Social Networks in 2008 - All About the Niche

One of the biggest process/tactics stories of the 2006 election cycle is the rise of social networking as a campaign tool. Candidates caught on to the fact that young voters are a demographic they need to be courting – particularly progressive, who currently have a natural advantage in this demographic - and that social networks were the place to do that.

On November 8th and 9th, there will be plenty of stories about the role of social networking in the midterm elections. If current predictions hold, most likely those stories will focus on how social networking played a key role in turning out young voters. Hopefully for Democratic candidates.

But what have candidates really done with their social networking profiles, and what will they need to do in 2008 to take this campaign tool to the next level?

Thus far, candidates have used the networks to build up large friend lists:

The super-candidates of Facebook are once again Hillary Clinton, with 12,038 supporters (42% more than last month), and Virginia Senator George Allen, with 3,831 supports (52% more than last month). The authors also note that, although they aren't running for office this year, Barack Obama, Evan Bayh, and John Kerry all have active Facebook profiles in anticipation of possible presidential runs. Obama enjoyed a particularly big explosion of the last month, going from 719 to 7,123 supporters.

Candidates have used these lists to increase their visibility among young voters by reaching out to them in the places they (culturally) inhabit, and, if they're really smart, microtarget their supporters to create more relevant, authentic campaign communication and more effectively tap people's personal social networks.

But will that be enough in 2008? I don't think so. Social networking and young people are moving targets - people drop networks like fashion trends, something that will probably increase as new networks like Piczo, hi5 come online, and specialized niche sites like metacafe and Ning proliferate. Campaigns are going to become increasingly sophisticated in their use of this tool, and those who don't adapt will get left behind.

In 2008, if candidates like Barack and Hillary want to maximize the value of those lists and turn those numbers into real supporters, they'll have to embrace one of two (not mutually exclusive) strategies:

1. Turn their networks into true communities, or
2. Realize the power of the niche and figure out how to decentralize their social networking outreach

I don't think that anyone knows at this point what a tightly bound political community looks like on a social network like MySpace or FaceBook. Certainly not one that can sustain activity for the full two years of a Presidential cycle with all of its ebbs and flows.

John Edwards' One America Committee is currently the closest thing to a poster child for this strategy. His (beta) social network One Corps is attempting to leverage the volunteerism of the Millenial generation towards political ends by building an online community from scratch. One Corps is using MySpace and FaceBook as a recruiting tool to build this community and guide it through its beta testing stages. Whether or not this will work will depend largely on the quality of the social network they roll out.

The second option is to go deep - find a way to completely decentralize social networking outreach so that your followers go viral and invade all the niche networks on your behalf. In this model, your FaceBook and MySpace friend are a jumping off point; a baseline pool of social capital that you microtarget by lifestyle and use to create Evangelists who carry your message into "trusted" and/or specialized networks.

Campaigns that can do that - especially presidential campaigns that have the manpower resources and the sheer amount of time it will take to build trust and relationships - will see votes and money and bodies coming into their campaign.

The real challenge - the holy grail - will be getting something viral to rise back up to the national level out of the depths of the niches.

Everyone knows what Jib Jab was in 2004; with the rise of the social web, millions of Millenials are out there with the production skills, the tools, and the creativity to repeat that feat. Smart campaigns will use their social networks to tap that creativity. If successful, photoshopped images, machinima satires, home movies like this and this will proliferate - spreading among the niches to which they appeal and out of which they arise. Some will stay in their niches and energize those supporters. Others will go national like Jib Jab.

The task that campaigns now face is to build the connections that will bear those fruits over the next 2 years. It's going to take a lot of trial and error, and a lot of time to build relationships with their community of supporters. Campaigns that try to do it on the cheap, or refuse to let go of control will find themselves getting left behind.

On November 8th, we're going to see a rash of stories about the role of social networking in the 2006 election cycle. On November 9th, campaigns will need to start thinking about their strategy for 2008, and how they are going to more efficiently and effectively use use social networks to achieve victory and create a progressive majority.