Today I came across an article about a young candidate running as an Independent in Dublin south east ,now when I say “young” I mean young .This guy, Dylan Haskins is 23 and as one of the comments on his YouTube video astutely pointed out he looks like Jedward’s younger, yet significantly less mentally challenged brother. From my brief research into Dylan and his politics he seems like a nice fellow, up for greater transparency and accountability in our political and financial systems, who isn’t I here you say .He hasn’t gone to great pains to explain how he would achieve this, but I’m sure he has some sort of a plan. I say best of luck to him. We need more young people in politics, especially ones who haven’t got half the country’s pensions on their conscience.
Dylan has something in common with one of the great political figures of this century, Mr Ohhh-bama. Now don’t get overly excited I have a few things in common with Gisele Bundchen, were both female, white, above average high but it doesn’t necessarily mean were the same .Mores the pity. So what do the two politicos have in common, they both understand the web 2.0 and more specifically social media .It’s been well documented that Obama used social media to spread his message of hope and to amass bucket loads of cash for the campaign trail. Team Obama included social media guru Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook .He didn’t make the film, but still a very important part of The FB landscape. This man knows to handle social media like Kate moss know how to handle a drugs scandal (her endorsement rose by appx 300,000 in the year subsequent to pictures of Cocaine Kate breaking).
During the race for presidency Obama had 3 million online donations. He sought lots of small donations .The standard practice is huge, more morally questionable donations from big businessmen. Further, he used sites like Flickr and YouTube to distribute his "message of hope." and had a presence on no fewer than 16 social media sites. He encouraged supporters to create their own content and that idea, and those images and videos, went viral. Two million people created profiles on my.barackobama.com. This was the jewel in his campaign.
Obama went to where his customer base was. He couldn’t go to everyone’s kitchen, he could friend them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. He could connect with specific ethnic groups through MiGente (Latinos), BlackPlanet (African-Americans), Glee ("gay, lesbian and everyone else") and others.
They say Nixon got radio, Kennedy got T.V and I’d say when people look back they will say Obama got social media. We are entering a new age of politics where votes aren’t won in the hearts and minds of men they are won on the social media battle field. Dylan Haskins competition may be able to grow beards, but he seems understand social media so perhaps he has a chance.
Do you think that facebook is being relied on too much for campaigns?Could facebook suffer from over-use?
ReplyDeleteI think that it is currently being under utilized in terms of political campaigns ,which are mainly about generating awareness and connecting with people.However, in terms of it use by business to try to drum up sales I think people may be becoming over reliant, especially as it is still really only in it's infancy in terms of being used as a selling tool and we have few measures ,to value the financial benefits which can be gained from it .I address this issue much more in my next Blog ,by the way ..
ReplyDeleteI think social media, as a hole is here to stay and companies would be wise to in vest in it. Facebook is just one of the many guises of social media, and people should not become over reliant on it alone.It is pop culture phenomenon thats for sure ,but pop culture changes rapidly we can already see Twitter corroding it's usership
http://mydavidcameron.com/
ReplyDeleteThe power of social media and politics at play here.It's a very funny web site and It saw that millions of the money Tory spent on poster campaigns was utterly wasted.
check out fine geal you tube new digital age ,they are definitely on the right track
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch? v=x9v640RMeOM&feature=player_embedded#at=60
Thanks for the link Sarah.I think it's very effective, its good to see them taking a younger approach with this campaign.Is this your influence out on the campaign trail ?????????;)
ReplyDelete