The last campaign of Obama in 2012 was a huge lesson for everyone. It created a shift and future for political marketing as we know it today.

Donald Trump on the other hand came up with another strategy for this new political move. How did his marketing strategy change the political sphere? We will be looking at this today.

As we know, since the first campaign of Obama, his commitment to social networks was what earned him the pride of being the first president to tweet (a novelty at the time but nowadays, it seems to us, it is obligatory for political campaign). In fact, in Europe, we have seen how from the Anglo-Saxon candidates to the French in the last elections, all have been Internet users. This is what has resulted in the official twitter handle of the British Prime Minister @ number10gov and  @david_cameron or the account of the president of France @Fhollande; and the same president @MarianoRajoy.

Olawale Ajayi

In today’s presidential campaign, Trump teaches that rules or mistakes are no longer to become the keys to interaction and organic growth. His excessive language, his attacks on opponents, and open talk are the keys to being present every day in the media without having to spend millions. It seems that Trump knows how to give very good content to the media and citizens to always be in the forefront in both traditional media and social networks, making him become viral himself. This infers that as a politician that has a business with winning, you have to have a personal plan even if you are going to use a general plan or platform for your campaign.

Looking at social media, we can say that actions go viral (at the speed of light) there and the political strategists have to make a well planned decision in order to have profitable audience.

Twitter is the king of communication campaigns at the moment, and it stands in  competition with the major media. If you have taken notice, you will realise that even the traditional news media quotes tweets from twitter. This should make you begin to think about the importance of this platform. Any candidate who wants to win has to have his own profile, whether or not he is directly managed so that it will be natural. It is also obliged that the campaign team is monitoring Twitter, to pay attention to responses in this network to offline interventions.

The rites of a rally, the procedures of the campaigns, have been transferred to the networks. A five-party twitter can replace an electoral debate and gives the possibility to choose questions by the candidates and allows any user to send a question to a candidate without intermediaries, and filters.

Labels that identify topics or activities on the networks are very important in the campaign, as they are this new world’s slogans. For example, a #fourmoreyears, label of Obama’s first speech after re-election was raised as an identifier of an entire program for four years of government.

The image is showing itself, again, as the best messenger. The YouTube accounts of the candidates are becoming increasingly important; they reveal themselves as the television of our day, without having to go through the sieve of the publisher.

The jump of Baumgartner was not transmitted by any classic television channel. In the Youtube channel, we have all our own television.

Benefits of Digital Marketing in successful political campaigns

In the upcoming presidential elections in the Republic of Argentina, as well as in the last Mexican electoral campaign, it has been demonstrated that the best tool that can be used to achieve the objectives of political marketing are Social Networks.

If you use social networks the right way to do political communication you will get a number of benefits to win an election but also know that there are mistakes that could result from insufficient knowledge of use.

 New communication channel

Social networking and online marketing are important tools that can help candidates to win votes in election campaigns, especially young people.

Market Segmentation

It is very important to use online marketing in political plans because of the great capacity it has to be able to segment audiences according to age, socioeconomic levels, interests, tastes, style of words they use to communicate, etc. All this, facilitates and allows the politician’s communication in a segmented way and helps in determining political fate.

Two-way communication

It allows a continuous interaction between 2 or more people. What is valued most is being able to participate and interact with candidates.

Power your image

Posting pictures that will endear the candidate with the people and give them an impression of a simple but firm personality can improve a candidate’s chances of winning the emotions of the electorates.

Power activism

The dynamism of social networks facilitates the organization of new social and political movements.

Creation of online communities

It generates commitment and loyalty between the candidate and the people. The new digital political marketing allows to generate communities and interests, to organize adherents to the political party and / or candidate and these in turn are carrying out the amplification of the message or the evangelization of the idea.

Reduced cost

It represents less expense than investment in traditional media to achieve good results.

Measurement of results

Digital marketing allows us to accurately measure the impact of the politician’s communication and the interest he generates from the audience.

Examples are, in the Catalan elections, those of the PSC channel, the EsquerraRepublicana channel, or the Popular Party of Catalonia.

Next of course is Instagram. This great network of photography is becoming one of the most followed and influential, where personal moments and audiences are mixed in the campaign. The image of the embrace of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to announce that he had won the elections on Instagram or that of Bruce Sprinsgteen and President Obama at their last rally are examples of what I mean. Another example that we find in the Catalan elections: @totsambelpresident channel in Instagram that tracks Artur Mas during the campaign of the Catalan elections; as well as the profile of Pere Navarro, candidate of PSC, or that of OriolJunqueras, of ERC. The image is always the best messenger.