In response to recent requests, online media strategist John Deck announced yesterday he has put together a special social media advertising and engagement program for local political candidates. This program gives candidates the ability to leverage their social media and other campaign programs to deliver their messages with greater impact and effectiveness. Messages can be targeted to specific audiences, even down to the individual, which is not available through mass media.
Obama’s 2008 and 2012 social media campaigns are recognized as having a major impact on the elections. As quoted in CNN article leading up to the 2012 presidential election John Trippi, a Democratic strategist said, “I think this will literally make the difference.” The result was Obama’s successful 2012 re-election. The effectiveness of the Obama social media campaign not only turned politics on its head, but general marketing as well.
Social media (especially Facebook) continues to mature and change. A big impact over the last two years has been Facebook limiting the “reach” of posts. Reach is defined as how many Facebook individual news feeds a post is shown in. A key aspect of the effectiveness of Obama’s social media campaign was its ability to “reach” out with its message.
Facebook is now a public company. It has drastically limited “reach”. This has been done explicitly to drive companies and individuals to use Facebook advertising to get their messages out.
Now that is the bad news, the good news is that social media advertising especially on Facebook has dramatically matured. It has become an outstanding tool for promotion. Facebook advertising is all about demographics. Whether it is an ad or a boosted post, you can target those who will see your message in a way that was unavailable before. Here is a list of just some of the options available to define your target audience:
- Email addresses you already have
- Work or residential zip codes
- Gender
- Married
- Families with or without children
- Facebook groups they have joined or not joined
- What an individual has liked or not liked
A local candidate now has the ability to target a defined group with a unique message in a way that cannot be done with any form of mass media. Plus the ads can leverage their other media content both online and offline. Another key point is that advertised messages can be changed almost on the fly. Quickly capitalize on changing news or events. Advertised posts are shown in targeted groups’ news feeds on both desktop and mobile devices. Mobile ads support is major importance since almost 60% access Facebook from mobile devices.
Political campaigns are won by building support across a wide range of groups and their interests. Today, mass messaging will not carry the day. Social media advertising on Facebook provides local campaigns the ability to deliver their messages in a focused and powerful way, “that can literally make the difference.”
For more information contact John R. Deck at john.deck@DirectMarketResults or 916-800-1270.