Floyd

Breanna Floyd
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
November 9, 2015
Social Media and the Influence it has on Political Elections
Social media has not always been the go to for campaigning. Previous generations had to
use the TV, radio and politicians had to speak to people in person to get their ideas to the public.
Now getting information out is at the tip of every politicians finger. Literally, all they have to do

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is type on Twitter or Facebook and their campaign is out there for the public to see. Candidates
have a team now for social media. They can take care of everything for the candidate.
A candidates team hires people to make Google Bombs which take a series of words
and make the search come up with a candidate running against theirs. For example, if the quote

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miserable failure is searched in a browser, pages about George W. Bush come up. Someone

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has made a Google Bomb to link miserable failure and George W. Bush. (Metaxas 2012)
Google has recently made it nearly impossible for Google bombs to be made for politicians. It
is hoped that Google has permanently put a stop to them. Candidates teams didnt just quit when
they couldnt make Google Bombs,, now they found a way to make Twitter Bombs. It is the
same thing as Google but it happens in Twitter. Political scammers make fake Twitter accounts

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and send tweets for or against a politician on Twitter. They send as many tweets possible before
Twitter blocks them. These hackers have found a way to track Twitter users who recently
tweeted or shown an interest in politics or elections. The hackers target these people to try to
persuade them. (Metaxas 2012) Since two out of three people in the United States are on social

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media, that means these hackers can get to a large number of people and fast. Its almost a dirty
way to get votes because everyone slanders the other persons name for everyone to see. Before
social media, if someone said something to slander anothers name, it was known who said it.
Now campaign workers can post anonymously or even under a fake account so they can not be
caught.
Even though two out of three people are on social media that doesnt mean everyone
votes. An article in The Washington Post showed a study that found out only 41% of young
adults have shared some type of political election video or made an online group. Those 41% of
young adults are more likely to vote in elections. In 2014, 21.5% of young adults voted in the
election. (Levine 2014) Considering how many young people that are on social media, 21.5% is
a low amount of them voting. If the people who vote based only on social media, then they are
only voting on a small fraction of the information about a candidate. Some vote based on the

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number of followers a candidate has because they do not research more about the candidates.
People might think just because one has more likes or followers they are the better choice.
That is not the case at all. A candidates social media team can easily alter their numbers and
make it seem as though they are the better choice. With so many people on social media, if those
people would take the time to actually read about the candidates and their platforms, voting
would be based on ideas, not Facebook followers.
A study showed just how much Facebook can influence people voting. The experiment
involved 61 million users getting an election-day Facebook message. In 2010, 1% which is about
611,000 users had a message at the top of their feed encouraging them to vote. Along with the
message, a box that said I Voted was below the message for people to click. Another group
which were the 98% of users received the message and the box. The only difference was that

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because it goes with the other paragraph

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beside the I Voted box were six random Facebook friends that had clicked the box. For the
control group, they received no message. The study showed that the people who received no
message and the ones who received the message but not information about their friends voting,

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voted at the same rate. The group who saw the social message and who else voted were 2% more
likely to vote and 0.3% more likely to look into more information about the locations they could
vote. The researches estimated that 60,000 more people voted because of the social message.
More than 280,000 Facebook users were encouraged to vote through the social message that was
sent out. The study was published in Nature, The International weekly journal of science.
(Corbyn 2012)
The article said, Young people who are on track to economic success are much more likely to

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participate politically than those who are struggling. (Levine 2014) It is disappointing that this
quote is even true. Everyone should participate politically whether one is successful or struggling
because everyone here has the right to vote. Everyone should because that is their voice being
heard. Too many people do not participate and keep involved with elections. If that quote is true,
then those who are struggling should vote because they can get help from the government. With
the right person in office, help could be offered to change situations.
Even though social media is taking off with political elections, that does not mean
politicians should abandon the old ways. Social media sites will forever change the political
landscape, but they will not spell the end of politics as we know it. (Garecht) A candidate should

