Are social media conversations driving voters to the Coalition Avenir Quebec?

For the last three weeks I have been keeping tabs on Quebec’s provincial election while monitoring conversation trends on social media. What party is getting the most mentions? What leader is sparking the most conversations? How are daily events impacting those conversations? What topics are people talking most about?

When compared to polling the social data raises some interesting questions; chief among them: to what extent is social chatter fueling the Coalition Avenir Quebec’s rise in the polls?

The campaign so far.

Quebec premier Jean Charest dropped the writ on July 26th after months of sometimes violent student protests over proposed tuition increases. The protests have forced the resignation of two education ministers, Line Beauchamp in May and her replacement, Michelle Courchesne, who announced in mid-July that she would not run in the next provincial election. Charest’s Bill 78, a law aimed at putting limitations on when and how students could protest the government, was denounced as Draconian by student protestors, the province’s opposition parties, labor unions, and Canadians outside Quebec.

Polls released just days before Charest called the election showed that his Liberal Party would find themselves in a tight race with the Parti Quebecois (PQ) but would still win a small majority government. Seat projections said the Liberals would win 60 seats and the PQ 55. The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), in it’s first general elections since amalgamating with the former Action democratique du Quebec (ADQ) in January of this year, was expected to win eight seats.

Four days after the campaign launched polls showed that the PQ had overtaken the Liberals, moving into minority government territory. As of August 15th the PQ’s lead had moved into majority government territory. Naturally, the PQ’s stance on Quebec sovereignty emerged as a major theme in the race, however it has not proven to be detrimental their electoral prospects.

The real gains have been made by the CAQ. Despite low seat projections as the campaign began, CAQ leader Francois Legault opened a new front in the campaign against Charest’s Liberal Party when he announced his party’s star candidate: Jacques Duchesneau, who claimed that CAQ was the only party to “clean up” the province. Ducheneau had been appointed by premier Charest to investigate rampant corruption and collusion between the provincial government and the province’s construction industry in 2010. After submitting his report to the government Duchesneau leaked the report to the media for fear of the government burying it. The report turned out to be a quite damning.  Almost over night seat projections for the CAQ increased from eight to fourteen.

The Social Conversation.

Monitoring all mentions of the major political parties and their party hashtags in conjunction with all mentions of the #qc2012, #qcpol, #quepoli, and #polqc revealed the following conversation trends.

As noted above the mainstream media has been focused on the question of sovereignty as the Parti Quebecois moved into majority government territory in the polls. Quite natural but social conversations are less concerned with questions of sovereignty then they are about corruption, by a significant margin.

Sparked by the CAQ conversations related to corruption have dominated social media conversations.

Is social chatter impacting voter intentions in Quebec?

It’s impossible to link social chatter to voter intention, as I’ve written about previously, but it is clear that it has had a significant impact on social media. What is clear is that while the mainstream media is largely focused on the PQ’s march to a majority government and the Liberal Party’s downfall, social media users are receiving CAQ’s central campaign message and repeating it widely.

Politicos of all stripes will tell you that the opinions of friends and trusted sources of information generally have a more significant impact on voter intention then the messaging coming out of party war rooms. So while it may not be possible to link the CAQ’s rising political fortunes to social media conversations, it’s not so easy to simply dismiss it either.

Ryan Announcement Pushes Romney Social Media Mentions Ahead of Obama

This post was originally authored by me and published by Radian6.

On Saturday morning, the world awoke to the news that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney had chosen his vice presidential running mate, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. It was particularly interesting for me, as I had just published a blog on Friday looking at the social chatter among the rumored vice presidential candidates, of whom Paul Ryan led in social media mentions.

Data from this blog was picked up and used by Mashable.com. You can check out that article here.

Once announced, a vice-presidential candidate becomes the center of intense media focus and public debate, but what is the impact on social media? The answer: profound.

Ryan’s Social Profile Skyrockets

In my post, Wikipedia, Stephen Colbert Drive Romney VP Speculation on Social Media, I noted that out of the serious contenders for the vice-presidential nod, Paul Ryan received the largest jump in social media mentions – 6,121 mentions between August 6th and 9th, compared to just 1,342 mentions between August 2nd and 5th.

After being named Romney’s vice-presidential nominee, mentions of Paul Ryan skyrocketed to 167,808 mentions between August 11th and 14th.

