Tuesday, April 5, 2011

GOP and social media

As the 2012 elections gear up, GOP hopefuls are turning to social media. During the 2008 elections, the power of social media was harnessed by the Obama campaign in ways never before seen. Many analyst credit Obama's fundraising efforts and outreach through social media as one of the main reasons Obama was elected. Immediately after Obama announced his reelection campaign, Tim Pawlenty put out a youtube video. Still, GOP candidates have a long way to go. As of now, Obama has over 19 million facebook fans, while Pawlenty has about 81,000. It will be interesting to see how social media will be used during this election. New applications for social media and maybe new platforms will arise from this.

1 comment:

Liz Bayer said...

It'll be interesting to see how social media use helps or hurts Tim Pawlenty. I'm from Minnesota, and the perception here has always been that he's a nice guy, young, and affable. But also really boring. And I know that the "boring factor" has been an issue in the national media, so it'll be interesting to see if he can use social media to make himself seem more exciting and interesting, especially among young voters, who President Obama is great at energizing, but who Pawlenty hasn't really won over in the past.