According to OpenSite, in 2008, 1.8 million tweets were sent on Election Day. During the first debate alone, more than 10 million tweets were made in the 90-minute verbal battle. Social media is taking an ever-present spot in politics – and whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay. In October, a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project showed that 39% of American adults use social media to discuss politics.

Obviously, the election is pretty important to the average voter, so they take to online sites to express their opinions. Each tidbit of input they have has a small influence in their respective social circles. However, it’s the social media campaign that each candidate embarks upon that arguably has the most influence on the election. For 2012, Obama was not only victorious in his quest for re-election, but also in his efforts to recreate the 2008 social presence that greatly contributed to his first presidential term.

The infographic that we observed in class regarding both Obama’s and Romney’s Facebook posts showed the techniques that each candidate’s campaign team implemented in order to appeal to voters. Obama’s Facebook was deeply personalized and heartwarming – pictures of him with his wife and kids elicited touching sentiments and allowed Obama to connect on a more individual level with his supporters. Romney’s posts, on the other hand, were blocks of texts encouraging his supporters to “like” his Facebook page. These actions did give him many likes, but only in spurts – indeed, the behavior of his followers seemed strangely robotic, only reacting when ordered. Although our guest in class, Zeynep Tufekci, mentioned that Obama’s social media presence would be frowned upon elsewhere in the world, I feel as if Americans are heartened by the proverbial “family man.” Obama certainly edged out Romney when it came to likeability and personality, and this significantly contributed to his victory this year.

Now, however, I would like to delve deeper into Obama’s campaign strategy. It didn’t only rely on Facebook and other common mediums like Twitter – his team also used the brilliant tactic of using Reddit as an opportunity to directly connect with the common voters. Given, Reddit is certainly pro-Obama, but even so his AMA (ask me anything) did much more than propagate an already widespread positive opinion. Its short notice actually crashed Reddit, which already handles over 2 billion page views a month. Although Obama only answered a select few questions, the general reaction to him taking the time out of his day to post on a forum was overwhelmingly positive. Indeed, it’s interesting to note that shortly before Election Day, Obama returned to Reddit and posted a link encouraging Redditors to go vote. When viewed as a whole, his strategy was brilliant – he established a presence on the site, incentivized discussion, and returned with a call to action encouraging Redditors to support him. This sort of social marketing is unprecedented; Romney did nothing of the sort, but I’m sure that we’ll see very similar political behavior in the future.

A final issue that I’d like to address was Romney’s negative social media presence. Events such as the Mother Jones video, the Big Bird comment, and the now-infamous “binders full of women” certainly did not contribute positively to his campaign. In short, Romney cited “47% of Americans believe they are victims,” in a leaked video where he asserted that this group also paid no income tax and are dependent on the government. In a debate, Romney attempted to soften his stance on cutting funding for PBS by uttering the inane statement “I love Big Bird,” a phrase that resulted in a social media wave of Twitter accounts and memes. The same reaction was observed when Romney claimed he had “binders full of women” when attempted to defend his stance on equality in the workplace.

All in all, I believe that this election was the beginning of a new type of battle – a so-called “social media election.” A direct correlation can be found between Obama’s online campaigning efforts and his results. I am sure that the online social network will find new and creative ways of participating in upcoming elections.