In addition to social media mentions, OhMyGov.com reported that followers and fans on Ryan’s Twitter and Facebook page saw significant increases, reaching 274,000 followers on Twitter and 197,000 Facebook fans.

Vice-Presidential Nod Gives Big Boost to Romney Mentions

It’s clear that Saturday’s announcement had a major impact on Paul Ryan’s individual social media profile, but it had a more significant impact for Romney.  The announcement of Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate pushed mentions of Mitt Romney above those of Barack Obama for the first time in more then three months.

The lead was considerable. On August 11th, Romney mentions totaled 882,955, compared to 529,538 for President Obama. This was the first time Romney had taken such a large, single day lead in social conversations over Obama since the GOP primaries concluded.

Ryan will make or break Romney’s chances

Guest post: Hassan Arif

One can say that Mitt Romney’s pick of Wisconsin member of Congress Paul Ryan as the vice presidential candidate gave the Republican ticket authenticity. Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives, have accused Mitt Romney of being phoney, of having no core convictions and of taking positions simply based on political expediency and opinion polls.

Mitt Romney was a moderate – even progressive – politician in his earlier incarnation in Massachusetts politics: first as a candidate for Senate in the 1990s, and then as Governor. However, in 2008 – during his first run for the presidency – he ran to the right of John McCain in an attempt to appeal to conservative Republicans. Mr. Romney has also run to the right in 2012, though he has placed more emphasis on economic management. Mr. Romney has also re-written history describing himself as a “severely conservative” Governor of Massachusetts.

Mr. Romney has shamelessly reneged on earlier positions as well. For example, on health care, Mr. Romney has been calling for the repeal of Barack Obama’s health care reforms (“Obamacare”) even though these reforms are based on the health care model implemented in Massachusetts when Mr. Romney himself was Governor. During his presidential run, Mr. Romney has had to run away from his own record as Massachusetts Governor, almost in essence running against himself.

This seeming lack of authenticity has led to muted enthusiasm for Mr. Romney among the conservative Republican base. During the Republican nomination, candidates from Rick Perry to Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum to Herman Cain frequently took turns as front-runner in opinion polls as Republicans sought an “authentic” conservative.

In the end, one can argue that Mr. Romney secured the nomination because of a weak field of candidates, and because of the millions he spent on negative advertising.

Paul Ryan, by contrast, is seen as a true believer in conservative ideology. He is a self-professed fan of conservative thinker Ayn Rand, making her work required reading for his staff. Mr. Ryan spearheaded a proposed Congressional budget which radically guts a range of social programs. Under Mr. Ryan’s plan, America’s system of public health care for seniors – medicare – is reduced to a voucher system with vouchers that are not even designed to keep up with inflation rates in the medical sector.

Other programs gutted under Mr. Ryan’s budget include Medicaid, slashed funding grants for post-secondary students, an erosion of environmental and banking regulations and the erosion and elimination various other programs for the poor and middle-class, all under the guise of deficit reduction.

Meanwhile, the Ryan budget doles out huge tax cuts for the wealthy while tax breaks on items such as mortgages which help the middle class would be eliminated.

With recession, a middle-class under siege and youth facing mounting student debts and a difficult job market, the Ryan budget would make life worse for many. Rather than offering relief from the recession, it would make the suffering from it even worse. In Britain, the austerity budgets of David Cameron’s government have plunged that country into a double-dip recession.

The Ryan budget would spell economic ruin for the majority of Americans – including even the rich who may find less market for their goods with an eviscerated middle-class.

All this contributes to an excellent rallying cry for Obama Democrats in 2012. They can rightly present themselves as the party which prioritizes jobs, which presented a stimulus package aimed at putting Americans back to work and which saved the automobile industry. This would be a favourable contrast to the Ryan budget which shamelessly slashes programs for the poor and middle-class while throwing out huge tax breaks to the rich.

However, the Mitt Romney campaign is likely to have taken this all into account before the Ryan pick. The budget document is popular with many small government conservatives. The Ryan pick potentially increases enthusiasm among the conservative Republican base for the presidential ticket, something that is important in signing up volunteers and spurring voter turnout.

The Romney campaign likely sees their route to victory as coming through a close election, like those in 2000 and 2004, which broke down along ideological “blue” and “red” state lines with deeply entrenched divisions and turnout among the base being key.

