Watch Street Consulting was recently mentioned in an article about the use of technology on campaigns. An excerpt from the story is below. You can read the full story here.
Challenge: Breaking out of the crowd
But with everyone on the social media bandwagon, it will be more difficult for candidates to stand out, experts say.
“This will be a year where it’s not enough to just have these things, campaigns need to be using them strategically,” said Trevor Montgomery, founder and president of Watch Street Consulting in Chicago.
Effective campaigns will place more emphasis on mobile peer-to-peer communication models, Montgomery said. These models encourage “third party validation” in which voters share their political preferences with other voters.
“Communication is more valuable when it’s coming from someone you know and trust,” Montgomery said. “I think all candidates will be able to use third party validation on a much larger scale with Facebook, text messaging and mobile apps.”
Other trends experts expect to see in 2012 will include text message donations, more Facebook town halls, and an influx of live streaming video debates.
“In 2012 I think we will see a major presidential debate on Facebook,” Trice said.
Trice also predicts the emergence of more specialized social media jobs in campaigns. For example, there will be designated positions for Tweeters, Flickr picture takers and YouTube videographers.
But no matter how much content candidates produce, they will always be competing with third parties for attention.
“You can’t control user generated content that goes viral,” Trice said. “That’s just the nature of the Internet. Campaigns can’t be afraid of it – they should just embrace it.”
