The buzz after Monday’s debate anchored by Brian Williams seems to focus mistakenly on the squabble that is happening between Mitt Romney and New Gingrich.
While this makes great television and allows the broadcast networks to sell advertising time around this programming, the real battle is happening on a media landscape that should be front and center for those on the road to the White House – social media and the internet.
Far from the maddening claims and counter-claims being made around tax returns, influence peddling and the Straits of Hormuz, a battle is being waged for the hearts and minds of The Silent Majority whose members (aka voters) spend a significant amount of time on the internet gathering information, purchasing products , building communities of shared concerns and interests and demonstrating their interest and affinity to political candidates. Nowhere have I seen any focus from any of the competing media outlets on the tidal wave of change that is evidenced through data that is publically accessible via the web.
It appears that the Republican candidates and their marketing teams have missed a huge opportunity to build their brands by leveraging effectively social media.
All of this unforgiveable after Candidate Obama and his campaign team gave a clinic on how to build a strong and influential base of social media friends and followers that converted into campaign supporters (raising over half-billion dollars) and voters on Election Day 2008.
I am puzzled when I hear several of the remaining Republican candidate “brands” espouse on television that they are capturing the hearts and minds of “young voters.” Sorry folks – the data isn’t proving this out. The internet story is pretty clear. Any idea that the communities that spend time in online venues like Linked In, Facebook and/or Twitter do not represent mainstream America defies logic and fact. Candidate brands that are truly interested in winning in November had better stop running millions of dollars of TV commercials … and get focused on winning the battle for The Silent Majority within their online communities.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening with Facebook "Likes" in the last week…
Mitt Romney - 1,375282 – UP 32,556
Ron Paul – 786,293 – UP – 42,573
Newt Gingrich – 248,217 – UP 18,090
Rick Santorum – 86,405 – UP 7,650
President Barack Obama – 24,706,073 – UP 167,294
There were a number of interesting developments across the Republican candidates’ social media strategy this week.
Mitt Romney is featuring a video of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s endorsement prominently above the fold on his Facebook page; “donate button” only visible when you scroll down.
Ron Paul and Rick Santorum devote much of their pages to “facebook comments.” Santorum focused on his platform from last night’s debate topic of immigration “If you want to be an American…respect our laws.”
Ron Paul seems to be as agitated as his son Sen. Rand Paul regarding the younger Paul’s refusal to go through a full body scan at a TSA airport checkpoint and the fact that, consequently, the Senator missed his flight and a speaking engagement.
No confusion regarding Newt Gingrich’s focus. There’s a prominent message top of fold with “boxing gloves” motif… “Help raise $2 Million dollars for a knockout punch money bomb in Florida.” Pretty clear that Speaker Gingrich is focused on raising money as his No. 1 goal. (I’m not sure the use of words like “money bomb” are appropriate right now with what is going on in our world.)
Suffice it to say, as you look at these Facebook numbers, Newt and others would probably be much better served if they spent a little time and/or money focused in a place where they are losing quite badly. Ron Paul leads the pack in Facebook friends growth week over week. Mitt Romney continues to grow his base strongly despite all of the broadcast debate flak. The Santorum campaign looks lost on the web and while the candidate continues to grow, his base is far too small to be meaningful as we head toward November. All of the television exposure has done little to boost his numbers to a place of contention.
In aggregate, President Obama continues to pummel the field in his ability to grow his base online. Up over 167,000 Facebook friends in the past week. He is running nearly 70 percent ahead of the aggregate of all Republican candidates combined!
Twitter followers - In the last week
Newt Gingrich – 1,419,586 – UP 24,413
Ron Paul – 331,451 - UP 24,308
Mitt Romney – 288,052 – UP 19,730
Rick Santorum – 92,242 – UP 7595
President Barack Obama - 12,104,540 – UP 118,282
First Lady Michelle Obama – 471,765 – UP 77,731
Newt Gingrich seems to have recaptured this past week a group of followers that he lost in early January. His current group of followers is about 5,000 higher than his previous high.
Mitt Romney is showing a consistent growth pattern in the last several weeks; he’s up nearly 35 percent in followers since early January.
Ron Paul has also bounced back strongly this week, picking up some of his lost followers.
The news here for the Rick Santorum campaign is distressing. A focus on building out the social media strategy should have been a priority for the candidate. His numbers here demonstrate a real gap in thinking from a marketing perspective.
The President and First Lady are crushing it on Twitter. Just in the last week, the First couple has nearly 200,000 new folks following their every move and thought. In fact, First Lady Michelle Obama today ranks second behind Newt Gingrich in terms of her relative standing.
A good colleague of mine gave me a great anecdote when we came across marketers who seemed to be in denial regarding data and the urgency of making change. He said, ”these folks know that they have a problem with their engine; they hear that knocking sound that denotes a problem. Their solution is to the problem is to turn up the volume of the radio so they don’t hear the knock.”
Reports from the field document that the Silent Majority is speaking loud and clear. The choice for those on the road to the White House is pretty simple: either turn up the volume or look under the hood.