The choice of Paul Ryan as vice president is a bold and risky one as compared to safer choices such as former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty who is seen as dull and unexciting. The Ryan pick both serves as a rallying cry to the Republican base, as well as a clear means for Democrats to go after the Republican ticket.

In terms of social policy, Mr. Ryan is a disaster with a budget that attacks the poor and middle-class. In terms of electoral politics, it is hard to tell how the Ryan pick will play out as it brings both distinct advantages and distinct disadvantages for the Romney campaign. Regardless, it was a clearly calculated move on the part of the Republican presidential campaign, not a decision taken lightly.

Mitt Romney chooses Paul Ryan for VP running mate; social media does too.

This blog was originally authored by me and published on the Radian6 website. I’m posting it here for posterity.

The speculation as to whom GOP candidate for president Mitt Romney will choose as his running mate went into overdrive this week after the blog TechPresident.com suggested Wikipedia held the answer. Published Monday, the blog made its way around the social networks until it was picked up by mainstream media outlets.

On Tuesday evening, Stephen Colbert picked up on the story and used his show, The Colbert Report, to urge his fans to log on to Wikipedia and “make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender.” Wednesday, it was reported that Wikipedia had protected the entries of rumored vice-presidential nominees.

Back in June, I took a look at the social buzz being generated about rumored vice-presidential candidates. At that point, the last of the GOP presidential primaries had been decided and the summer campaign was just beginning. Given that vice-presidential speculation reached a fever pitch this week, I thought it was time to revisit the data.

The Candidates

I based my search on the individuals listed in Micah Sifry’s TechPresident.com blog, as well as an additional name contributed by The Drudge Report, Gen. David Petraeus.

The candidates I included are:

Rep. Rob Portman (OH)
Sen. Marco Rubio (FL)
Rep. Paul Ryan (WI)
Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA)
Gov. Chris Christie (NJ)
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (NH)
Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN)
Gen. David Petraeus

I looked for all social media mentions of these individuals in conjunction with the words “vice president”, “vp”, and “veep” between August 6th and 9th. I then used our topic analysis widget to compare the percent change in mentions over the previous four days: August 2nd to 4th — to measure the impact of this week’s buzz around the TechPresident.com article.

Retired General David Patraeus has seen the largest jump in conversations — 2,085 mentions between August 6th and 9th, compared to just 43 mentions between August 2nd and 5th — but should be taken with a grain of salt. Until the Drudge Report published his name, Patraeus, who is currently serving as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was not many lists of possible contenders. The Christian Science Monitor has suggested that the likelihood of Patraeus accepting the role is “slim”.

The other contenders have been discussed widely over the past two months and most people feel one of them will be the likely choice for Mitt Romney. Of those individuals, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin saw the single largest increase, with 6,121 mentions between August 6th and 9th, compared to just 1,342 mentions between August 2nd and 5th.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was the only contender on the list to receive fewer mentions — 794 between August 6th and 9th versus 939 mentions between August 2nd and 5th.

Interested in how the vice presidential conversations looked like in June? Check out Who’ll Be Romney’s Running Mate?

‘Mitt’s VP’ ties social apps to Voter I.D.

Wednesday morning the Obama and Romney campaigns each announced the release of their mobile apps. The Obama campaign released an app that will be tied directly to helping them achieve campaign objectives. The Romney campaign released an app that will give their supporters a heads up when the GOP candidate has chosen to be his vice presidential nominee.

In an op-ed Wednesday Mashable asked where was the innovation when the Romney campaign announced their mobile app ‘Mitt’s VP’. It’s a fair question but less important then the voter I.D. data it will bring the campaign.

The evolution of voter I.D.: Social apps and content marketing.

A candidate’s pick to be the vice presidential nominee is one of the most speculated topics in any presidential election cycle. It’s an important decision, not only because the pick becomes the second name on the presidential succession list, but because the vice presidential candidate balances a party’s ticket in a lot of ways and galvanizes supporters. The announcement of the vice presidential nominee helps create a lot of online, print, and television content.

Of course, this approach has been done before. In 2008, the Obama campaign used a similar tactic by offering to inform their supporters of the Democratic vice-presidential nominee before anyone else. Using their e-mail list and mobile text messages, the Obama campaign saw their voter I.D. lists grow “15 fold” between announcing the idea on August 10th and announcing their nominee for vice president on August 22nd , according to David Plouffe.