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not completely forget about the other ways to campaign, but he should combine social media
with it. The campaigns that best integrate their communications strategies as whole, including
TV, radio, direct mail, print, Internet, e-mail, and social networks will be the campaigns that reap
the biggest rewards from tools like Facebook and Twitter. (Garecht) Combining all of them will

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ensure that their campaign is reached by almost everyone. The older generation is more than

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likely not on Facebook or Twitter so if a candidate puts everything on social media, they will not

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see it. Also not everyone has a computer so those people wouldnt see anything either. Then
there is the opposite. Someone who surrounds their lives with social media might not watch TV
or listen to the radio. If a candidate doesnt put anything online, then that person might not read
it. A balance of all methods of campaigning would be the best option.
Hillary Clinton is one of the most involved politicians on social media. She is on
Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Snapchat and even Pinterest. Her social media team posts things on
all of them to make her seem more relatable and to humanize her according to the article on
CIO.com. Her team put on Snapchat, a social media site that is pictures, a picture of Clinton
when she was in high school. The caption was, Heres to the nerds. Happy first day of school!
which makes her appeal to more people. They put on her Pinterest pictures of her with her family
and her campaign as she travels around the country. (Brousell 2015) The website reached out to
the Clinton campaign but they would not comment on their social media tactics. Campaigns use
social media because of the Millennials. The Millennials are the ones who use the most social
media. 71% of Snapchat users are between the ages of 18 and 34 years old so campaigners want
to reach this generation.
An article said that Obama won the social media battle in the 2012 presidential election.
Just as President John F Kennedy won the election by using the TV, Obama did the same but
with social media. To promote Barack Obama on Facebook, his campaign spent over $643,000
out of the $16 million Internet budget. (Abid 2012) That is a lot of money spent on social media.
The money was used for online ads, Facebook followers and for Twitter. Current measures of
American adults who use social networks are at 69%; thats up significantly from the 37% of

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those who had social network profiles in 2008. (Abid 2012) The amount of adults using social
media rose 32% in four years. Right when social media was taking off, was when President

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Barack Obama was campaigning for the election. His team that was helping him with the social
media side understood it was not about technology but the psychology of social behaviors.
Obama was able to reach anyone who was on social media and share his campaign with them. To
win the social media campaign his team learned the tricks to looking good on social media better
than his components. A study showed that the Obama campaign posted nearly four times as
much content than the Romney campaign. (Pew Research Center 2012) The study also showed
that the Obama campaign received almost twice the number of shares, views and comments than
the Romney campaign. Obamas campaign was more likely to be talked by double that of the
Romney campaign. If Romneys social media team could have figured out the ins and outs of
social media campaigning that numbers between the two would have been smaller. If someone is
friends with another person who followed President Barack Obamas Facebook page, their
friends will see and may follow also.
In the article written by Abid, it said that Obama won the social media campaign but an
article on CNN did not agree. The article argued that Obama was the first president to win the
internet election. It is said that Trump could be the first president to win the social media and TV
reality election. He has learned how to use social media to his own benefit even though he
blackens his components names on social media. In history, the competitor who learns to use the
eras media tool wins. FDR with fireside chats, JFK, Reagan and Obama all learned and used
their social tools for their benefit. (Jones 2015) Trump attacks his opponents on social media,
such as Twitter, regularly. There is not sufficient evidence if that tactic actually helps or harms a
campaign. Some people have voted that he speaks the truth whether it hurts or not so its a good

