HOW IS SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGING POLITICS? Spring 2013 Media partner
This report reflects the conference rapporteur s understanding of the views expressed by speakers. Moreover, these views are not necessarily those of the organisations that participants represent, nor of Friends of Europe, its Board of Trustees, members or partners. Reproduction in whole or in part is permitted, providing that full credit is given to Friends of Europe, and provided that any such reproduction, whether in whole or in part, is not sold unless incorporated in other works. Rapporteur: Lorne Cook Publisher: Geert Cami Project Directors: Nathalie Furrer, Adam Nyman Project Managers: Jacqueline Hogue, Alessandra Baldissin Photographer: Ilaria Dozio Layout: Louise Smyth
Social media changing politics Spring 2013 3 Table of contents HOW IS SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGING POLITICS? 4 Television campaigns: A thing of the past? 5 Europe's social media experience 6 The pros and cons 7
4 Friends of Europe Future of Europe HOW IS SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGING POLITICS? Social media has redefined communication, leaped across borders and is now influencing the world of politics. The recent US presidential election has shown that platforms like Facebook and Twitter reach voters in ways that traditional media no longer can. The key is in targeting the right demographic, refining a message and sending it to voters through friends who are already supporters of candidates. According to Adam Conner, Manager for Public Policy in Facebook s Washington DC office and Strategist for the Democratic Party in the recent US presidential campaigns, friend power is the best way to reach voters, many of whom have lost confidence in political campaigns and the media, and are now Adam Conner and Geert Cami, Director using new technologies to communicate. and Co-founder, Friends of Europe With a refined message that is clearly focused on an important demographic of the population, parties and candidates can increase their prospects of success by targeting 'friends' of their followers, Conner said at a Friends of Europe and Debating Europe dinner. But the principles are the same whether you're trying to win someone's vote, persuade them to register, advertise a product or run a business, he told senior EU officials, communications and technology sector managers and industry decision-makers. "These lessons apply even if you don't have a billion dollars and your name isn't Barack Obama and you're not the president", he said. Conner worked as Facebook's social media adviser in both Obama elections campaigns, in 2008 and 2012. Another Facebook strategist counseled Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Referring at times to the role that social media played in the Arab Spring uprisings, Conner said that all politics today is social, rather than local. Person to person contact through new Tor Eigil Hodne, Director, Stattnet, Robert Manchin, Chairman & Managing Director, Gallup Europe, and Jose Luis Fontalba, Communication & Marketing Manager, CES media has revived the social nature of elections, he told the audience, including European Parliament members. Conner highlighted the advantages of social media ahead of the next European elections in 2014, adding that people cross traditional borders and boundaries as they exchange ideas over the Internet. As such, influence is no longer constrained geographically. Indeed the people most relevant to you might now be on the other side of the world, he said.
Social media changing politics Spring 2013 5 Television campaigns: A thing of the past? Conner warned that the power of social media should not be underestimated. According to Facebook statistics, eligible voters in the United States who use Facebook outnumber people who actually cast ballots in November. Yet while millions of dollars worth of campaign advertising flooded into television stations, to the point where air space could no longer be bought in certain states, surveys showed that one in three voters in some instances did not watch television at all. Of those who did, many were not watching during the commercial breaks. On top of that, fewer voters answered campaign telephone calls, leaving social media as one reasonable hope of reaching them. Moreover, social media users seem politically active. A Pew study from November 6 conducted for the elections showed that 30 percent of registered voters had been encouraged to vote by family and friends via posts on social media. Twenty percent used social media to encourage others to vote. During the election, Conner said some one million Obama fans signed up to his website reached out to seven million of their 'friends', and persuaded one in five of them to either register to vote, donate, volunteer or vote for him. Beyond this, messages targeted social groups deemed important for winning. Social media use is also cost effective making it easier to track and analyse trends, compared to television viewing figures. "This election was about targeting, it was about messages and it was about messengers. Campaigners were using geo-location, only pushing relevant messages to places that mattered to them. They were pushing 50 or 60 messages a day to voters in Florida, or women in Ohio or men in New Hampshire, really targeting that message very highly, tweeting people who mattered most, often under the radar of the mainstream media in Washington", Conner said. Ernst Stetter, Secretary General, Foundation for European Progressive Studies Kriton Arsenis MEP Timing is paramount; starting a campaign very early to build up these allimportant networks of friends. Conner believes that some of the success of Obama, who had a social media team of around 100 programmers, came because he had a head start of almost two years over Romney. Vast amounts of money were also injected into the campaign, but the figures for social media are not yet public. The Obama team focused on using supporters to drive the campaign; the idea that friends are more popular and persuasive