This time around it’s the Republicans who have the VEEP hook and they’re using it to their advantage. The rise of the “app” is a new development in presidential politics but that’s about all that’s new here. Is it innovative? Not really, but it is effective and that’s good enough.

Tying social media to business objectives:

In an era when technology and social media enthusiasts are constantly looking for the next big thing it’s worth remembering that all industries – even politics – operate on a number of ‘fundamentals’. Political parties and political candidates live and die by the volume and accuracy of their voter I.D. data. Any social strategy in politics has to meet that need.

This is the simple genius of the “Mitt’s VP” app: it combines a major content hook while generating a wealth of data to be used for campaign communications, soliciting donations, and getting out the vote purposes.

Effective social media strategy is always tied to business objectives. It doesn’t always have to be innovative but it absolutely must be effective.

Interested in more? If you want to read more about using social media for voter I.D. have a look at: “Identifying Voters and Moving Them Through Your Social Media Funnel”.

A glass of orange juice remembered as Bev Oda’s legacy on social media.

Canada’s former Minister of International Co-operation Bev Oda officially retired from the House of Commons yesterday. As Oda returns to life as a private citizen she leaves a controversial legacy in her wake.

The Good:

First elected to the House of Commons for the Conservative Party of Canada in 2004, Oda was named opposition critic for the Ministry of Heritage. Re-elected in 2006 as a member of the Conservative Party’s minority government she was named Minister of Heritage and in 2007 was appointed Minister of International Co-operation (CIDA). Oda has the distinction of being the first Japanese-Canadian member of parliament and cabinet minister.

As Heritage critic Oda introduced Bill Bill C-333, the Chinese Canadian Recognition and Redress Act, that called on parliament to recognize the unique contributions of Chinese immigrants to Canada’s and the injustice done to them as a result of racist legislation. As Minister of CIDA Oda received praise from international aid organizations for Canada’s response to the earthquake that rocked Haiti in January 2010. She also restructured Canada’s foreign-aid program on a core group of the world’s most needy countries. Oda was also the Minister responsible for seeing the Conservative government’s policy of increasing funding for maternal health in Third-World nations.

The Bad:

These policy successes were not without controversy themselves. Some organizations suggested Canada’s response to the Haiti disaster lacked focus and Oda took considerable heat over Canada’s decision to give aid for maternal health while withholding funding for abortion services.

In February 2011 it was revealed that Oda had ordered a staff member to enter a hand written annotation – the word “not” – to a 2009 recommendation for funding for KAIROS – a Canadian faith-based ecumenical organization – that resulted in the recommendation being ignored. When asked about the issue in the House of Commons Oda first told Parliament that she did not know who had made the annotation and then later, when threatened with contempt of Parliament, she admitted to giving the direction to her staff.

Despite these controversies Oda was re-elected to the House of Commons for the riding of Durham with considerable margins in both 2008 and 2011.

The Ugly:

In the end it was a $16 glass of OJ that brought Bev Oda’s career as a cabinet minister and member of Canada’s parliament.

In 2011 Oda attended an international conference on the immunizations of poor children in London, England. Rather then stay at the hotel being provided by the conference Oda opted to stay at the much more expensive Savoy hotel and rented a limousine to transport her. While staying at the Savoy and working on a speech late at night Oda ordered the fateful glass of OJ.

Based on the social data it would appear that a glass of OJ is how Canadians are remembering Bev Oda. Whether it will become a lasting legacy, overshadowing her work as MP, opposition critic, and cabinet minister will only be know in time. The word cloud to the right represents the 50 most used words on social media conversations related to Bev Oda on her last day as a Canadian politician.

 

 

 

 

The Council of the Federation: A Social Media Review

Last week Halifax, Nova Scotia hosted Canada’s premiers and territorial leaders for the annual Council of the Federation meetings. The meetings promised to be great political theater as the premiers and territorial leaders tackled the subjects of health care reform and the creation of a national energy strategy. As the premiers met in ‘Canada’s Ocean Playground’ Canadians across the country weighed in with their thoughts on social media.

Center Stage: Health-care delivery and the debate over a national energy strategy.

