Politicians embrace email marketing, but what about Social Media?

Nov 8, 2006 Michael Brito

According to ClickZ, a recent report  by research firm PQ Media on political ad spending reveals that direct email accounted for roughly 80 percent of the $40 million spent online by political advertisers leading up to the current midterm elections. This strategy makes perfect sense since political marketers can leverage geotargeting in their direct marketing efforts. Indeed, direct email marketing is an effective tool and she be used as part of any integrated marketing plan, but what about social media?

I have been blogging about social media for a little over 3 months now and I have noticed that there aren’t many bloggers talking about the need for politicians to use social media as a channel to communicate their marketing messages.  David Wilson, author of the popular Social Media Optimization blog titles one of his postings “Politicians Interested in Social Media” but cites that many politicians talk about social media but never seem to execute a social media marketing strategy.  In another post, David also states “Just as corporations need to create and execute a social medial marketing plan, so do politicians running for office.” I completely agree with David. As social media is almost mainstream, it’s imperative for politicians to penetrate this exponentially growing channel.  In today’s politics, social media probably won’t have too much of an impact on the results of an election; but I anticipate that it will be a tremendous opportunity for future incumbents to tap into a new demographic.

Technorati Tags: social media, social media optimization, smo, social media marketing, political marketing, ClickZ, email marketing


comment    cat Posted in Social Media Optimization
Did you enjoy this article? If so, please subscribe to my blog!

RSS feed | Trackback URI

2 comments »

February 21st, 2007 at 4:46 am

[...] And lastly, our lovely Democratic Party is finally catching on to Social Media.  Mr. Obama’s website allows users to create profiles, find nearby supporters, plan and attend events, network with friends, become a fundraiser and set up a blog.  On the Clinton’s side, the Team Hillary Action Center wants users to help build the supporter list, host and attend Hillary events, set goals for “Hillraisers” or registered users and become a guest blogger. [...]

 
Comment by Jason YeeNo Gravatar Subscribed to comments via email

February 21st, 2007 at 5:54 pm

Looks to me like Obama and Hillary are already engaged!!! Say goodbye to the republicans!!!

: )

 

What do you think? Join the discussion...

Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
Website
Subscribe to comments via email
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)