How Social Media Will Affect Kasich's Campaign

Evolution of Campaigns

After the 2008 election many campaign managers started to realize the importance of social media. To that point no election had really been influenced by the role social media had on society during a campaign cycle. Obama was a master in utilized many things alongside his image and speeches that characterized him as a symbol for hope and change many people desperately wanted. The Obama 2008 campaign may be most known amongst campaign strategists for micro-targeting and social media, often times mixing the two. However micro-targeting is something that’ll play a bigger role as we get closer to when people actually get out to vote. So let’s focus on social media which plays a highly influential role in the public’s perception of a candidate.

Free and New Media

In past candidates have always played a balancing game of trying to get out their message, but not have it altered along the way. With people the relationships they have can change the tone of a campaign message and with the media there is a scary lack of control over what will be said about a candidate. However a new age of communicating with virtually no cost has allowed candidates to go directly to the constituents they’ll need to get voting in order to win a campaign. Instead of paying for postage they simply focus on the message itself and not how it may be changed as people alter its message. Recognizing the importance social media can play for a candidate let’s take a look at the Buckeye state’s Governor and his social media presence in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary Race.

A Good Ole Boy on The Web

I’ll focus around the two most known social media sites Facebook and Twitter for obvious reasons as they are and for the foreseeable future will be the biggest in the game. Facebook appears to be geared towards a combination of promoting videos of him speaking on policy and at events he’s hosting along the campaign trail. There isn’t much that stands out on this page, but the hope of videos on Facebook makes a lot of sense. People are much more willing to click on it assuming a friend posted it and that they are sitting at computer somewhere they can watch compared to other platforms geared to a more mobile environment.

Realizing how a platform is utilized is essential for an effective strategy and Kasich used this along Twitter as well. The campaign has two notable accounts with a ‘personal’ John Kasich account that highlights his campaign stops and notable interviews and a Team Kasich campaign communications team account. There is a difference between the two as the communications team seems to be geared less toward image and focusing around the storyline of the campaign – likely geared towards reporters and bloggers. The personal page is geared much more to his image and promoting this idea of strong and compassionate leader you’ll see along the campaign trail. The Kasich’s campaign on Twitter as a whole appears to be focused more around encouraging retweets and followers as it should be. Twitter is much less of a discussion than it is for someone to scroll through as they’re waiting for the bus. Kasich knows this and has highlighted the differences in how people approach them in their strategies.

Predicting the Future

All of these things are interesting, but must be taken into context if we will be able to understand how they fit in the picture as a whole. Be sure to check out my previous blog in order to realize Kasich’s strengths, weaknesses, and how he’ll work with outside forces in the future. Where do I recommend they go from here as it pertains to growing the Kasich For America movement? A central strategy of promoting his programs is good and utilizing broadcasted interviews and debates is great as it pertains to getting out the message relatively easily, but they’ll need to do much more than that. Kasich’s messages of hope and a stronger middle class will be better communicated with clips from him on the trail. Having a dedicated team who knows how to videotape, cut, and publicize this with the necessary equipment should do a lot of the leg work though. Instead of putting a 30 second portion of a debate onto a quick video with some background music get an image of passionate leader who people can rally behind and support will follow. From there increasing the interaction with other candidates and creating an incentive for news journalists to cover the campaign will take Kasich For America leaps and bounds ahead. The real question is when they’ll start employing strategies like this as timing is always important. For more on John Kasich and other campaign strategies candidates can employ keep checking The Trend.