Health-care.

Premiers Brad Wall of Saskatchewan, and Robert Ghiz of Prince Edward Island presented their report on health-care reform at this year’s summit. It was at last year’s Council of the Federation that the premiers were taken by surprise when Ottawa announced its decision to stop using its funding power to enforce national standards of service delivery, and give the provinces more autonomy to recreate their health-care systems. The premier’s report: ‘From Innovation to Action’ is the first public response from the provinces.

The biggest announcement was that the provinces will begin purchasing generic prescription drugs in an effort expected to save millions of dollars. Premier Ghiz has suggested this plan could save the Atlantic provinces upwards of $15 million dollars annually.

National Energy Strategy.

The debate over a national energy strategy was the other topic to dominate this year’s Council of the Federation meetings. Premier Alison Redford of Alberta has been advocating for the creation of a national energy strategy. Such a strategy would allow Alberta to move its land locked oil through British Columbia via privately owned, publicly regulated pipelines and deliver it to Asia bound tankers.

The national energy strategy is a politically contentious issue. Premier Redford of Alberta and Premier Christy Clark of British Columbia have been exchanging words for some time over royalties earned by the Northern Gateway project – BC is fighting for greater royalties. The dispute boiled over Friday when Premier Clark announced that British Columbia would not sign a national energy strategy unless it met a list of demands.

While the national energy strategy is territorially a western issue the Atlantic Canadian premiers are demanding it be a truly national strategy. Atlantic Canada is concerned about energy self-sufficiency and New Brunswick’s premier, David Alward, raised the issue of extending an oil pipeline to the region to relieve the pressure of having to purchase foreign oil.

Premiers Greg Selinger of Manitoba, Alison Redford of Alberta, and Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland & Labrador will be chairing the national energy portfolio as the premiers forge ahead with the plan with or without British Columbia.

The Social Reaction

Canadians kept track of the proceedings on social media throughout last week; following and debating the issues as they emerged. Not surprisingly Canadians focused their attention on health-care and the national energy strategy. Both subjects saw a triple digit percentage increase in total conversations over the week before.

Mentions of the premiers increased as well. Not surprisingly the premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford dominated social conversations, followed by Nova Scotia premier and host, Darrell Dexter. Premiers Brad Wall and Robert Ghiz, authors of the health-care report, round out the top five mentions.

Next year’s Council of the Federation is scheduled to be hosted by Ontario.

Social Media Monitoring Can Inform Political Parties What To Poll For

This blog was originally authored by me and published on the Radian6 website on July 20, 2012. I’m posting it here for posterity.

On Wednesday, I looked at the question, “Can social media be used for political polling?” In the end, my answer was no. The most convincing evidence I found against its use was in the scientific methodology pollsters use to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the results.

I briefly discussed some industry-specific reasons social media monitoring could not be used for political polling and hinted that there was still a crucial role social media monitoring could play in polling strategy.  This is the subject of today’s blog.

A Bit of Background

In the last Canadian general election, Twitter featured prominently for the first time. All of the political parties had a presence on Twitter, as did the leaders. News organizations published stories to the web that were instantly shared. It inspired many to refer to the 41^st general election as ‘#elxn41’ and “Canada’s first social media election“.

The Conservative Party of Canada, the governing party, and the Liberal Party of Canada, the Official Opposition, had been the only two parties to govern Canada in its history. The New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP), formed in 1961, had never formed the official opposition in Ottawa. The Green Party of Canada had never successfully elected a member of parliament (MP) and their leader, Elizabeth May, had already lost one bid for a seat in the previous general election. Finally, the Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party that only runs candidates in the province of Quebec, ran candidates again.

Conventional wisdom at the outset said that nothing would change. The Conservatives were expected to hold on to power. Whether they would win a majority government depended – it was thought – on how well the Liberal Party did. The NDP was expected to finish third, and the jury was out on how the Green Party would do.

Conventional wisdom, as it turned out, would be mostly wrong.

In the end, the Conservatives did hold on to power and won their first majority government in 23 years. For the first time in Canadian history, the NDP became the country’s Official Opposition, the Liberals were reduced to third place in Parliament, and the Green Party’s first MP, their party’s leader, was elected.

Now that you have some historical and political context, let’s break down the social and polling data to understand the place of social media monitoring in political strategy.