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thing and others say that it is uncalled for. Social media sites and sites like Google are investing
in tools to back more facts and to build trust in media. Twitter and Facebook want to promote
higher quality information about candidates. Even though reports are proven false, they still are
on Facebook and Twitter. They both want that to change but that is a difficult thing to do. (Bell
2015)
Candidates spend millions and even billions of dollars on their campaigns. Of the money
they collect and spend a good bit of it goes to social media. It is estimated that politicians will
spend nearly 1 billion dollars on online ads. That is six times the amount spent during the last
presidential campaign. (Kuchler 2015) Out of the money they raise, $558 million dollars will go
to social media. That is almost 61% of the funds and is a third more than the previous elections.
In 2008, $22.2 million dollars were spent on US political online ads and it is estimated that in
2016 $955.1 millions dollar will be spent on online ads. Of the $955.1 million dollars, $557.5
million dollars will go towards social sits. The rest will go to videos and other online sites.
In the 2012 election, 30% of online users report that they were urged to vote via social
media by family, friends or other social network connections, 20% actively encouraged others
and 22% posted their decision when they voted. (Rutldge 2013) These percentages show just
how much social media can influence others and political campaigns. Over 39% of social media
users have seen friends or family discussing elections. (Rainie 2012) The more someone is
exposed to something, it will make the person raise questions and research it. If someone has
seen friends and family members post about elections, then they are more likely to research
them. They will learn more and be educated on the candidates and not just vote off of followers.
People put everything on social media now which encourages others to do it also. If one person
sees another voting they are more likely to go vote, especially if that person is close to them.

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Some people use their Facebook or other social media sites as a blog or rant for politics. They
share articles and express their feelings about it. Then others share what they had to say and it
spreads all over the internet. It is a quick way to get what you have to say about something out
there. My father is one of those people who posts about politics which makes me read more
about the articles. I am a curios person, which just about everyone is, so it makes me want to
know more so I am not blind to the situations happening around me. I know of many people who
learn so much from my fathers posts on Facebook. That is one example of how social media
influences political campaigns.
A few questions I had while researching this topic were, does social media promoting a
candidate make people vote for the one with the most likes or the one with actual good ideas?
What will be the next big thing for candidates to use to get to the people? Does attacking another
candidate online help or harm the campaign.? What other dirty tactics do politicians use? How
much should one spend on social media campaigning? How does social media make bad
candidates look good? To answer the first one, Facebook shows that Obama had nearly triple the
amount of friends on Facebook than Romney did. Did people vote for the one with the most
friends? It is unsure of how many actually did that but some did. Like it is stated above in the
paper, it is unsure whether attacking candidates online is harmful or helpful to ones campaign.
The next big thing could be anything. Social media is the new thing to use so almost all
candidates are using it.
Social media will always be something that consumes peoples lifes and politics until
something else takes over. It can be a positive influence but it can also be negative in elections. It
is all on the way the politician and his team goes about campaigning. The social media users
need to learn that they cant base everything off of what they see but they need to look into the

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candidates also. Social media is just a convenient trend that politicians are using but when the
next big thing comes out they will move on to it.

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find?

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Works Cited
Abid, Abdul. "The Political Power of Social Media." Dawn. 26 Sept. 2012. Web. 3 Nov.
2015.
Bell, Emily. What Are Facebook and Other Social Media Doing about Donald Trump?
Raw Story. 6 Dec. 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Brousell, Lauren. "Why Social Media Could Swing the 2016 Presidential Election." Why
Social Media Could Swing the 2016 Presidential Election. CIO, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 7 Dec.
2015.
Corbyn, Zoe. Facebook Experiment Boosts US Voter Turnout. Nature.com. Nature
Publishing Group, 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Garecht, Joe. "Using Social Media in Your Campaign." Using Social Media in Your
Campaign. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
How the Presidential Candidates Use the Web and Social Media. Pew Research Centers
Journalism Project RSS. 12 Aug. 2012. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Jones, Van. "Trump: The Social Media President? - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network,
26 Oct. 2015. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Kuchler, Hannah. "Social Media Aim for US Politicians Marketing Budgets - FT.com."
Financial Times. 16 July 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Levine, Peter. Social Media Hasnt Boosted Young Voter Turnout. The Washington Post
TheWashingtonPost.com. 1 Dec. 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Metaxas l, Panagiotis. Social Media and the Elections. Science and Society 6106 (2012):
472-73. AAAS. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

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Rainie, Lee. "Social Media and the 2012 U.S. Presidential Elections." U.S. Department of
State. 20 June 2012. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
Rutldge, Pamela. "How Obama Won the Social Media Battle in the 2012 Presidential
Campaign." The Media Psychology Blog. 15 Jan. 2013. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.