Effect of Social Media on Current Presidential Campaign

Effect of Social Media on Current Presidential Campaign

Introduction

The social media has transformed completely and its purpose has changed from the media of a decade before. Few years back, internet was just taken a media, now the society has moved to different websites including Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to gain knowledge. The use of social media has increased with high rates during the last ten years. Now different groups are using social media for different purposes. The businesses are using social media for marketing and advertising purposes. Similarly, the political parties are also using social media for their political campaigns. The use of social media websites have increased in United States during the election cycles. This was a very helpful tool for the voters in order to gain knowledge about the candidates in elections. Thus, in order to effectively target the audience the presidential candidates have developed campaign strategies to work with these media. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of social media websites on current presidential campaigns between President Barrack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. The impact and usefulness of social media has been discussed in this paper in order to analyze the impact of social media on presidential election campaigns.

Discussion

The increase in popularity of social media in last ten years has become a great contributor in creating a social environment. Now the social media is not only a medium to communicate with friends but it is also a platform for increasing communication between brands and consumers and voters and candidates (Baum, 2008). The social media has become a very important medium for different brands to hammer home messages and develop a strong relationship with their customers. There are different global brands which are spending millions of dollars on social media campaigns in order to gain people engagement. These brands are mainly, Disney, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Procter and Gamble. These brands are not only placing banner ads but also increasing communication with potential customers in order to gain knowledge about their tastes and preferences (Simba, 2009). The interaction of people also helps in sharing their posts with their other friends. Thus, social media has come out to be the most convenient and feasible option for companies to promote their brand. Today, social media has become a necessary component for the political campaigns, and is considered as the integral part of the political campaigns to target a large audience. Social media is effectively used for providing the lines of communications to the audience and the knowledge about candidates and different issues which is difficult to get from Television.

What are Social Media?

Social media is a new type of media and is very common in recent years. Even though social media is characterized as the form of new media, but it also has its own distinguishing factors. Social networking sites are a part of social media and are the primary form of communication (Metzgar, ...