, we refrain from showing things that would only relate to current students. For example, we do not post reminders about signing up for events or services. Over 60% of Tik Tok users are Gen Z, so any messages that needed to go directly to a student or potential student would belong there (Muliadi, 2020).  

Fundraising  

Using social media to orchestrate fundraising is something that has recently benefitted politicians. Social media combined with the latest point of sale or credit processing technology provides politicians with a quick and effortless way for supporters to make donations and captures them where they are at—which is on their phones (Murse, 2019).  

In the same way, social media allows the strategic communications professional, particularly one in the non-profit field, the chance to not only share their message to a large audience but to also solicit that audience for financial assistance. At my former employer, we did not utilize this technology as we heavily promoted our traditional means of fundraising, but non-profits across the country have taken advantage of social media campaigns to raise funds. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, for example, combined the viral aspect with a fundraising platform to create a successful campaign. 

Controversy  

As mentioned before, social media has a downside. Similar to our discussions this week about crowdsourcing, when you tap into the free resource of the public, there is immense potential for amazing ideas, input, and solutions to problems (BloombergCities, 2019). But when you involve the crowd in social media, if anything goes wrong with a political campaign, there is an entire audience that knows about it—and can spread it very quickly. Social media limits your control of what the public has to say and how they share your message. Politicians have specific images that they hire people to help craft and maintain. All that can disappear with a few shares and tweets that are not in your favor (Murse, 2019).  

In the same way, the company or organization a strategic communications professional represents is responsible for maintaining, enhancing, and monitoring their client’s image. A controversy within your organization can go viral quickly.  

Feedback  

Politicians have people that run all kinds of numbers and ideas to gauge public opinion. Using social media can help expedite that process. A politician can solicit feedback from a large group of people quickly. Not all that feedback is good, however. Social media can draw detractors as well as supporters, and they can give feedback that is negative (Murse, 2019).  

Likewise, communications professionals can gain feedback quickly using social media. After determining what issue they would like to receive feedback on, they can also use social media analytics to determine the demographic they would like to target to get a relevant answer. At our community college, we solicit feedback from students and staff on a regular basis, on issues like rating faculty and classes, or specifically in my department, how they view and use social media and the college’s marketing strategies.  

Weighing Public Opinion  

Politicians represent the people who elect them, and so it is vital that they understand what their constituents want and how they feel about particular issues. Using social media to further gain insight on how their supporters—and even the opposition—adds another layer to the data they are already collecting (Murse, 2019).  

During my time at the community college, we have not used our social media to reach out in that particular manner, but it would be beneficial. We could use our platforms if we wanted to reach out to our audience of alumni and community supporters as well as current students to gauge public opinion, or use them for crowdsourcing to make sure that the college is heading in the right direction according to the people who benefit from us most.  

It's Hip  

According to the ThoughtCo article, older Americans are the largest portion of voters who vote. Facebook is a good way to engage that generation but using other platforms like Tik Tok or Instagram can engage younger voters as well (Murse, 2019).  

One of my college’s most important groups to target for marketing is late middle school and high school students. These students will not be reached by articles in the local paper, television media, or even billboards. They are all on their phones and on social media. Finding a way to engage them on platforms like Snapchat and Tik Tok—the apps where they are—is effective marketing, not to mention free.  

The Power of Many  

Politicians serve at the will of the people. Citizens have enormous power, and one of the few places where you can concentrate that power in one place is online (Murse, 2019).  

In the same way, if strategic communications professionals want their companies or organizations make an impact on the world, social media is a valuable tool.  

References:  

Abram, C. (September 26, 2006). "Welcome to Fb, everyone". The Facebook Blog. https://m.facebook.com/nt/screen/?params=%7B%22note_id%22%3A262051265158581%7D&path=%2Fnotes%2Fnote%2F&_rdr 

BloombergCities. (2019, May 22). “Explainer: What you need to know about crowdsourcing.” Medium. https://bloombergcities.medium.com/explainer-what-is-crowdsourcing-9dc2914e1845 

Levy, S. (2007, April 30). "Twitter: Is Brevity The Next Big Thing?". Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/twitter-brevity-next-big-thing-98045 

Muliadi, B. (2020, July 7). “What the Rise of Tik Tok says about Generation Z.” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/07/what-the-rise-of-tiktok-says-about-generation-z/?sh=360e93c46549 

Murse, R. (2019, April 29). “How Social Media Changed Politics.” ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-social-media-has-changed-politics-3367534