Social Networks and the 2016 Presidential Campaign
Unlike past presidential campaigns, network building through social media is playing an important role in the 2016 race. Candidates are now using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, among others to get their word out and broaden their network. But why the change in campaigning strategy from past years? It is because these politicians have realized the shift of how people consume news and their way of connecting with others. In addition, with about 81 million eligible millennial voters, presidential candidates have found the goldmine for creating a network with the younger voter generation.
Using social media has become one of the primary ways for candidates to connect to their potential voters. Using Twitter, Facebook, and other websites gives them the most direct interaction with the American public. Some politicians, namely Hilary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker, have used Twitter to announce their candidacy for the 2016 campaign. On Facebook, the public can openly and easily see what the politician supports by seeing what pages he/she liked and the videos and images he/she shared. These social media sites give candidates an opportunity to retweet and share posts that they feel is relevant to their platform. By doing so, their 1 million+ followers (and potentially followers of followers) will see exactly what the candidate is saying in less than a second of posting or tweeting. Using the stage and live television is becoming less common because announcing/sharing via social media is faster, more concise, and it reaches more people.
In Networks, the topic of social networks and their strong and weak links has been discussed this past week. Websites like Twitter and Facebook garner one of the largest social networks on the internet. On these sites, almost everyone is connected to everyone else, at least indirectly. 2016 candidates understand the importance of these sites and the idea that they can access that one giant component of the internet version of the global friendship network. It takes only one person to follow you on Twitter or Facebook for another person to see that and do the same. The idea of retweeting and sharing is an important aspect of social media that candidates have relied on and will rely on for the 2016 campaign. Social media can get the candidate’s word out to people that would otherwise not know. This says a lot about the power of social media and the networks that it forms. In the year to come, we will see these social networks play a large role in the campaigns of almost all the candidates. The difference in the way they utilize these network connections and posts may be the difference between winning and losing the presidency.