E marketer the_new_political_influencers-social_medias_effect_on_the_campaign_trail

Copyright ©2012 eMarketer, Inc. All rights reserved.
Consumer Behavior and Attitudes 2
Social Political Marketing 6
Conclusions 8
eMarketer Interviews 9
Related Links 9
October 2012
Executive Summary: The 2012 election is the first truly “social” presidential cycle. Candidates from major and
minor parties alike are plastered all over the most popular sites, with presences on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube,
not to mention Tumblr, Reddit, Quora and many others. In surveys, social network users claim social content doesn’t
influence their political opinions and activity, but the evidence is adding up that they are wrong.
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Meanwhile, election-related social activity is also having an
influence on social media users’ opinions about their own friends.
For marketers and media companies, the evolution of political
activity on social networks, and the ambivalence of users
about it, echoes longtime challenges surrounding controversial
content, whether traditional news or user-generated. The data
suggests that users are influenced by political/social content
but also that they are resistant to it, pointing up opportunity and
risk for marketers when working within social media.
In addition, the emergence of political messaging via social
networks underscores two core lessons of social media: First,
social messages can take on a life of their own, upending the
intended message, and second, privacy is a paramount concern
for users, even in a “sharing” environment.
Key Questions
■■ How many people turn online, and especially to social media,
for information about campaigns and candidates?
■■ How are politicians, activists and other politically involved
marketers using social media to get their messages out
during the national election season?
■■ What are consumers’ attitudes toward receiving political
messages on social sites?
% of respondents
Select Social Media Sources Used by US Internet
Users to Get Political Information, by Age, April 2012
Facebook
22%
12%
8%
YouTube/other video
17%
6%
6%
Political blogs
16%
14%
12%
Twitter
11%
4%
2%
18-34 35-54 55+
Note: n=1,104 likely voters
Source: Burst Media, "Online Insights: Online Voters & Online Advertising,"
April 26, 2012
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Nicole Perrin
nperrin@emarketer.com
Contributors
Danielle Drolet, Lauren McKay, Mitchel Winkels
The New
Political Influencers:
Social Media’s Effect on the
Campaign Trail

The New Political Influencers: Social Media’s Effect on the Campaign Trail Copyright ©2012 eMarketer, Inc. All rights reserved. 2
Consumer Behavior and Attitudes
There will be more than 150 million social network
users in the US by the end of 2012. But most say they
don’t learn about politics on the social web, and they
claim their opinions aren’t swayed by it.
The data suggests otherwise.
Before charting the impact of political messages on social
media users, though, it’s important to put media usage in
perspective. For politics, TV is the place where the average
citizen turns to learn about the candidates and the issues.
Asked in January about their sources for news on the
presidential election campaign, just 36% of consumers told
the Pew Internet & American Life Project the internet was
among their top sources. This ranked it second, far behind
television, at 74%. The figure for the internet was the same
among voters surveyed in November 2008 and slightly higher
than research conducted in October 2008. During the 2008
campaign season, the internet was just barely ahead of
newspapers as the No. 2 election news source, but since then,
print newspapers have decreased in importance while the
internet’s role has held steady.
Harris Interactive similarly found in September that TV was
still tops overall, though among the youngest consumers
surveyed, online had pulled ahead as the No. 1 news source.
% of respondents
Preferred Source of News According to US Internet
Users, by Age, Sep 2012
18-35 36-47 48-66 67+ Total
TV 34% 50% 59% 60% 50%
Online 55% 38% 27% 17% 36%
—on computer 43% 29% 22% 16% 29%
—mobile device 7% 5% 2% - 4%
—tablet 4% 4% 3% 1% 3%
Print 5% 7% 13% 22% 10%
Some other way 7% 3% 1% 1% 3%
Note: numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding
Source: Harris Interactive, "The Harris Poll" as cited in press release , Sep
25, 2012
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Among those who did tell Pew in January that the internet was
among their top two sources for political news this election
season, most said that they turned to places other than social
networks for information. CNN was the site mentioned most
often, at 24%, followed closely by Yahoo! or Yahoo! News.A
paltry 5% reported using Facebook to get election news, while
2% said the same of Twitter and 1% of YouTube, the only social
sites named by any respondents. In December 2007, when Pew
asked a similar question, the site mix was somewhat different,
but the overall picture was the same: Just 3% of those who got
political news from the internet named Myspace as a source,
while 2% named YouTube.
