Social Media and Politics – 49Pixels Recap

Patrick.Gladney, January 28 2012

The following post was submitted by Patrick Gladney, Director of Research and Insights at SMG.

I enjoyed being a guest on the 49pixels podcast on on Wednesday night.   Together with National Post columnist and twitter king Jonathan Goldsbie, we rehashed the details of 2010′s Toronto Municipal Election, the composition of twitter and pondered the future of technology and politics.

If you are intersted in hearing the podcast, simply click here.

I believe there is still so much opportunity for politicians and political organizations to use social media effectively.  There are some new models being showcased today in the US, where the GOP is using social media in new and intersting ways, such as Newt Gingrich’s adaptation of phone banking which incents loyalists to contact others via skype to ask for their support.

This ain’t social media, but it speaks volumes

One of the questions that came up was the Obama adminstrations use of Instragram.  Goldsbie asked why instragram?  As my colleague Brandon Smith said the next morning, there are 12 million reasons why, and they are all on Instagram.  Also, it just so happened that Obama (the administration, not the man)  tweeted during the State of the Union Address, suggesting that those attending SOTU watching parties take photographs of the gatherings and post them online.  Kind of a cool way to build community, I’d say.

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Social Media as News, SMG in the news

Patrick.Gladney, November 10 2011

The new media paradigm:

The fastest way to get a news story out is on twitter.

Every journalist is using social to communicate and look for a scoop.

Social media is a big story behind elections, social movements and the occasional publicity crisis.

It’s symbolic of the fact that each and everyday we’re witnessing the convergence between social media and mainstream news sources.

Further proof of this convergence is the fact that every two weeks, you’ll find Social Media Group in the newspaper of all places (digital editions too!)  Bi-weekly, we’ll be contributing social media data and analysis to the folks at Postmedia relating to current events, both lighter fare and important issues.  We aim to be the Angus Reid of social media research!

To see what we’re up to, just click on our contribution to the viral global spread of the Occupy movement on Twitter, or last week’s gem,  Beaver versus Polar Bear as the Canadian national animal (infographic below).

Like the work we do for our clients, our goal is to inform, provide insight and occaisionally offer some entertainment!  Enjoy!

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