Social media has taken over every facet of our lives and effect on our political landscape is astounding.

1. The Effect Of Social Media In Our Political Landscape
Social media is a concept of using an electronic platform to interact with people
across the globe anywhere, anytime. It allows you to voice your opinions, share
your thoughts, etc. with people. As a social platform where the world congregates
at every point in time; everyone irrespective of social strata is free to air an
opinion, express grievances and generate instant interest and following.
Access to and utilization of social media has increased tremendously in the past
decade, and its influence in our daily lives has also affected politics, security,
business and every other aspect of life in our nation and all over the world.
Public figures, religious organizations, governments, businesses and political
parties are fully represented on these platforms where they build a strong brand
and committed following. Everything from world news coverage, scientific
breakthroughs, entertainment, fashion and even Obama’s 2008 campaign, to the
ouster of politicians' misdeeds , thanks to the omniscience of social media; the
public now has a new way of participating in the political process.
How is social media changing politics? Is it offering us new ways to interact with,
influence and keep watch over our politicians? Or is online ‘slacktivism’ replacing
physical campaigning and political activism? Does social media provide an
alternative source of news? Or does it just create mutually-reinforcing bubbles of
friends and contacts, who shut out different opinions and beliefs?
During GEJ presidential talk given a few days ago on the security issues and
abduction of the Chibock school girls ; he kept referring to opinions and
comments of Nigerians from twitter and Facebook. Is this an indication that policy
makers are judging public opinion based on inputs from our social media?
Governments appear to have recognized this new and powerful medium to
interact with the masses and make them participate and thereby enabling a 2-
way communication system. Let us take into account the last presidential election
in Nigeria; almost everyone used the social medium to get their message across
the masses. Our Facebook pages were bombarded with pictures, posts and videos
of news, events, and happenings on the political scene. Political candidates and

2. aspirants created websites which were not seen some years back. And some of
them also use other social mediums to interact with people. People want to
connect with their politicians, just as much as politicians want to be liked by
people. Thus, we can observe that social medium helps increase simultaneous
interaction with everyone.
As regards to campaigning, this plays a very important and crucial role during
elections. It showcases the party profile, their goals in near future and what the
public can expect from them. In short, campaigning has a very strong effect on
how the elections turn out. Thus this brings the political parties or rather the field
of politics to the concept of online campaigning through the use of social media
which has gained tremendous ground in Nigeria.
One of the greatest examples of online campaigning was seen during the last
presidential elections in USA. Mr. Barack Obama used the online medium very
effectively and ended up winning people’s support as well as the elections. For
that purpose, he used tools like internet video, social networking outreach, online
advertising and the MyBarackObama.com activist toolkit. President Obama's
twitter account boasts nearly 23 million followers while his Facebook page has
over 32 million likes. Republican candidate, Mitt Romney's Twitter account is
barely approaching two million followers and his Facebook page has only a little
over 12 million likes. All these are a part of social (online) media.
The evolution of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media has forever
changed the way we follow elections. No longer do we need to wait for results to
come in. We have instant updates right in the palm of our hands. Social media has
done a lot to drive chatter. Every time there’s a poll it’s on Facebook, it’s on
Twitter, people are retweeting it. It’s everywhere.
However, social media has its disadvantages and most of the stuff we find on
social media is mere opinion. If you’re looking for something substantive, there
are better outlets than social media. A school of thought said that social media
does not have a direct impact on an election’s outcome, but it does have an effect
on how we follow campaigns as voters. What do you think?

