Social Media is the Key to Victory

The biggest issue on Facebook lately has been the Presidential Race 2012. America has been bombarded with campaign ads. There have been numerous predictions on who was going to supposedly win the presidency. One of these predictions that increase my interest was a study I heard via radio. I tried to find the study been had no luck; however, as I recall the results from a 2008 survey illustrated that the more a candidate was searched and talked about online for dense reason such as ‘What are the symbols on Romney’s underwear?’ ‘Topless pictures of Paul Ryan’, was more likely to lose the race.  This survey caused me to raise an eyebrow, but after some research and thought, Romney could have lost the race for other reasons than this. One reason can be seen on the image displayed, where you can see that Obama’s campaign spent $52,006,072 unlike Romney‘s campaign who spent $26,230,293. With the money spent on the Obama’s campaign we could have built another Lincoln Memorial or Washington Monument. Besides outspending Romney, Obama’s campaign really focused on online marketing whether it was through ads or social media, (Rosen, 2012). “One study showed Obama spent $16.4 million in online advertising in the first few months of 2012, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Romney had spent $7.8 million, according to the filings, (Obama, 2012).”  Plus Obama’s campaign really used social media to his advantage. “Obama had more than 18 million followers on Twitter when it last audited the account, in August, compared to 787,080 for Romney. Obama's Facebook page had 27.5 million supporters, compared to 2.9 million for Romney. On Facebook, users expressed support for nearly twice as many Obama posts as they did Romney posts. Twitter users passed along, or retweeted, 150,106 Obama messages to their own followers, compared to 8,601 retweets of Romney posts, according to the study. (Obama, 2012).” After pondering these statistics, I am left with the impression that one can win if the candidate is relatable through social media and spends a lot voicing their platform while dragging their candidate through the dirt.

Work Cited 

     Obama campaign more active online, Pew says - CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/15/politics/presidential-campaign-web/index.html
     Rosen, K. (2012, Nov 05). Who spent more on online ads this election? Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/11/05/online-ads-election/