Measuring Social Media Open Source
Brett Bell I
n the last few election cycles here in Canada, social media has played a larger role in how campaigns present themselves to voters. While
online campaigning was seen in the middle part of the decade as a stunt or an interesting footnote to be mentioned in a wider media story on the campaign, the bigger story has become how essen- tial campaigning online has become to achieving electoral success. Election campaigns of all political stripes have enthusiastically embraced the concept of hav- ing a strong digital presence – to the point where more often than not the online campaign occupies a prominent place on the internal organizational flow chart. Online campaigns have gone from assets (websites, email accounts) to full voter en- gagement on blogs, social networks, forums and interactive advertising. The arrival of social media in a campaign envi-
ronment comes as no surprise to those who have followed and chronicled the rise in prominence of this versatile communications tool. Successive sur- veys have shown that Canadians widely embrace and use social media in their daily lives - and that trend is quickly moving upwards. A 2009 survey from Vancouver-based 6S Marketing which polled 10,000 Canadians showed that 70% of Canadians use some kind of social media and 61% of busi- nesses track what people are saying about their brand online.
What campaign management is looking for from social media is this: a measurement of the return on investment, or ROI. In other words, what do I get back for the dollars I spend on any kind of an online campaign? Or the more commonly asked question: how many votes will this get me?
US-based Forrester Research, which regularly
tracks social media usage in a variety of countries, offers that Canada has the most active social net- workers in any market they survey. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, principle analyst Nate El- liott stated: “I can’t imagine a marketer who would
ignore something that this many Canadians are us- ing. If you are not participating in social media right now as a marketer, then you are late.” The overwhelming pervasiveness of social me-
dia in the lives of Canadians casts aside the idea that online social networking is merely a passing fad. For definitive proof, just follow the money: Canadian marketers – whose primary purpose is to draw the public’s ever-fleeting attention to their product or service – have indicated that they will continue to increase the percentage of their adver- tising budgets online. So it is not a surprise that the Canadian political
community is following suit. As it gets harder and harder to get voters on the phone or at the door in their homes, campaigns are looking for new ways to connect with voters. Enter social media. The standard campaign in 2010 has a full offer-
ing of campaign activities. To be viewed as a viable contemporary campaign, not only do you need a fully interactive website; you need a Facebook page, Twitter account, branded social network and reams of videos, blog posts and comments on your digital outposts. Campaigners across Canada are becoming ever
more fluent in communicating online. As tech- nology becomes cheaper and more accessible, they are being added to the political messaging toolkit. Why only put your release on the wire when you can post it to your site, or better yet, your Twitter account in real time? Want folks to see how many enthusiastic supporters you had at your campaign rally? Post the highlights in a video on YouTube. But ask any experienced campaign manager
and they’ll quickly throw out the old chestnut that politics is about managing scarcity: campaigns never have enough time, money or volunteers. So, the shiny new application you want to build for the campaign quickly hits the brick wall of a tight budget when it comes time to make a decision on where to spend those increasingly scare dollars. Further, in such a short writ period decisions on where to deploy the limited number of volunteers and/or staff a campaign possesses take on crucial importance. What campaign management is looking for is
this: a measurement of the return on investment, or ROI. In other words, what do I get back for the dollars I spend on any kind of an online campaign? Or the more commonly asked question: how many votes will this get me?
June 2010 | Campaigns & Elections 63
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80