3. 11 FAMOUS ENTREPRENEURS SHARE HOW THEY OVERCAME THEIR BIGGEST
FAILURE
In order to achieve greatness, you have to fail greatly.
Successful people will tell you that at some point in their careers, they thought
they were going to fail. Not because they didn’t have enough confidence in
themselves, but because they had risked everything. The difference between
these successful people and those we never hear about again is that the former
kept going.
Arianna Huffington learned early on that failure is needed in success.
Aaron Schildkrout, cofounder of HowAboutWe.com, even learned how to fail
more quickly.
Thrillist’s Ben Lerer learned how to come up with solutions quickly if the strategy
isn’t working.
Here’s what 11 successful entrepreneurs did when failure hit them in the face--
hard.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, COFOUNDER OF THE HUFFINGTON POST
“I failed, many times in my life. One failure that I always remember was when my
second book was rejected by 36 publishers. Many years later, I
watched HuffPost come alive to mixed reviews, including some very negative
ones, like the reviewer who called the site "the equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar,
and Heaven's Gate rolled into one."
“But my mother used to tell me, ‘failure is not the opposite of success, it's a
stepping stone to success.’ So at some point, I learned not to dread failure. I
strongly believe that we are not put on this Earth just to accumulate victories and

4. trophies and avoid failures; but rather to be whittled and sandpapered down until
what’s left is who we truly are.”
KATHRYN MINSHEW, FOUNDER AND CEO OF THE MUSE
In 2011, Minshew woke up one morning to find that she couldn’t log into PYP
Media, a site that she had built--and put her entire life savings into. She says
that’s when her life fell apart:
“A disagreement between the four [cofounders] turned into a nasty power
struggle that put me and Alex [Cavoulacos], my current Muse cofounder, at the
receiving end of screaming threats, and I woke up one morning to find my
website access, as well as that of Alex and our entire team, shut off. I felt
completely humiliated, like I had failed them and myself. I also ended up losing
the entire life savings I'd put in the company--about $20,000. We could have
sued, or we could have started over. We chose the latter.”
“Every single person other than two of my former partners left PYP Media in July
2011 to start The Muse, and in our first month, we had more people visit the site
than in the history of PYP. We build a much stronger product, raced ahead with a
clear sense of purpose and were accepted into Y Combinator several months
later. We've raised well over $2 million in venture and angel funding to date and
reached over 15 million people. In many ways, that first failure was the best thing
that ever happened to me.”
AARON SCHILDKROUT, COFOUNDER AND CO-CEO OF HOWABOUTWE.COM
"HowAboutWe’s early days were filled with constant thoughts of failure.
Thousands of startups, not to mention dating sites, fail every year. Practically
every dating business created in the last 10 years has failed. The odds were
against us--resoundingly."
"But the idea of creating something out of nothing, something millions of people
could use to find love, was worth facing failure for. So we learned to fail more
quickly, pushing through bad ideas to arrive at great ideas. That’s ultimately what

5. propelled us forward (and continues to do so): learning and failing quickly, and
never making the same mistake twice." CINDY GALLOP, FOUNDER OF MAKELOVENOTPORN
AND IFWERANTHEWORLD
"I'm prone to saying that every situation in business and in life can be summed up
by a quote from Macbeth, and in this case I'm with Lady Macbeth: ‘We fail? But
screw your courage to the sticking post, and we'll not fail.’"
“So I've looked failure in the eye, and just kept right on going. Or, as Ben Horowitz
says in his book The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building A Business When
There Are No Easy Answers: ‘Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how
they did it. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers.
They all say, ‘I didn't quit.’
SCOTT ADAMS, CREATOR OF THE DILBERT COMIC STRIP
“I go into most risky projects (and those are the type I prefer) with two
contradictory thoughts: one, this sort of thing is unlikely to succeed and two, this
will totally succeed.”
“I hold both thoughts until the last dying gasp of a project. I can't think of a time I
thought I would fail without simultaneously thinking I would pull a rabbit out of
the hat at any minute.”
“But that's just me. I'm an irrational optimist.”
CHRISTINA WALLACE, CURRENT VICE-PRESIDENT OF BRANDING AND
MARKETING AT STARTUP INSTITUTE AND FORMER COFOUNDER OF QUINCY
APPAREL
After her startup Quincy Apparel with former Harvard Business School classmate
Alex Nelson shut down, Wallace stayed in bed for three weeks. She tells Fast
Companyabout that hard period of time:
“At this point there weren't any levers left to pull: going without my (measly)
salary wouldn't make a dent and my credit card limits weren't close to enough to

