Could internet marketers get someone elected?

papajohn56

papajohn56

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As good as we all are with creating hype, social media, ads, etc etc, it'd be a neat case study to see if a lot of IMers could rally around a candidate, and single handedly run their campaign pretty much. With SEO, PPC, and anyone who does TV, I think it could be done here.
 


i'll volunteer to be the candidate. i vow that as your leader, i'll take a hard pro-smoking-weed stance, and abolish the healthcare system entirely. i will stop all unnecessary police activity, including "protecting" and "serving", and i promise to ensure safe, easy access to firearms for every man, woman and child in our great country. no longer will the mentally unsound be oppressed into institutions of psychological repair! no longer will the fda inspect your food before you eat it! no longer will clowns be limited to circus rings! america, elect me as your next president, and we will go to war, not with terrorists, but with terror itself!
 
papajohn56 said:
As good as we all are with creating hype, social media, ads, etc etc, it'd be a neat case study to see if a lot of IMers could rally around a candidate, and single handedly run their campaign pretty much. With SEO, PPC, and anyone who does TV, I think it could be done here.
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I do kind of get what you are saying, but really isn't this already what happens every election?

Unless you used "internet marketers" in the sense that a surgeon would refer to a chiropractor... (ie. do you think election campaigns don't have marketers currently, or is it that they have "real" marketers and you are talking about "online" marketers?)
 
maybe in 100 years when TV looses importance to the degree that radio has and the predominant form of entertainment is via your PC.

As long as people are raised and breed on TV, TV is the #1 medium to make up most peoples minds on any given subject.
 
Nostalgae said:
I do kind of get what you are saying, but really isn't this already what happens every election?

Unless you used "internet marketers" in the sense that a surgeon would refer to a chiropractor... (ie. do you think election campaigns don't have marketers currently, or is it that they have "real" marketers and you are talking about "online" marketers?)
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A lot of them have the so called "social media experts" we all ridicule to hell around here. They have marketers and campaigners, but the internet is still foreign territory to a lot of them. 2008 was the first time we *really* saw big internet campaigns.

greenleaves said:
maybe in 100 years when TV looses importance to the degree that radio has and the predominant form of entertainment is via your PC.

As long as people are raised and breed on TV, TV is the #1 medium to make up most peoples minds on any given subject.
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Look at the role the internet played in this past election for candidates like Obama and Ron Paul. It was massive for them. $6mil raised in a single day - online alone.
 
I have wondered about this also.

I've also wondered about the government using those who are very highly skilled for more nefarious things like anti-terrorism, etc. I couldn't be that hard to start setting up fake recruitment rings, etc, to find those people who are looking to make trouble. The media is always reporting about anonymous websites for various terrorist organizations and what not.

Then it occurred to me that this has likely been going on for years. Or longer.
 
well idk if ron paul counts as "trying to get elected by the interwebz" but his plan obviously failed
 
ricdes said:
well idk if ron paul counts as "trying to get elected by the interwebz" but his plan obviously failed
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His plan succeeded. The plan of others to elect him failed.

Ron Paul doesn't want to be President. He doesn't even want to be an effective Congressman (in the contemporary sense). That is why he makes principled no votes when everyone else is scared to vote according to their conscience.

Since "losing" he has become the most visible and respected Republican in the world, after being a relative nobody for the 30 years previous in politics. He was such an outsider his own party would run congressional candidates against him as an incumbent in his home district. The GOP can't stand him!

Since dropping out of the election, RP's stock has never been higher with two NYT bestsellers and hundreds of media appearances. Libertarianism and Austrian Economics have never had a higher profile, and everyone knows it is due to RP and the 2008 campaign. History might look back at that as a seminal event.

Ron Paul is not trying to seize the reins of power. He is trying to lead an intellectual revolution that may not pay off for a generation or more.
 
traditional mediums still dominate. and even if internet was able to drive enough people to the polls, you'd have IMers on both sides of every issue.
 
Back in 2006, the movie Borat used a lot of social media (Myspace 'friends' getting black carpet early viewings, Youtube promotion, etc) to create buzz and the studio, sensing this building buzz, actually increased the number of screens for its opening weekend at the last minute.

The movie ended up having the biggest under-1000 screens opening of all time and taking the #1 spot that weekend too.

One of (or the primary) web guys behind much of that Borat movie promotion online went on to work for Obama's internet campaign in a leading role... And Obama ended up doing better than initially expected as well.

So there's certainly precedent.
 
papajohn56 said:
As good as we all are with creating hype, social media, ads, etc etc, it'd be a neat case study to see if a lot of IMers could rally around a candidate, and single handedly run their campaign pretty much. With SEO, PPC, and anyone who does TV, I think it could be done here.
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I think this medium is being used now for every election........

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IMers already do this. One of my guys at Goog was telling me how they have a team that works primarily with politicians/govt. Think about how powerful it is to advertise locally, especially in areas that aren't already "owned" by a particular party or candidate. These guys can just come in and dominate the regions they want. And only something like 20% of their marketing budget is spent on online stuff.

Politician A is a Republican. He knows that Politician B already owns some of the major liberal metropolitan areas.
Politician A knows that there are more votes in the surrounding areas.
Politician A throws a small portion of his budget to online marketing, targeting the surrounding suburbs and rural areas, and owning the market share.

Politician A wins
 
papajohn56 said:
As good as we all are with creating hype, social media, ads, etc etc, it'd be a neat case study to see if a lot of IMers could rally around a candidate, and single handedly run their campaign pretty much. With SEO, PPC, and anyone who does TV, I think it could be done here.
Click to expand...
You know what's funny, I was thinking about this a few weeks ago. Not so much at the national level, but more at the local. My neighbor is a city commissioner and we pretty much hate each other. I'm pretty sure I could influence the outcome of his re-election (along with the mayor and several other d-bags currently in office). I was thinking a combination of social media and KWs like <city name> + election, + vote, + voting information etc leading up to the elections...and then using those top positions to say whatever I want to.
 
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