Other sources suggest use of the internet for political
information could be higher than Pew found—at least among
likely voters surveyed online. When that group was polled by
Burst Media in April 2012 and allowed to choose only a single
primary medium for getting political information, nearly 35% of
men said the internet was their choice, beating out TV by more
than 10 percentage points. Among women, however, TV was
still ahead by about the same amount. Burst also found fair
percentages of likely voters looking to social sites, including
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and political blogs, for at least
some information about politics.
% of respondents
Online Sources Used by US Internet Users to Get
Political Information, by Age, April 2012
18-34 35-54 55+
News sites 44% 48% 53%
Google/search 34% 24% 23%
Facebook 22% 12% 8%
YouTube/other video 17% 6% 6%
Entertainment sites 16% 8% 5%
Political blogs 16% 14% 12%
Candidate's sites 15% 13% 11%
Advocacy group sites 12% 8% 10%
Twitter 11% 4% 2%
Note: n=1,104 likely voters
Source: Burst Media, "Online Insights: Online Voters & Online Advertising,"
April 26, 2012
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Meanwhile, Pew found that social network users said the
sites were minor sources of campaign news. The same
January survey showed that a small core of social networkers
indicated the services were “very important” for them to
keep up with the news, get people involved with the issues
that matter to them or find like-minded souls. But most
respondents said social networks were “not too important”
or “not at all important” for these purposes. Consumers
as a whole also reported being less likely to have learned
something about a candidate or campaign from social sites
than from any other source, from cable news networks to the
internet in general to NPR and religious radio talk shows. Those
who placed the greatest emphasis on social sites tended to
spend the most time talking about politics offline as well.

% of total
Importance of Social Networking for Select Political
Activities According to US Social Network Users,
Feb 2012
Keeping up with political news
12% 24% 21% 41%
Recruiting people to get involved with political issues
that matter to you
8% 18% 20% 51%
Finding other people who share your views about
important political issues
7% 18% 25% 47%
Debating or discussing political issues with others
6% 19% 24% 49%
Very important
Somewhat important
Not too important
Not at all important
Note: n=1,047; numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, "Politics on Social
Networking Sites," Aug 30, 2012
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But other data suggests that social content is in fact having
an effect on voters. For instance, when AYTM surveyed US
internet users in September, more than a quarter said social
media had influenced their political opinions. Similarly, Pew
found that 41% of Twitter users at least sometimes learned
something about the election from the service, as did 36% of
Facebook users.
% of respondents
US Internet Users Who Have Had Social Media
Inﬂuence Their Political Opinions, Sep 2012
Yes, very much
5.2%
Yes, somewhat
20.9%
No
61.4%
No, I don't use
social media
12.4%
Note: n=306 who will vote or are unsure if they will vote in the next
election; excludes respondents who will not vote in the next election
Source: AYTM Market Research as cited in company blog, Sep 18, 2012
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And research published in Nature indicated that social
media could pump up the power of a nonpartisan message
intended to get out the vote. The researchers examined the
behaviors of Facebook users who saw a reminder that “Today
is Election Day” with a clickable “I Voted” button during the
2010 November midterm elections. About 1% of the Facebook
users who saw the message were exposed to a version of the
notice that included photos of their friends. When University
of California San Diego researchers analyzed Facebook
interactions in conjunction with publicly available voting
records, they discovered that viewers of the social message
had the highest rate of actually voting.
