Could Social Media play a more meaningful role in S.A politics?

A few years back when the now US President Barack Obama campaigned for the first time to be president; effective use of social media was attributed as one of the key drivers that led to his winning favour of the majority voters. Obama's campaigns used online activity to boost fundraising efforts, recruit volunteers & look for indications of whether they've been successful at voter persuasion. In South Africa, a large number of voters are between the ages of 20yrs - 39yrs (according to hrsc.az.za). Individuals in this age group are technologically savvy and have access to the internet. If these figures are a true reflection of the South African voter, would it be sensible to reach this market using social media? I do not doubt the ability of social media to reach this market, they usually use digital platforms to reach read news about different political party's news and manifestos. However, the question that remains unclear is the effectiveness of social media to persuade voters to follow, or end-up voting for a particular political party. Bear in mind that, in South Africa, not so many organisations, businesses or corporates have embraced the effective use of social media. Except for the First National Bank which went of to win the Best Global Innovative Bank. There are quite a number of organisations that have now started using social media as one of the channels of communication, but there are yet results to be shown on the achievements that reflect rewards that can be attributed to social media. Many politicians tweet on their own personal capacity about issues that relate to the political party they follow, however, official political party twitter handles are still not the source of information to the ordinary citizen. One may argue that official political party twitter handles do provide information, which is true and I agree, but, those twitter pages have not reached a point where they become the main platform of engagement to the point that the particular political organisation trends on twitter. And when I mean trend, I do not mean were people take the conversation any direction they want as we have often seen. What we are talking about, is a situation, were the political party in actually steering the conversation with responses and on-going engagements with ordinary citizens. Now coming back to the question at hand, could social media play a more meaningful role in S.A politics? YES, IT CAN. The ordinary citizen will feel like they are more informed about what the particular political party is doing. What is currently being discussed? Citizens will feel that their concerns and issues are being given the necessary attention. And more importantly, the ordinary citizen will feel a part of the discussion as they receive responses to their tweets. The citizen will then go on and share their story with the next person of how they received communication from the political party. In doing that, word of mouth spreads regarding the political party that is the subject matters. Unaware, the political party increases its political reach and footprint without being present physically, but, digitally.

PR what happened to 'spin - doctors'?

With the newspaper headline: Social media - the new frontier in reporting. One can sense that the impact of social media is very strong in the media and communication industry. In fact, the article on Business Day newspaper (www.bdlive.co.za), titled: Social media should not be reined in by the Press Code, say expert. May perhaps, be one of the recent examples emphasizing the power of social media and influence. Although platforms such as twitter have enhanced the speed at which news reach the public, it still remain a big challenge as to how crisis management is handled that is so often sparked by some 'unknown' individual on twitter. In the past, PR people would quickly put up a response release or holding statement after consulting their client and relevant parties, engage the specific print or broadcast media. And then be able to get their side of the story or response to the public. Whether the story will be spinned from negative news to positive?. That is besides the point, the reality is, a series of steps that is almost guaranteed is implemented and more often able to remedy the situation. Now, with the rise of social media, which is often an uncontrolled audience with a powerful voice. Managing a crisis for a corporate on social media can be challenging as it requires a different way of thinking and application of knowledge. It is nowonder some corporate organisations try to not engage with thier consumers through this new channel. They (corporate) hope that by not being visible on this platform, they curb the potential challenge and negative opinions that the consumers may post on social networks about the organisation. The truth is, social media does not create negetivity, it uncovers it. It is better for a corporate organisation to have presence on the social networks so to try and take the lead on the conversation that is taking place about the organisation independant of the organisation taking part or not. The PR industry has opportunity to first ensure that their clients particularly corporates understand the benefits of using this platform. In fact, social media should be the number one offering I would see to clients if I was a PR consultant. Think about it, this service if relatively cheap if not free to say the least. Unless you are running, promoted tweets or Facebook Adverts, setting up and gaining a following cost literally nothing. Now the new PR 101 1. Social media is all about manitaining a conversation with your followers (www.socialmediatoday.com). And if I remember correctly, one of the PR objectives from my 1st year PR class was: To build and maintain relationships. Social media allows you to do just that, build and maintain relationships. Even better, with social media, you are able to evaluate on an on-going bases if your messaging is relevent, creates conversation and formulate whatever response necessary for your audience. 2. For a long time, one of the major challenges of the PR specialists, was to quantify or attach monetary value to their hard work they put on different media campaigns. And social media allows this evaluation to be done without much effort or having to hire a research company to add up the data which may still remain questionable to other Executives within an organisation who are not of a communications background. 3. With social media, you can set targets and measure the number of followers. Measure engagement of consumers with the organisation, and lastly, you can measure the impact of the over-all campaign. The question still remains: Can PR people still spin today?. My answer is, Yes. However, the ability for one to gain credibility, confidence and a good reputation with your social media audience will have to be a process that needs to be worked at long before one hits a crisis. Does this sound familiar? My response is simply, a similar tactic that has always been there and used in PR. The only difference is the channel or medium used.