The Effects of Twitter on Politics – It’s Not Just for Profits
March 19, 2009
Senator-turned-United-States-President-Barack-Obama did and so can you, if you’re a politician.
Be a Twitter success story, that is.
The effects of Twittering have found successfully their way, albeit relative, into the hearts and minds of the political pundits and reporters as they Twitter away, sharing their views with high-powered politicians. President Obama quite successfully maneuvered the social networking stratosphere with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and with its help, cinched the presidency. He was able to gather large, massive followings, much of which is still growing even until today. He has used these platforms to further his agenda and to share his political message. Since what he has done with these platforms is such a success, many other politicians are taking note of it and using it for their own purposes.
Obama’s staunch political opponent, John McCain, seemed to have been a reluctant one who did not go as far as Obama did in finding and securing the online vote like Barack did. Did it perhaps cause him the presidency? Could he have increased his chances had he embraced social media? No one can say for sure whether or not heavy networking on these social scenes could have helped, or even hurt his chances. But one thing is for sure and that is that social networking works, it works well and its here to stay. Suggestion: get on the social networking train!
Recently, George Stephanopoulos interviewed John McCain on what was a first time interview on the social networking powerhouse of Twitter. The full transcript is available to read, but what was even more interesting about the interview was the way that G. Stephanopoulos gathered his material for the interview: He asked follow Twitterers.
I received a lot of questions for the senator from the Twitter community — thanks for those.
Twitter does it again! Aside from it being a powerful tool for marketing and networking, politics is becoming a heavy-hitter component of the social networking arsenal. People are doing more than connecting and Tweeting on their sites. They’re reading and opinion-forming and debating and asking questions. Movements are happening – - just look at Obama’s Facebook page and you’ll see his ‘followers’ and how he deftly posts a cause or poses a seemingly random question every now and again. Maybe this helped his campaign, maybe it had nothing to do with him winning. It’s all opinion. But, what does social networking mean for politics?
Politicians must learn to go where their voters are. If their voters want to hear the issues and their take on them, they should deliver it to them in a format that they can readily accept and understand. The world has rapidly moved toward technology and there is absolutely no slowing down in terms of technology, new developments and speed. The smartest and best thing for anyone to do is to get on board. Including politicians. It just makes sense.
Did the social networking component have any bearing on your voting decision this past election? Do you think it’s at all critical for a politician to have a MySpace page, or do you think you’d like to know what their having for lunch at any given day? Do you think it’s silly or is it something that needs attention?
This post was written by Bridget Wright.
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