Howard Pearlmutter responded to
LINKEDIN regarding Social Media and the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election. [This could be why Romney's binder comment was met with such disdain...]
QUOTE:
"It's 2012, there are 7 billion people on the planet and 6 billion mobile phone accounts -- so in some sense just about everybody is a "techie" compared to yesteryear. That said, the deep digital geek world, in which I've been active for over 45 years, overwhelmingly backed Obama, and the results are plain to see. Social Media is just one of dozens of technology areas (OFA datamining, 538 poll aggregation, dKos & progressive blogosphere, ActBlue & GiveGreen, MoveOn microtargetted GOTV, watchdogging against electronic voting machine tampering, counterbalancing traditional broadcast media, etc, etc, etc) where the digerati have given advantage to Progressive political progress. *** And it's much bigger than Obama doing a better job of using technology. We the forward-thinking technology creators have long been determined to hack the calcified institutions down to size, breakthrough the redneck roadblocks, remake the national conversation, decentralize power, and rearchitect each area of our society. We've been hugely successful, with successful revolutions (Personal Computers, Open Source, World Wide Web, to name just 3) -- and we're well on our way to reshaping big chunks of the economy, society, and culture. We put one of our own generation and our own mindset in the White House in 2008, and we reelected him in 2012. "
Here is the article on which he commented:
QUOTE.
"Did Social Media Play a Role in Obama’s Victory?
November 08, 2012
"When President Obama won his first election four years ago, it was widely reported that he used social media (especially Facebook) to help gain the momentum and the votes he needed to win. From that point on, it should have been a given that all future political candidates put full utilization of social media high on their list of strategic tools as they run their campaigns.
Back in January, I wrote an article talking about the fact that social media has grown in both size and influence since the last presidential election, and there are now many powerful social media tools available to candidates. Therefore, having an integrated approach that leverages multiple sites, with a special focus on the biggest players including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, would provide a very important strategic advantage.
Now that we all know that President Obama has won re-election with a decisive victory, let’s look at how each candidate used social media and see if there are any differences.
As of election night, President Obama had 32 million Facebook fans, 21 million Twitter followers, and 259,685 YouTube views.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney had 12 million Facebook fans, 1.7 million Twitter followers, and only 29,172 YouTube views.
Clearly the Obama team knew the importance of social media as a tool and did a much better job of using it to create both influence and action.
Some might say that Mitt Romney didn’t have the four years President Obama had to build a social media following. But if you look at how fast a following can be built, especially by people who get prime media attention, it’s clear that time is not a big factor. And when you look at the advertising budgets both candidates had, money clearly was not an issue.
The biggest problem for Mitt Romney and his team was not making an integrated social media strategy a strategic priority. If it had been a priority, the election may have ended very differently.
Did social media make a difference in the outcome of the election? When you have a close race, everything matters. So with that in mind, I would answer yes." END QUOTE
http://www.burrus.com/2012/11/did-social-media-play-a-role-in-obamas-victory/
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