“Social influence made all the difference in political
mobilization,” said James Fowler, lead author of the study, in
a statement. “It’s not the ‘I Voted’ button, or the lapel sticker
we’ve all seen, that gets out the vote. It’s the person attached
to it.” The research also found that a person’s closest friends
had the greatest influence on their likelihood to vote.
A similar difference in the self-reported importance of social
media for politics vs. social media’s actual effect appeared
when Pew asked users how much political content they
posted. Social network users tend to say they don’t post much
about politics on the social sites they use—but someone
must, since they also report seeing such content from their
friends. While just 16% of social network users told Pew they
posted at least “some” political status updates, comments and
links, 39% said the same of their friends. Meanwhile, nearly
two-thirds of respondents claimed to post no political material
at all, while just 23% reported seeing none in their newsfeeds.
% of total
Amount of Political Material US Social Network Users
and Their Friends Post on Social Media, Feb 2012
All/almost all Most Some Just a little None at all
Note: n=1,047; numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding; includes
status updates, comments and links
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, "Politics on Social
Networking Sites," Aug 30, 2012
Users themselves
2%
4% 10% 21% 63%
Friends
6% 30% 36% 23%
3%
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It’s possible that most people really do not post political content,
but have just a few friends who post an outsized amount of it.
But what’s controversial, and thus political, to one person
may be run-of-the-mill to the next, leading to a perceptual gap:
What I post is not political, but what you post is.
The volume of political activity on Facebook and Twitter
certainly suggests that the behavior is more common than
is self-reported. During the Republican and Democratic
conventions, seven of the top 10 most-buzzed about topics
were convention-related, led by discussion of President
Obama’s nomination acceptance speech.
The convention also boosted Facebook “likes” for the
Republican and Democratic candidates, with Mitt Romney
and Paul Ryan gaining 2.6 million and the Obama/Biden
ticket adding about half a million new followers, according
to Mashable.

The Obama/Biden ticket had 29.3 million “likes,” and the
Romney/Ryan ticket 8.3 million, as of mid-October. Those
presidential candidate “like” counts point up the clear
difference between what users say they do and what they
actually do. Consider the numbers again: The two campaigns
had harvested a total of 37.6 million “likes.” Assuming no
overlap between “likers” of the two, and that all “likers” are in
the US, that amounts to 26.6% of all US Facebook users, who
will number 141.2 million by the end of this year, according to
eMarketer estimates. That’s a nearly 27% penetration rate of
actual political activity level (on Facebook alone), far exceeding
the 16% of social network users (across all social sites) who
told Pew they posted at least “some” political content.
Meanwhile,Twitter saw record amounts of political discussion
during the conventions. Obama’s speech in particular sparked
nearly 53,000 tweets per minute.Twitter also reported that
9.5 million tweets were sent about the DNC, compared to
4 million about the RNC and just over 14,000 tweets per minute
during Romney’s acceptance speech.The first presidential
debate set users tweeting up a storm as well, breaking records
again for a political event, with 10.3 million messages sent over
the course of the 90-minute debate.
Is Politics Making Social Media Antisocial?
Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project,
explained that there is a “nice healthy share” of Americans who
are interested in politics, but that many would not necessarily
want that interest to dominate their online socializing experience.
“For lots of people, it’s not the dominant part of their life,” he
said. “It’s not the dominant part of their conversations. It’s
not how they organize their social networks. It’s not how they
present themselves to the world. It’s one of several things that
they are, and for most people, it’s a minor segment of their
identity rather than a dominant segment of their identity.”
But for those who do have an interest, social media is
unquestionably opening up new avenues for discussion and
activism—whether that’s appreciated by their friends and
family or not. Just as traditional attitudes toward privacy are
changing (if not as fast as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
might claim), ideas about what topics are appropriate for
mixed debate are also evolving. David Almacy, senior vice
president of digital public affairs practice at Edelman and
former White House Internet and E-Communications Director
under President George W. Bush, pointed to longstanding
conversational taboos on subjects like religion, politics and
money, and how—at least for some people—discussions are
newly uninhibited.