6. float us until the next season launched. One of the difficult parts of fashion is the
cyclicality of sales around the seasons--and the cash required to launch the spring
season was far more than we had left. I took a train from the Valley up to San
Francisco and met with two mentors, who agreed that it was the end of the road
for Quincy. After it was all over I spent three weeks straight in bed. Then after 21
days of sleeping, crying, I put on my big girl pants and rejoined the world.”
“And I learned to be as open about my failure with my friends and family as I was
willing to be about my successes. Startups are not just what you read in the press.
The real story is much more volatile and human, and we do our community a
disservice pretending otherwise. I don't celebrate failure for failure's sake, but I
think there is something amazing about trying to do something at the edge of
possibility and potentially failing at it. Senator McCaskill recently said at
a Politico conference that ‘winners are those who are willing to lose.’ I really like
that mentality.”
Image: Flickr user TechCrunch"
BEN LERER, COFOUNDER AND CEO OF THRILLIST MEDIA GROUP

7. During the last nine years building Thrillist Media, of course there were times
when I realized pieces of the business or certain strategies weren't working. My
approach is always to admit as early as possible that the approach is failing and
work to resolve the situation, without letting it drag on.”
“I've had to make some really tough decisions but ultimately, I think the best
companies are those that can recognize when something isn't going right, and fix
it, instead of just turning a blind eye because it's easier."
DAVID LUCATCH, FOUNDER AND CEO OF YAPPN CORP.
“There have been times in my career when I thought I was going to fall short,
most recently during the early days of Yappn in 2013. By July, the company was in
a stalemate, despite all my hard work. During these trying times, I poured all my
energy and focus into doing whatever it took to succeed and leading my team by
example."
"As the CEO, when you make the biggest commitment, work the hardest and run
the fastest--your energy becomes contagious and everyone around you is inspired
to double down and make it happen. Now, almost a year later Yappn is gaining
tremendous market share. Learning through failure does not only require vision,
it also requires tenacity to turn opportunity into success. That’s how I got the
nickname the ‘Bulldog.’”
MEREDITH FINEMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO OF FINEPOINT DIGITAL
“As an entrepreneur, that thought isn't one that comes once and leaves. At first
it's loud and clear like a bullhorn, because you feel alone and like you have no
idea what you're doing. But as you continue, I'm now three years in, the idea of
failure is more of a hum in the background."
"It's always an option. I've thought I was going to fail many, many times. Each of
those times is when I rely on mentors and friends to discuss crawling my way out.
There are more quantitative failures, which happen all the time--where you have
to be careful is not letting it affect your sense of self and self-worth. I think if you
can shield yourself from that, it helps a lot. But it's not easy to do.”

8. BENNY LUO, SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR, FOUNDER OF NEXTSHARK,
NEWROCKSTARS, DISCOVERME, AND THE OTHER ASIANS
“Before I found success in my first company, I dabbled in many ‘get rich’ ventures,
including network marketing, online poker, and affiliate marketing. While I did
find some minimal success, all of these ventures eventually turned into failures.
But, one day I realized that after each failure, I always gained some valuable
knowledge of things I could apply to or avoid in my next project. That was the
attitude I adopted after every failure from then on, I focused on what I gained
instead of what I lost, because that's what really matters in the end.”
JOANNE LANG, FOUNDER AND CEO OF ABOUTONE.COM
“It's no secret that I'm a first-time entrepreneur. I had to learn quickly, and the
hard way, that what people term ‘failing’ has to be considered learning, and you
need to embrace it. I also had to learn that if you are not feeling the emotion of
failing, you are not trying enough new things or stretching yourself as far as you
can. This can be emotionally tough so you need a set of advisors around you that
believe in you and support you no matter what. Finding those advisors is key to
success, and it's their support that will keep you moving forward. I had to learn
that my greatest failure could be not aiming high enough, or not trying in the first
place.”

9. BEN LERER, COFOUNDER AND CEO OF THRILLIST