Introduction
Social media marketing involves using digital tools and platforms to promote products and services. The strategy has benefited individuals, businesses, and organizations that use marketing for different purposes. Some of the more common and established social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat. The various platforms appeal to different users and organizations; individuals can use one or several to convey their message.
This paper aims to showcase the application of social media networking in promoting politics in the United States. President Obama is best known for using social media to run a successful campaign in 2008. Since then, social media has become a common feature in political campaigns, and people increasingly rely on it to promote their political cause. The pervasive use of social media in US political campaigns has significantly altered the dynamics of political strategies and communication, enhancing voter engagement and supporting the overall democratic process.
Social Media and the Promotion of President Barack Obama
Barack Obama was relatively unknown in the US national politics. However, he successfully utilized social media to conduct his 2008 presidential campaign, when the approach was still relatively uncommon (Garrett, 2019). At the time, Facebook dominated social media even as fewer people used it for interaction.
President Obama saw an opportunity in its use, which proved highly beneficial in building his brand. Facebook enabled him to grow his popularity, culminating in his being declared the first African American president in the US in just over a year. He adopted social media to promote his political cause, helping to lay the foundation for its widespread application in modern-day politics in the country.
Obama took advantage of the heated Obama-Clinton debates, televised live, to grow his Facebook following. He managed to undercut traditional media channels by growing his following on the platform to over 250,000 followers, while his competitor had only 3,200 (Garrett, 2019). This gave him a solid foundation to promote his ideals and policies, as well as counter arguments against propaganda targeting him.
Besides winning him the presidency, social media enabled Obama to make history by achieving the highest exit poll points. The polls revealed that Obama garnered approximately 70 percent of the vote among young Americans aged 25 and below, the highest score since 1976, when the US exit polling system was established (Garrett, 2019). Other people have replicated Obama’s success in the US and elsewhere locally and internationally. Notable examples include Donald Trump, a frequent Twitter user, and Joe Biden, who has recently used social media to counter claims made by his competitor.
Impact of Social Media
Social media platforms have enabled users to connect with their audience, grow their brand, drive business and activities, and establish a community of followers. The platforms enable sharing and engagement with the target audience, resulting in increased sales and revenue. The key to success is developing relevant content that enables users to provide feedback, making the brand appear more personable.
Social media marketing enables direct connections with the audience, as people can be heard, ask questions, and voice their concerns. The brands also have the opportunity to react, adapt, and transform to meet the expectations of their target population (Garrett, 2019). The message can be fashioned to reach the right people at the right time. Different brands can use social media analytics to gain a deeper understanding of their audience’s personal, demographic, and geographic information, enabling them to customize messages and content for optimal interaction.
In the political space, social media has transformed the conduct of political campaigns in the United States. Conventional media use can be challenging and costly, particularly for individuals perceived as newcomers to the political sphere. Yildirim (2020) notes that before Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, he had spent over $1 billion of his own resources on the campaign, with almost three-quarters of that money going to advertising.
The case illustrates that colossal resources are needed to contest public office in the United States. This poses a monumental challenge for political newcomers who may need donor support or have adequate personal resources. However, using social media platforms can help bridge the gap and realize the same impact on the target population.
Barack Obama is largely credited with popularizing the mainstream use of social media in politics. Even as social media was in its early stages in 2008, when Obama launched his campaign, the medium allowed him to speak directly to citizens (Garrett, 2019). People were captivated by his oratory skills and presentation, through which he effectively articulated his policies and captured the presidency, becoming the first African American to do so.
The use of social media further generates talking points for bloggers, who in turn advance the candidate’s online marketing. This helps generate a substantial boost for political newcomers with limited resources, as most social media platforms are relatively inexpensive. They also have a broader reach in the country, as most people can access the internet. Therefore, social media has helped level the playing field in politics, which has traditionally been dominated by individuals who require access to substantial capital or formal communication channels.
Use of Social Networking in the Target Group
The use of social media in US politics targets the entire eligible voting population. The use of social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, targets voters through ads based on analytics. The ads can target voters based on their interests in sports, music, television, and shopping destinations. According to Garrett (2019), data released by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shows that politicians have gone to great lengths to appeal to voters online, tailoring their messaging to people’s specific interests.
Political campaigns use detailed targeting, leveraging social media to display ads to individuals identified as sharing specific interests. Platforms like Facebook employ social media analytics to specify whether a user is interested in a particular topic. This primarily involves analyzing the clicks and pages that people frequently engage with, enabling the delivery of targeted political messages based on the data. Political strategists are increasingly opting for such approaches, as they enhance politicians’ visibility and allow them to reach voters on social media without being backed by big money or extensive fundraising.
Furthermore, social media enables newcomers to politicians to portray their humane character through their personal accounts. The strategy helps to enhance their connection with the voters. This has been applied by Elizabeth Warren, who took to her Instagram account to chat live with supporters who contributed to her presidential campaign. Similarly, Pete Buttigieg, a former Democratic presidential contender, used Twitter to show his shelter puppies to his followers, averaging over two million (Yildirim, 2020). The trend shows that social media can communicate ideas, policies, personal values, good sporting teams, neighborhoods, and pets.
On the contrary, using social media to promote a candidate may be counterproductive. Hess (2013) opposes using social media for advertising due to automation. He argues that not all people targeted by the message may have the time or interest to read the ads and act on the messaging. He is particularly frustrated by the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and software programs that automatically generate messages. This leads to his conclusion that social networks and networking have gone wrong, as it is based on the hope that someone will read the messages. Hess (2013) singles out LinkedIn as the only valuable social media platform because it connects people through jobs. Everybody on LinkedIn has a profile and their resume, and the groups and discussions are moderated.
Conclusion
Social media marketing provides an effective way to engage with customers across multiple platforms. The messaging is mainly targeted based on the clicks and pages visited. The approach has been applied in IS politics, beginning with the 2008 presidential contest, where Obama used Facebook to promote his ideals and policies. He succeeded through an approach that was considered new.
Obama opened the way for the widespread use of social media networking to reach a broader pool of the target audience. This is informed by the increasing number of platforms and their use among people for different purposes. Politicians find it convenient to target voters through various channels, including direct interaction on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, the use of automation threatens to reduce the level of interaction and efficacy of social media marketing.
References
Garrett, R. K. (2019). Social media’s contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections. PLOS ONE, 14(3), e0213500.
Hess, K. (2013). A commentary on the business value of social networks. ZDNET.
Yildirim, P. (2020). How social media is shaping political campaigns. Knowledge at Wharton.