“It’s out of a sense of not wanting to offend others” that
people have avoided such controversial topics in the past, he
said. “But these conversations have always been happening.
They just have not been happening necessarily in the open,
and so now these channels allow for some of that discourse.
They have become more acceptable for some because of the
channels that are available to us, which I think is a good thing.
The more that we can have constructive discourse around
these issues and agree to disagree in some cases but respect
the conversation, I think is ultimately a good thing.”
Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, parent company of Politix, a politically
oriented social networking site, argued that even for people
who want to have a social political experience online, a site like
Facebook may not be the most natural fit. Facebook has size
going for it—but also against it.
“Whether it’s sports cars or golf or basketball or politics,
Facebook is not the No. 1 network for anything [in particular]
because it’s just too broad,” he said.“You might put something
out in passing, but social networks are really more broad-based
connectors of you and all the people in your life. If you want to go
to a specific topic, you go to a specific site, whether it’s ESPN for
sports or LinkedIn for career.”
And if Facebook, along with other general social networks,
is fundamentally about “all the people in your life,” it’s a fair
bet that at least some of those people will disagree with you
about the issues, or about how you’re presenting the issues—
making political discussions on the site a potential hot-button.
In Pew’s early 2012 research, it found that 38% of social
network users discovered unexpected beliefs about their
friends on the sites, including 49% of self-identified Democrats,
39% of Republicans and 32% of independents. More than half
of liberal, very liberal and very conservative social network
users were surprised by a friend’s political views based on
social media postings.
And when those views, surprising or otherwise, cause
conflict, they can break down the social graph. Pew found
that, overall, nearly one in five social network users had
blocked, unfriended or unfollowed someone because of
political postings that upset them. Liberals were much more
likely than conservatives to have done so, and their reasons
were various, including 16% who had blocked or unfriended
someone because of a post they disagreed with, and 14% who
had changed their settings because a person simply posted
too frequently about politics.

% of respondents in each group
Reasons that US Social Network Users Have Blocked,
Unfriended or Hidden Someone on a Social Network,
by Political Orientation, Feb 2012
Posted something you disagreed with
16%
6%
8%
Posted too frequently about politics
14%
8%
9%
Argued about political issues
11%
6%
7%
Disagreed with something you posted
11%
1%
4%
Posted something that you worried would offend
8%
3%
5%
Liberal Moderate Conservative
Note: n=1,047
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, "Social Networking Sites and
Politics," March 12, 2012
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These dropped friends were most likely to be distant
connections to begin with, but nearly a third of all those who
had blocked someone did it to a close personal friend, while
18% had blocked a family member. User tolerance is sure to
be tested even further as the election approaches, and with
more unfollowing and unsubscribing, social network users will
potentially be replacing broader networks of influence with
smaller echo chambers—a situation unlikely to be reversed
after the election chatter has died down.
“There’s some adjustment, and more broadly speaking, people
are twisting the dial on their social networking experiences,”
said Pew’s Rainie.“They’re paying more attention to the privacy
settings, for instance.They’re paying more attention to content
that they like as opposed to content that they don’t like.”
In addition to disconnecting people from each other on social
networks, the same political sensitivities can prevent users
from expressing their opinions: 22% of social network users
avoided posting content or links that they thought might
alienate people politically, Pew found.
Q&A: Do you think people are changing their behavior
on social networks to avoid controversial topics?
Erik Martin
General Manager
Reddit
“Obviously, there are plenty of people who don’t mind
discussing politics on Facebook and Twitter, but there are a lot
of people who don’t [do it] because it’s tied to their real identity,
which is tied to their job, their family, their friends. So they may
have very strong political opinions on a certain issue, but they’re
not going to put that on Facebook because they’re worried
about what their employer or colleagues or family might think.
Of course, many people are perfectly fine with that, but there’s
definitely a large group of people—and oftentimes, those are
the people who know about a certain issue, or work in a certain
field that’s being discussed, or in government or politics—who
aren’t able to really openly discuss some of these issues on
Facebook or Twitter particularly.”
