Socially Stepping Across Political Lines

A recent CNN story about political attack ads explored negative ads in American politics. These are definitely not a new phenomenon. The fear-inducing “Daisy” ad for Lyndon B. Johnson was devastating for Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign. The Willie Horton ad was a huge factor in the 1988 presidential campaign.

Social media has changed a lot of the rules for politics and business in general. We’re just starting to see how much of an impact this will have as the first presidential campaign since the explosion of social media heats up.
Now anyone with a laptop and a cursory understanding of video editing can reach a huge audience without the traditional barriers to entry. A negative campaign ad mashup of the famous 1984 Apple Super Bowl ad resonated with Obama supporters earlier this year when it replaced the image of “Big Brother” with Hillary Clinton. It will be interesting to see how these types of videos influence the presidential election as we get closer to the final vote in November.

The discussion about negative political ads got us thinking. How do these tactics apply to the business world?

The exciting thing about social media is that anyone now can make a video that could reach a huge audience. A huge community can also easily come together to share ideas about a specific topic. Unfortunately, however, anonymity often doesn’t help dialogue as some people leave comments they wouldn’t make if their real names and faces were somehow required. This is one of the biggest problems with political attack ads. It is often not clear who creates them, and they never contribute to meaningful dialogue.

The best way for companies to engage their customers using social media is to use be open and honest with them. Blogs, forums and other social media can be useful platforms for encouraging legitimate discussion of issues and can provide a mechanism for customers to give feedback.

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