Alton Drew
+ FollowSocial Media is the Campaign Water Cooler
In offices and other workplaces, informal gatherings around the water cooler provide a forum for the exchange of gossip, sports scores, and office politics. And these days, it includes the hash tag.
Herman Cain is clearly taking advantage of the new social media water cooler. A contender for the Republican nomination for President, Cain has witnessed an appreciable jump in some polls. According to a recent CBS poll, he’s actually tied with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, with both candidates receiving 17% of the support of GOP voters. Just two weeks earlier, Mr. Cain polled at 5%.
Governor Rick Perry, after a couple poor debate performances, polled at 11% and has lost ground since a couple of weeks prior.
Some of this increase in Cain’s polling is partly due to his intense use of social media, specifically Twitter.
According to Wyeth Ruthven, a senior director at Qorvis Communications LLC, Cain makes the best use of Twitter. “He is actively engaged”, says Mr. Ruthven, adding that Cain is also adept at creating and adopting hash tags, that ubiquitous little symbol that indicates a specific topic and discussion being formed.
According to a Twitter Valuation Analysis produced by Qorvis in September 2011, Cain had 88,101 Twitter followers. Perry had 93,457 followers while Romney had 114,790.
Ironically, former Georgia congressman and House Speaker Newt Gingrich had 1,332,310 Twitter followers, but only polled at 8% according to Qorvis’ analysis.
The intensity of Cain’s engagement may be best reflected in the amount of tweets his campaign has posted.
During the period September 13 to October 1, 2011, Cain’s Twitter account grew 29.47%, compared to growth of 28.64% for Romney, and 11.67% growth for Perry.
Cain’s tweets more than his fellow front runners. In September, he posted 147 tweets, while Romney posted 62 tweets. Perry, perhaps spending too much time at his infamous ranch to care, posted a paltry 18 tweets during September, according to Qorvis.
Twitter has some advantages that candidates and voters can take advantage of, according to Ruthven – advantages unheard of just within the last ten years in the electronic communications world.
For example, Twitter allows candidates to create their own demographics. According to Ruthven, Cain has been using the hash tag, #tcot, which stands for “Top Conservatives on Twitter.”
For voters, Twitter does not ask for a lot of personal information, which may make it easier for voters to sign up and participate.
Twitter is also non-intrusive. Unlike e-mail, where messages can hang around in a subscribers inbox until action is taken to clear them out, Twitter messages scroll off the page, out of sight, out of mind.
Cain has captured the notion of social media as philosophy versus social media as technology, according to Ruthven. The philosophy behind Twitter is authenticity and immediacy. The candidate that uses Twitter according to this standard may just increase their ability to connect with that many more voters.
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2 Responses to Social Media is the Campaign Water Cooler
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So according to the article, it is not the quantity of followers, but the quality of the posts. Just like Google in their new ranking methods. Not surprising.
Mickey http://www.innovativecampaignstrategies.com