Lee Rainie
Director
Pew Internet & American Life Project
“That showed up some in our data, yes. We saw a portion,
about 10%, who said they’ve blocked somebody out of their
life because of the volume of material that was posted on
politics. It might not be that they objected to the politics. It
was just they objected to that being the dominant part of their
persona on social networking sites. They just thought that
was too much. They wanted to talk about other things or they
didn’t want so much politics in their life.
“So some people do walk away or do block people who just
have antithetical political views to them. So there’s a portion
of people doing that and in many cases, they are not acting
precipitously as far as we can tell.
“They are observing for a while, maybe even they’ve tried to
suggest talking about other subjects or something like that.
It’s not like there’s just this kill switch on somebody who says
one thing about a candidate that they don’t like, it’s more
the totality of the posts that are going on. So there’s some
evidence of behavior change, but it’s mostly that people just
want to ignore it and move on.”
David Almacy
SVP of Digital Public Affairs Practice
Edelman
“I have friends who are fairly vocal about their views and they
feel strongly about politics and they want their opinions to be
made known. Others might have other considerations about

people who they work with. Maybe their boss is diametrically
opposed politically and so they don’t want to be vocal about
their thoughts for fear that it might affect their career. And so
there are reasons why people are able to publish things. But
at the same time, I think you need to be sensitive about the
audience and the community, and obviously be measured in
your responses. And that’s why on my Twitter account I say
opinions are my own, because the last thing I’d want to do is
to offend a client or a colleague or a friend because I’ve said
something political.
“But the same is true for sports or for hobbies or anything
else. I mean I probably have offended a lot of Cowboy fans out
there with my Redskins tweets, right?”
Social Political Marketing
Social network users are sensitive to the political
content they find on social sites. But with most
Americans regularly socializing online, messaging
from candidates and other political groups is
expected—and, based on the evidence, such
messages do move the dial for at least some people.
At this point, any major political campaign has a social presence.
But different strategies are evident as politicians continue to
experiment with the relatively new medium. Even on Facebook,
where brands have spent billions over the past few years on their
own experimental campaigns, this year’s two major presidential
candidates have notably different styles.
Romney’s Facebook page is set up to read as first-person
messages written by the former governor, such as this
announcement of a donation contest: “Paul Ryan and I will be
touring the great state of Ohio on Tuesday and we are looking
for some company. So for today only, if you make a donation
of $3 or more, you will be entered for a chance to join us on
the road.” For a social call to action, Romney says, “We need a
real recovery. Click ‘Like’ if you agree.”
Obama’s page, by contrast, is explicitly “run by Obama for
America, President Obama’s 2012 campaign.” The posts are
less personal, the calls to action more forceful: “Share this if
you believe that multi-millionaires like Mitt Romney should pay
their fair share in taxes.”
Most of the images posted to Romney’s page are photos
of him on the campaign trail. Obama’s Facebook presence,
meanwhile, includes numerous pictures that can only be
described as “marketing collateral”—edited photos of the
president overlaid with a quote and stylish-looking five-point
plans, all clearly branded with Obama for America blue.
These may seem like minor differences, but they highlight
a lack of convergence in campaigns’ approaches to social
media, as they continue to test and experiment with what
works. As more people turn to social media for political
information, the audience for these efforts is in flux. And with
Americans from a range of demographic groups checking
out political content on social sites at various levels of
engagement, politicians’ social audiences are fragmented
in their desires. “Romney’s Responsibility Map,” in which the
Obama Truth Team encourages viewers to “cut out the 47%
of the country that doesn’t matter,” may be red meat to many
supporters, but the undecided voter could be turned off by
negativity—and would probably not share something so
provocative. By contrast, the photo of Michelle Obama smiling
at a baby is likely to get much more play among this group. For
now, there is a mix of both types of content, across candidates

and across the political spectrum, but delivered through the
same channel, preventing the social political experience from
becoming a cohesive one.
