Rick Perry’s Social Media Game of Catch-Up

Rick Perry’s Social Media Campaign

Back in 2010, political strategists applauded Rick Perry’s social media tactics when it came to his re-election campaign. Rick Perry’s social media pages helped to raise his fan base and promote his politics, all while encouraging his supporters to campaign for him as well. Rick Perry’s social media pages was his loudspeaker to the nation broadcasting upcoming campaign stops and also a barricade blocking out negative reporters and bloggers from entering the domain. Now that he’s put his hat in as a presidential nominee, Rick Perry’s social media pages need to step their game up.

Rick Perry’s Social Media Game | Competition

Rick Perry’s social media techniques and implementation for his governor campaigns was revolutionary, but now he’s playing with the big boys and he’s falling behind.

The Miami Herald reports:

Rival Mitt Romney has amassed a Facebook following nearly seven times the size of Perry’s. However, Perry lags behind candidates Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain on Facebook.

Bachmann has launched a slick campaign page on YouTube that has attracted many more views than Perry’s own web videos. And should Perry win his party’s nomination, he faces the prospect of a steep climb against Barack Obama, who has cultivated a significantly larger social media audience than all the GOP candidates put together.

Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul has perhaps the best overall social media presence, with the most fans and tremendous interaction. Plus, he implements video marketing to get his word out better than the other candidates as well. But it’s not only the tools you use on social media that boosts your followers and presence. People still have to generally like you. Take Herman Cain for example. His Facebook page includes multiple tabs and points of aesthetics beyond even Rick Perry’s and other social media page, yet he still trails behind Perry, Paul, and Romney in the polls.

Rick Perry’s Social Media Game | Social Media and Politics

Rick Perry’s social media presence is important for his success and frankly social media is a must for any politician these days, here’s what the Miami Herald had to say about just that:

It’s an increasingly important platform in politics. Social media lets candidates get their message directly to voters and gives supporters a chance to amplify it. It provides a powerful organization tool for grassroots backers. It helps raise money. And for campaigns accustomed to spending tens of millions of dollars on events to generate news coverage and television ads to reach the masses, social media is a cheap way to distribute news, campaign information and even attacks on rivals.

The number of social media followers or fans a candidate does not translate directly into campaign success. Perry soundly defeated Democrat Bill White in the 2010 race for governor even though both had built similar audiences on Facebook.

That being said, if Rick Perry’s social media is going to try and win the Republican nomination and go head to head with Barack Obama, then he better start focusing on specific regions and audiences. Barack Obama has individual Twitter feeds for every state as well as feeds representing different constituencies, which is something that Rick Perry’s social media pages are definitely missing.

Rick Perry’s Social Media Game | The Rundown

So we can now see the relevance of social media in the political arena. As a matter of fact, its one of the success factors for Barack Obama’s presidential win. With that in mind, Rick Perry’s social media pages need to juice up quite a bit if he wants to win that presidential seat.

“Social media makes it easy to identify and reach out to those individuals who are very engaged and then turn them into proselytizers,” said Aaron Smith, a senior researcher and author of the Pew social media study.

“They can then take action by sending information to their friends, encourage their friends to vote and create their own content around the campaign,” Smith said.

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Original Picture Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote

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