Political Conversations on Social Media are Not Representative

We know how the election turned out in reality.  Nanos Research published a tracking poll three days prior to the May 2^nd, 2011 election day showing that these results were likely.

This Nanos tracking poll reflects the actual make up of the House of Commons after the election. Data gleaned from social media monitoring paints a different picture.

Monitoring all mentions of the individual parties’ hashtags with the #elxn41 Twitter hashtag, which became the center of English language political discussion (Francophones in Quebec used a separate hashtag to discuss the election), shows that the NDP would have formed the government in a landslide victory.

The problem is that the trend graph reflects the total number of mentions each hashtag received; it does not take into account voter intention. The pie chart below shows the share of voice each party enjoyed on social media.

The Canadian House of Commons is comprised of 308 seats. Had social media correctly predicted the outcome of the election using the cumulative data available, the NDP would have formed a minority government with 100 seats. The Conservatives would be Canada’s official opposition with 95 seats. The Liberals would have placed third with 78 seats, the Green Party would have 29 seats and the Bloc would have finished with six seats.

Of course, it didn’t turn out this way.

Early Warning Signals

While I hold firm to my position that social media monitoring cannot be used for political polling, I also maintain that there is an important place for it within the industry. Social media monitoring allows political strategists to see what issues are hiding just below the surface and can help inform what they should be polling for.

As the election got underway, the media began focusing more on the race between the Liberal Party and the NDP. This narrative wasn’t supported by traditional polling (see the Nanos poll above) that showed the NDP had dropped in approval ratings since the first day of the campaign.

The social data tells a different tale. If we isolate the data on the trend graph to show only the Liberals and the NDP, we see their share of voice was extremely close throughout the election.

In fact, the Liberals and the NDP battled it out for the lead on a near daily basis until April 21st, when Canada’s national media reported that polls showed the NDP over-taking the Liberals.

What Does It Mean?

The social data was telling a story that was not being picked up by the national polls. This is not a fault of the polling agencies. There is little in the social data that would give any reliable indication regarding voter intention.

The social data in this trend line tells us only that both parties were being talked about roughly the same. When compared to the national polling data, it tells us that something is going on, not what exactly, but enough to commission a poll to find out if voting intention is shifting.  In retrospect, this was what was happening, as the April 21^st poll revealed, but conventional wisdom said it would never happen.

These last two blog posts have been longer then normal. I appreciate you reading and please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Identifying Voters and Moving Them Through Your Social Media Funnel

This blog was originally authored by me and published on the Radian6 website on June 8, 2012. I’m posting it here for posterity.

Political parties win and lose based on their voter ID lists. These lists are normally compiled by mixing official membership lists, intel gathered by field operatives, and door-to-door canvassing.

Social media has provided political parties with a very powerful tool for identifying supporters and moving them from random re-tweeters on social media to registered party members or voters.

Social is More than Communications

Communications is the obvious fit for social media in the political operative’s toolbox. It provides an opportunity to speak directly to the electorate without having their message go through the media filter. It’s an especially useful tool for rallying a political party’s base, but it can also deliver a message to non-partisans through re-tweets and shared posts.

Social media monitoring platforms allow political parties to track how far their message has traveled across the social web. The Radian6 engagement console shows each individual that has retweeted or shared content, allowing political operatives to cross-reference the users’ social profiles with their existing voter ID lists. This task is made easier if those voter ID lists are contained within a CRM system.

Connect the Pieces

There are many critics who argue that retweets and Facebook shares do not convert to votes received on election-day. They argue that it is one thing to simply click the mouse to share information on social media and quite another to stand in line at a polling station to cast a ballot.

That is quite true. Yet I would argue that an important piece of the puzzle is missing: for the social voter ID funnel to work, it cannot be seen as an end in and of itself. The social funnel has to be seen as a gateway to the traditional voter ID and outreach systems political parties already have in place.

Making the Connection

To accomplish this task, political parties need to devote staff whose sole purpose is to create relationships with people who have responded to their content by sharing or commenting on it. This is the process of community building that has been proven successful time and again in the private sector.

Any political operative will tell you that when canvassing a neighborhood for support, a lot of the work of identifying whether or not someone is a likely supporter is done during a quick huddle at the end of each driveway. What was the tone of the conversation? Was the resident engaged, and if so, what kinds of issues were important to them?