Playing Politics
Since social media marketing began in earnest, brand marketers
have had to contend with a central problem:A conversation with
and among consumers has the power to generate new levels of
engagement, but it also means consumers have unprecedented
control over a brand’s message.
In the realm of politics, this problem is compounded. When
a consumer brand commits a Promoted Topics gaffe, for
example, it might find itself made fun of by any number of
Twitter users eager to take advantage of a new meme. But
for politicians, there is a ready-made opposing team actively
looking for such chances to knock a campaign off-message—
and often have some fun while doing so.
In mid-September, the Obama campaign launched the #ForAll
initiative, which encouraged Obama voters to write on their
hand their reason for reelecting the president, then take a
photo of their hand placed over their heart, pledging support
for a president they believed would do good “for all” of the
country. Campaign senior strategist David Axelrod wrote
the words “medical research” on his hands and tweeted his
pledge photo, along with several celebrity supporters who
helped launch the effort.
But using such a general phrase as a hashtag invited hijacking
from Obama’s opponents—specifics and creativity optional. One
Twitter user put it simply:“Gee, I believe in liberty, justice and
freedom #ForAll so I will vote for Mitt Romney.” Other tweets cited
particular philosophical differences between the candidates, and
Texas Governor Rick Perry added his own photo, with “$16 trillion”
written on his hands,“[s]ince @BarackObama has forgotten how
much he’s added to national debt #ForAll our kids to pay off.”
This was just one skirmish in a larger war; such hijackings
and meme-ings have become common and seem to rise
naturally from the trickster element of the social internet.
Staying on-message—normally top of mind for a political
campaign—is rarely an option.
Message takeover is hardly a problem limited to disagreements
between parties or candidates, but can also raise its head within
a group that has previously agreed to act cohesively. During the
Republican National Convention, for example, a controversial
voice vote on amendments to the party bylaws shot the hashtag
#RNCPowerGrab to prominence as disgruntled Republicans, both
at the convention and watching from home, lashed out at party
leaders. For several hours that afternoon, this tag stole Twitter
prominence—and mindshare—from the official, RNC-approved
convention hashtags.
Targeting Triggers Extra Concern
Consumers might irritate each other with controversial
statements and postings, and politicians might get raked over
the coals for a poorly chosen hashtag, but a potentially greater
danger than any of that lies in politicians’ use of sophisticated
new-media tactics for targeting and tailoring ads. Targeting
is nothing new for politicians, but sensitivity to the practice
online appears to increase dramatically when consumer
brands are replaced with politicians.
The Annenberg School for Communications conducted
a study in May that compared consumer attitudes about
targeted advertising for products and services to their
attitudes about the same types of targeting for political ads,
and the political ads caused significantly more consternation.
This type of targeting is typically not popular, even when
consumers indicate they prefer to see relevant advertising
over blanket approaches, but political ads especially rankled.
While 42% of consumers said they would want news tailored
to their interests and 37% said the same of ads for products
and services, just 13% wanted tailored political ads.
% of respondents
US Consumers' Opinions About Online Ads Tailored to
Their Interests, May 2012 vs. 2009
May 2012 2009
Show you ads for products and
services that are tailored to
your interests
Give you discounts that are
tailored to your interests
Show you news that is tailored
to your interests
Show you political ads that are
tailored to your interests
Yes,
would
want
37%
53%
42%
13%
No,
would
not want
61%
46%
56%
86%
Don't
know
2%
1%
1%
1%
No, would
not want
want
66%
49%
57%
-
Note: n=1,503
Source: Annenberg School for Communications, "Americans Roundly Reject
Tailored Political Advertising," July 24, 2012
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Respondents were presented with a scenario where a favored
political candidate buys ads on Facebook such as Sponsored
Stories, which feature the name and photo of a friend who
has “liked” their page. Fully 70% of consumers said that if they
learned of such a case they would actually decrease their
level of support for the candidate, including 50% who would
decrease support “a lot.” Consumers were also hostile to the
idea of Facebook serving ads for political candidates based on
private profile information.
