Author: Bryan Merica

Propaganda, foreign influence, and fear mongering did not begin with social media. A simple look at media during the Cold War illustrates this. But unlike

Do it to win. Do it to communicate with your target audience via the most powerful technology available. Communication is a combination of art and science:

A little-noticed measure on the June ballot passed by voters this week could fundamentally transform the role of government in the lives of everyday Californians

I rarely see movies in the theater these days. Between the
current pace of my life and an ever shortening grace period past opening
weekend that the cinemas provide us these days, I always feel like the moves I
want to see are already gone from the theater by the time I get around to
seeing them. This means that I’m almost always a bit out of those casual chats
among friends that inevitably feature talk of the latest film, the latest Big
Game or the latest whatever.

So, you’ll have to indulge me when I talk about the firm The
King’s Speech, which is probably, for most of you, ancient history. Anyway,
recently I watched the film on demand and found it to be full of lessons on
disruptive technologies and communications. A topic I love so much that I felt
compelled to write something about it.

Enough preamble, then.

If you’ve see the film then you may remember King George V’s
rant to his stuttering son, Prince Albert (later King George VI), about radio:

My company, Activate Direct, teamed up with Tulchin Research and PWSMC Social Media consulting, to release a detailed study of social media content related to the 2010 California governor’s race between candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. The study demonstrates how campaigns can use techniques of "social listening" as both a real-time poll and an ongoing focus group, augmenting traditional public opinion research methods and identifying potential crises early.

Study Highlights
The analysis unlocked several key findings:

• Social and polling data were closely correlated.
• The ratio of positive to negative social sentiment was very much in line with the ratio of favorable to unfavorable ratings shown by traditional polling.
• Social chatter was driven by key campaign events.

You probably have better things to do with your time than crunching numbers gathered from dozens of political Facebook fan pages. But this is exactly what our social media strategists love to do in their spare time (it’s a little geeky, I know).

Our team recently did such an analysis on the Facebook fan pages of the upcoming California ballot initiatives. And, without spending too much time, we discovered something worth considering: ballot initiatives that enjoy a high level of popular appeal have a significantly higher number of Facebook fans than those dealing with more typically policy related matters. The table below summarizes number of Facebook fans for the various Yes and No initiative campaigns on the California November ballot. It becomes clear that the "sexier" an issue is culturally, the higher the level of social media engagement.

The Coming Impacts of Social Media on Modern Direct Democracy

Last week our company, ActivateDirect.com, was proud to sponsor the "Technology Symposium on the Rise of Digital Direct Democracy" at the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy held at U.C. Hastings in San Francisco. As part of the Tech Symposium, I served on a really exciting panel of political technology experts from around the world discussing the impacts of the Internet, and particularly social media, on direct democracy.

The key question posed to the panel was: "What impact will social media have on direct democracy in the next three years and beyond?"

This November’s election looks like another record setting cycle, perhaps being the most expensive midterm election in U.S. history.  According to the Center for Responsive Politics, campaign spending has already surpassed $1 billion for U.S. Senate and House campaigns nationwide, with forecasts that it will top out somewhere around a whopping $3.7 billion for those races alone.

Of course, California is leading the way in reaching new heights at the state level. With more records set in the June primary, highlighting the fact that the California elections are keeping pace with these broader national trends.  It seems that the name of the game continues to be how much money can be raised and spent, with little regard to how effectively these funds are be used.  

If recent campaigns can be counted on as providing reliable clues for how campaign dollars will be spent, then it is almost a foregone conclusion that the vast majority of spending will once again be on traditional media, especially television.  Major evolutions in technology, however, call into question the wisdom of spending advertising dollars predominately, if not exclusively, on traditional media. And, this year should be the year when those who invest their dollars in political campaigns demand more for their investment.

Last month, I had the privilege of traveling through Switzerland on a tour sponsored by the Initiative and Referendum Institute of Europe (IRI Europe). The six-day tour led us through five cities and connected us with dozens of experts covering a wide range of topics on direct democracy (more info here from our friends at Ballotpedia.org).

As a technologist, what perhaps captured my attention most was a cutting edge system of Internet voting that is being rolled out in a multi-year process across Switzerland, starting with trials in three cantons (or Swiss "states"): Geneva, Neuenburg and Zurich.