Social media outreach provides a greater amount of certitude while centralizing the social media task at party headquarters. As likely supporters are engaged by a political community team, it will be possible to identify issues that spark engagement and record that information using post tags in the engagement console.

Perhaps a social media user engages frequently around poverty issues. That information can be recorded on their profiles and used later by the traditional party apparatus for a membership drive targeting people who relate to this specific issue. The goal at this stage is to move that person from being an unregistered community member to a registered member of the party.

Complete the Transition

Once that individual conversion has been made, the interaction on social and through other channels doesn’t stop. An important transition has occurred by cultivating that relationship from unknown and unregistered voter to party member. Now he or she can be reached by the traditional party machine via newsletters, phone banks and local neighborhood canvassers. When it is time to get out the vote (GOTV), these social media advocates will likely be more motivated to go to the polls. Political parties can also reach them directly to ensure they have voted, and if not, encourage them to do so.

While the social media world has reduced the hectic 24-hour news cycle to a dizzying 140-character cycle for political communications, it hasn’t done the same for voter ID, member registration, and GOTV. These still require relationship management and time to cultivate connections. Social media monitoring platforms facilitate a wider reach allowing political parties to find supporters where they live online. The social voter ID funnel can not replace traditional, on the ground voter ID practices, but it will help grow voter ID lists.

4 Clever Ways the Republicans and Democrats Use Social Media to Raise Money and Identify their Vote

This blog was originally authored by me and published on the Radian6 website on July 11, 2012. I am posting it here for posterity.

In the United States the national Republican and Democratic parties are doing an incredibly good job at harnessing social media for fundraising and voter I.D.

Here are four things they do really well that can be adopted (and modified) for state and local political parties.

Leverage Social Participation & Offer Rewards

The Obama campaign has organized a couple of fundraisers that offer supporters the chance to attend A-list Hollywood events with the President. The donation required to enter the raffle is low – 3 dollars – and has been overwhelmingly successful generating 9 million dollars from the lottery alone for an event at George Clooney’s. The success of the event has inspired the Romney campaign to do a similar event, and will likely become a mainstay of presidential fundraising going forward.

State and local political parties may not be able to attract the star power that POTUS and Clooney can muster but the principle can still be applied. Local political volunteers would appreciate the opportunity to have a sit down with political players in their area. It will provide an incentive to give and an opportunity for that volunteer to be recognized. You can bet they’ll leave that event ready to work even harder in the future.

Issue Based Donations – The ‘Money Bomb’

The ‘Money Bomb’ is a time-honored tactic that has been given new life in the social media era. Timing is essential when a political issue surfaces that resonates with your base. Being able to harness that passion and turn it into donations and registrations at its height is essential to success. Prior to the advent of social media issue-based fundraising was slower as it took time to fire up phone banks and send mail-outs. The social media era cuts down the time significantly and the organic nature of sharing allows you to reach people that aren’t in your database as well.

Own the Meme

Political memes have become a staple of this presidential election cycle. Political humor is a sacred aspect of Western democracy and American political humorists have some of the sharpest wit around. One meme that proved to be fundraising dynamite for Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, was the SNL inspired “sweatervest meme”. Santorum had been frequently pictured wearing sweatervests, and SNL comedian Andy Samberg picked up on that fact to poke fun at the presidential hopeful. Santorum’s campaign saw the humor in it and turned it into a fundraising machine bringing in $300,000 for his campaign.

Lift the Hood

In politics the term “inside baseball” is often used to describe the minutiae of day-to-day political life. It’s the kind of stuff that politicians and political operatives live and die by in their bubble but assume (correctly for the most part) that most living in the world outside politics would have little use for.

During the 2008 presidential election cycle the Obama team found out that sharing this inside information was an effective tool for grass-roots organization and fundraising. ‘Lifting the hood’ as Obama campaign manager David Plouffe described in The Audacity to Win allowed “our supporters to understand how we saw the race and to know why their money and time were so important.”

Scale and Deploy

As I said at the outset these are examples from the big leagues of national politics but I believe they can be scaled to meet the needs of state and local political machines as well. These examples will attract attention as your supporters participate and share this content with their networks. This participation, from simple shares to active donations, allows parties to identify their vote and welcome people into their sphere of influence.