presentation at the All American Night, held at the Pieterskerk in Leiden, the Netherlands, on November 6, 2012.

1. The Social Media
Election
All American Night
Leiden, the Netherlands
November 6th, 2012
janelle.ward@gmail.com
www.janelleward.com
@janelle_ward

2. Why is social media important?
• In 2008, the social media winner won the election
• In 2012?

3. iProspect infographic

4. iProspect infographic

5. A brief history of e-campaigning
• 1996: debut candidate web pages
• 2000: the first internet election
• 2004: fundraising, online organizing
• 2008: my.BarackObama.com, social
media
• 2012: nanotargeting, wives of
candidates posting on Pinterest

6. Questions…
1) How are political campaigns using social media to
produce the campaign?
2) How are citizens using social media to consume the
campaign?
3) How important is (social) media campaigning in
determining the winner?

7. 1) How are political
campaigns using social
media to produce the
campaign?

8. Obama vs. Romney in the world of social media
– Tumblr: younger, niche audience =
more spirited content (77 million
blogs)
– Twitter: donations, travel details,
personal lives (500 million users)
– Facebook: candidates seek to
influence the flow of content (via
shares and likes - as of 9/2012, over
one billion active users)

9. Social media in a political context
– YouTube: video ads, personal videos, live
chats (800 million users/month)
– Pinterest: Michelle Obama and Ann
Romney (over 10 million visits/week)
– Instagram: candid pictures of the
candidates (30 million+ accounts)

10. Facebook vs. Twitter
TWITTER FACEBOOK
1.6 million Mitt 11.7 million likes
followers 2.4 million talking
Romney about this
21.6 million Barack 31.7 million likes
followers 2.3 million talking
Obama about this

11. iProspect infographic

12. Example 1: #Eastwooding
• Clint Eastwood speech at
the Republican National
Convention
– The Daily Beast; Know your Meme)
• Obama’s official Twitter
account posted a photo of
Obama seated in a chair with
the caption “This seat’s
taken.” (55,263 retweets and
22,589 favorites)

13. Example 2: The second debate
• Second Presidential Debate Tops Super Bowl in So
TV: #3 most social TV event of all time
• Romney’s “binders” comment; Obama campaign’s
response: “Mitt Romney's Condescending Views
Toward Women” (200,000+ views)

14. Example 2: The second debate
– 37
Tweets Obama's campaign sent out during the
second debate
– 117,374
Times they were retweeted
–2
Tweets Romney's campaign sent out during the
second debate
– 6,810
Times they were retweeted (source)

15. 2) How are citizens using
social media to consume
the campaign?

16. iProspect infographic

17. Example 1: #Eastwooding
• During the speech
@InvisibleObama tweeted for the
first time, using a picture of an
empty chair as its icon. (source)

18. Example 1: #Eastwooding
• In 24 hours, over 90,000 tweets were posted
about Clint Eastwood (source)

19. Example 1: #Eastwooding
• The hashtag #Eastwooding
generated 25,325 tweets in 24
hours
• More than 850 Instagram
photos were tagged
#Eastwooding
• By the next day, #Eastwooding
photos were featured on the
Atlantic, the Huffingon Post,
New York Daily News, Fox News,
etc. (source)

20. Example 2: The second debate
• “Binders full of women:” - Before the debate
was over, there was a Twitter hashtag, a
Tumblr, and a Facebook page with over
100,000 fans. The phrase was the third-fastest
rising search on Google during the debate. (
source)
• Amazon and the Avery durable binders

21. 3) How important is (social)
media campaigning in
determining the winner?

22. It’s hard to say!
• Everyone’s a producer, everyone’s a consumer
• Sometimes the tried-and-true campaign tools win out (
buses, planes and politics)
• “What’s the return on putting your pants on in the
morning? We don’t know. But we just know it’s bad if you
don’t do it.” (Jan Rezab of Socialbakers, in Campaigns Use Social Media to Lure Younger Voters)
• In the end, it might just be Hurricane Sandy…