The U.S. Presidential election is just a few months away, and campaigning has come a long way since 2007.  Before, during the campaign period, you’d see thousands of fliers, posters, leaflets etc. making their way to the streets, but now, these candidates are heading to the streets of cyberspace, particularly social networking sites, paving their campaign trails with digital diligence.

Do the Obama

Since President Barack Obama’s win in 2008’s Presidential election, candidates are now looking to “Do an Obama” – meaning they want to leverage social networking sites to gain supporters.  But using social media as a platform for election campaign may not be suitable for everyone, as it can be quite tricky.  You have to take into consideration how the public will view you as a candidate campaigning on the internet.

“In order to effectively push through the clutter, you have to have a message that is real and true, authentic and credible,” veteran Democratic media consultant Jim Margolis stated.  “And voters must be targeted and reached on their terms.”

If you ask President Obama, he would of course say that the “Obama strategy works,” as he is using it again for this year’s election again.  If you go to President Obama’s site, you can see the Twitter feeds for @BarackObama and @Obama2012 on the right side, and all the posts on the site can be easily shared to your Facebook and Twitter account.  This just shows how his election campaign team sees social media as a very powerful tool.

President Obama is leading the race in social networking sites, with 13 million followers on Twitter and 25.5 million likes on Facebook.  His opponents are far behind: Mitt Romney has about 376,000 followers and 1.5 million likes, Newt Gingrich has more than 1.4 million followers and 295,979 likes, Rick Santorum has close to 165,000 followers 177,829 likes, and Ron Paul has about 27,500 followers and 908,056 likes.

Aside from his current popularity, President Obama is aiming to expand his reach with his Tom Hanks-narrated, Hollywood-style documentary, called “The Road We’ve Traveled.”  The video is set to go online on Thursday night.

If you want to reach out to people, let them hear what you have to say or vice versa, since everyone is using at least one form of social networking site, social media is the best platform to do so.  But social media may not always bring out the positive result candidates want.

The Drawback of Social Media

Everyone has a different opinion on things, from food preferences to religion, political affinity, etc.  And when we voice out our opinions on this stuff, you can bet that someone out there will disagree.  Nothing’s wrong with a little friendly debate but what if it costs you your friends?

According to a study released by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, a number of Americans have unfriended, blocked or hidden someone in their social networking site because of difference in political opinions.  The study also stated that Liberals were most likely to unfriend you if they disagree with your political opinions just to avoid arguments, or they just don’t want to be irritated with your constant rantings.

“Among the SNS users whose friends post political content, 25% always agree or mostly agree with their friends’ political postings; 73% of these SNS users “only sometimes” agree or never agree with their friends’ political postings,” said the report.  “When they disagree with others’ posts, 66% of these SNS users say they usually ignore the posts; 28% said they usually respond with comments or posts of their own; and 5% said it depends on the circumstances.”

“Social networking sites have become places where political conversation, debate, and proselytizing occur, especially during campaign seasons … Some analysts have expressed concerns about the impact of social networking sites on the broad political culture. They have worried that … users might customize their friendship networks by hanging out only with people who share and reinforce their political views,” the Pew report indicated.