6 Friends of Europe Future of Europe than even the candidates themselves. "I think that ethos - that friends give you relevant information - was so powerful. People don't trust campaigns, they don't trust the media. Who do they trust? They trust their friends", Conner said. He also underlined the importance of remembering that citizens are people, and not just data, and must be engaged with in an intelligent way. Emotional communication can be successful, particularly through photographs, as the public responded to images that portrayed the president as a person, rather than using official photos. Conner said the White House has clearly learned the lesson that social media is a space to be more personal, given its decision to post a photo on its Facebook page of Obama crying after the school massacre in Newtown. Europe's social media experience In the audience, some MEPs raised concern about intense social networking during campaigns, and expressed fears that it might be seen by citizens as a cynical ploy to attract votes. The European Parliament's public image is already suffering. Raffaella De Marte, Social Media Manager for the Cabinet of the President of the European Parliament, said Elizabeth Linder, Government & Politics Specialist, EMEA, Facebook, Rafaella De Marte, Press Officer & Social Media Manager, Cabinet of the President, European Parliament, and Tilmann Kupfer, Vice President, Trade & International Affairs, BT the assembly has two dilemmas ahead of the 2014 election. "The European Parliament is more important under the Lisbon Treaty, but turnout went down in the last election campaign. So the challenge is to explain to citizens why the European Parliament is important, and why their vote matters. The economic crisis hasn't helped because many decisions were taken by the governments of Europe without really involving the Parliament". The other dilemma is how to strike a balance so that Martin Schulz, for example, can campaign as President of the European Parliament but also as an MEP hoping to be reelected in Germany. Teresa Jimenez-Becerril Barrio MEP and Abhinav Kumar, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer Europe, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Teresa Jimenez-Becerril Barrio MEP, Member of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, noted that many politicians are already over-burdened by phone calls and emails from unhappy constituents. She said that public complaints in her home country of Spain have increased with the crisis. Some representatives fear that opening a social media account might overwhelm them altogether. Conner advised against responding to every
Social media changing politics Spring 2013 7 message, but he said that citizens now know that social media at least gives them a chance of getting a response from a politician. He urged candidates to decide how accessible and open they want to be, and to communicate only what is important. He gave the example of busy representatives using social media to show how hard they work, by tweeting when they attend a late-night vote. Some participants questioned whether the US experience can translate to the European political scene, where differences in language, culture and data regulations complicate campaigning. Marije Laffeber, Deputy Secretary General of the Party of European Socialists, said parties in some EU nations are not allowed to collect data on voters as they do in the United States. In the Netherlands, information can only be kept on members of political parties, who make up just two percent of the population. "In Europe, we are talking to 27 types of citizens so it is really hard to do a targeted campaign", she said. Conner insisted that social media does reach regional language users, but that perhaps the best service it can provide is easy access to relevant information to help citizens make choices. He also warned against trying to please everybody, saying it is best to focus on messengers who have the most impact on a particular country, region or demographic. John Vassallo, Advisor, Euromed, Africa & Transatlantic Issues, Microsoft, and Erika Mann, Managing Director Policy, Facebook Erika Mann, Facebook s Policy Managing Director in Europe, offered one solution. She advised political groups and parties at the European Parliament to design an election campaign for a social media environment. This common European programme could then be given a local flavour in each member country by candidates running for a seat in the assembly. "I think this kind of combination can be achieved. But it requires a clever strategy and very good management, probably even more intelligent, even more clever, than was perhaps used in the US, because Europe is so much more diverse", she said. The pros and cons Emer Costello MEP, Member of the European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, said that social media had proved a doubleedged sword, notably in Ireland where a politician recently committed suicide after being harassed online. Social media had allowed her to reach "more real people", but she had also been attacked on Facebook and Twitter. "It's very upsetting and it is very debilitating if you are a politician and you are subject to abuse", she said. "But I have to be able to take a certain amount of criticism and I can't be too sensitive". Conner said politicians in the United States are grappling with this issue of how to allow very vocal opponents the space they are entitled to. Costello also warned that it was important not to get carried away by social media. When
8 Friends of Europe Future of Europe you step out into "the real world no one's heard of you, so you have to have a sense of reality about it". "When you focus on the audience, when you understand the messages and the messengers and when you treat the voters like people and you empower your supporters, you really do have a powerful recipe for success. We think that's something that can be replicated around the world at every level. Adam Conner, Manager for Public Policy in Facebook s Washington DC office Whatever social media's impact on politics, Conner underlined that the lessons learned from the US Presidential campaign apply to anyone. "When you focus on the audience, when you understand the messages and the messengers and when you treat the voters like people and you empower your supporters, you really do have a powerful recipe for success. We think that's something that can be replicated, not just in the United States when someone's running for president, but around the world at every level", he said. Adam Conner and MEPs Emer Costello and Zita Gurmai Véronique Scailteur, Director, Government Relations Europe, Procter & Gamble and Nessa Childers MEP
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