“The fundamental issue growing out of these findings is
enormous,” said the report.“The public’s emphatic and broad
rejection of tailored political advertising bumps directly up against
the huge growth of this very activity in the 2012 presidential
election.What we have is a major attitudinal tug of war—a

political class pulling for new ways to divide and address the
populace versus a public that appears deeply uncomfortable,
even angry, about activities pointing in that direction.”
This may seem to contradict the findings published in Nature
by UC San Diego researchers, but the difference is likely due
to more than the biases of self-reporting. The Nature research
involved a nonpartisan ad that only reminded Facebook users
to vote, a message considered controversial or intrusive by
very few viewers. Using friends’ images along with that ad had
a measurable positive effect on user behavior. The Annenberg
survey, by contrast, posited ads from specific candidates that
featured friends who had “liked” the candidates—but had
not directly consented to appearing in ads for them. Such
ads would make the explicit but low-friction and low-visibility
activity of “liking” a politician into a much louder endorsement,
and put the face of a friend in an ad that could potentially be
offensive or controversial.
Conclusions
Survey data underemphasizes the level of political
activity taking place on social sites. TV still dominates
as an overall news source, but the rise of the internet to get
information has translated to an increase in social political
activity—whether survey respondents want to admit it or not.
And just as they claim not to be influenced by much brand
activity on the sites, most deny that social media would help
change their vote.
But the amount of content posted to sites like Facebook,
Twitter and smaller social sites belies those claims, as viral
messages do appear to move the dial, especially when the
perennially important aspect of word-of-mouth from friends
and family is introduced to the mix.
As perceptions of privacy change, the social acceptability
of political conversation is changing, too. For at least some
social media participants, discussion of politics in a public forum
is shedding its cultural taboos, though others remain reluctant to
share their views with a wide audience.And some simply do not
see political issues as a dominant part of their life, preferring to
read and post less controversial, more personally oriented social
content when they visit sites like Facebook.
But the amount of political content posted suggests that
there will only be more, not less of this behavior, potentially
encouraging even broader acceptance. At the same time,
social networkers have made use of tools to block this content
when friends and family push the line too far, creating schisms
in the social graph.
Social content can take on a life of its own. Just as with
consumer brands, politicians and their campaigns can quickly
lose control of a message once the online masses latch onto
it. Because of the adversarial nature of elections, this can turn
social into another medium whose “news cycle” each group is
trying to win, spinning campaign efforts their own way.
User privacy is a paramount concern. Ad targeting is
never popular, but the creepiness meter rises when political
advertising is concerned. Despite consumers’ willingness to
discuss these topics on their own terms online, they express
extreme discomfort with sophisticated tailoring techniques
that suggest politicians know more about them than they
might like. And going too far may even make them vote
the other way, just as many consumers report preferring
to do business with brands that don’t target them through
behavioral advertising.

eMarketer Interviews
Former White House Internet Director: Mix Politics and
Social Media with Care
David Almacy
SVP of Digital Public Affairs Practice
Edelman
Interview conducted on September 11, 2012
What Brands Can Learn from Obama’s Live Q&A on Reddit
Erik Martin
General Manager
Reddit
Lila King
Senior Director of Social News
CNN
David Mark
Editor-in-Chief
Politix
Bryan Monroe
Editor of CNNPolitics.com
CNN
Lee Rainie
Director
Pew Internet & American Life Project
Interview conducted on August 14, 2012
Chris Tolles
CEO
Topix
Related Links
Annenberg School for Communications
AYTM Market Research
Bluefin Labs
Burst Media
Harris Interactive
Pew Internet & American Life Foundation
Editorial and
Production Contributors
Nicole Perrin Associate Editorial Director
Cliff Annicelli Senior Copy Editor
Emily Adler Copy Editor
Dana Hill Director of Production
Joanne DiCamillo Senior Production Artist
Stephanie Gehrsitz Production Artist
Allie Smith Director of Charts

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