Politicians Interested in Social Media

Posted on October 3, 2006 Written by 3 Comments

I read with interest an article in the Oxford press about how web sites and social networking sites could be a potent tool for politicians. Really. I had not thought of that before.

I was shocked to read that Republicans and Democrats are interested in “social networking and user content sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, which have proved wildly successful among the under-30 potential voters that Republicans and Democrats would like to reach.”

But moving on, the article did have some interesting observations on how politicians can use and react to, social media sites. Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University in Washington is quoted as saying:

“In the same way that political reporters have seen that with blogs they no longer control the news media, candidates are about to find out that they no longer control politics,”

Don McDaniel, who has created a network of 600 Georgia Democrats through a site run by Democrats for America, a political action committee created by national Democratic Chairman Howard Dean went further by saying that:

“Candidates are really going to have to get back to listening to — and answering to — their constituents,”

But while the politicians talk a good game, getting then to walk the talk is a little harder as this story illustrates. Recently a Georgia Republican state legislator set up a MySpace account without filling in his profile. When Democrats called attention to the site, he discovered the site listed him —by default — as “single” and “doesn’t want children” because he hadn’t bothered to fill in his personal information.

The lawmaker, who is married and has two children, changed his profile immediately

David Wilson

I have been in providing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to clients for the last 8 years. I believe that SMO is where all the online services are going to converge over the next 18 months.

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Filed Under: Social Media Optimization

Comments

  1. allan wallace says:
    October 4, 2006 at 2:14 am

    Candidates not controlling politics?

    That my friend is a very refreshing thought.

    Thanks

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Politicians embrace email marketing, but what about Social Media? » Online Marketing Blog - Britopian Marketing says:
    November 8, 2006 at 2:16 am

    [...] I have been blogging about social media for a little over 3 months now and I have noticed that there aren’t many bloggers talking about the need for politicians to use social media as a channel to communicate their marketing messages.  David Wilson, author of the popular Social Media Optimization blog titles one of his postings “Politicians Interested in Social Media” but cites that many politicians talk about social media but never seem to execute a social media marketing strategy.  In another post, David also states “Just as corporations need to create and execute a social medial marketing plan, so do politicians running for office.” I completely agree with David. As social media is almost mainstream, it’s imperative for politicians to penetrate this exponentially growing channel.  In today’s politics, social media probably won’t have too much of an impact on the results of an election; but I anticipate that it will be a tremendous opportunity for future incumbents to tap into a new demographic. [...]

    Reply
  2. a gecko’s tale » Social media in US political campaigns and lessons for Singapore politicians says:
    February 12, 2007 at 4:19 am

    [...] As David Wilson says on Social Media Optimization, US politicians are scrambling onto the social-media bandwagon for good and the language used on all three websites is nothing short of social-centric. [...]

    Reply

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