Political Campaigns, meet mobile marketing

Political campaigns, get on the mobile bus!

While I would love to talk about the research I've found in my own or my client's experience about how having a mobile site has enhanced their marketing objectives, a few very credible sources have been discussing how important this is including none other than Google itself, the Pew Research Center and Search Engine Land.  All taking a slightly different approach and giving a variety of data, it's clear that political campaigns have several needs in online marketing most importantly going mobile, getting SEO and managing online reputation.

 

Facts

17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than a computer or other device, according to a recent Pew Study.  Even more compelling 55% of cellphone users (who doesn't have a cellphone??)  go online with their cellphone. 

 

While these results should be compelling enough, even Google is recommending that political campaigns go mobile (how nice of Google!) by releasing an infographic (http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/google-politics/) about how adults spend more time on mobile than newspapers and magazines combined.  Even Karl Rove (yes, that Karl Rove) had an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about the effect of the web on campaigns, while not on the informative side, he related to recent web importance to the history of media changes, starting with "I like Ike" tv commercials of the 50's.  Pretty much everyone agrees it's important, but who is using it to their advantage?

 

A strong component to mobile marketing is going to be SEO.  Why?

 

It's great if you get your mobile site up, but how will people find it?  Recently at a political meet and greet I went online to find more information about the candidates I was meeting and instead of finding the candidate, I found someone with a similar name, who luckily was very charitable so gave me a positive perception (until I did more research and realized that this person wasn't the candidate at all...), but imagine if the opponent had published their campaign attacks and those were what showed up?  I hear all to often of how 1 negative review dramatically impacts some businesses and with all the mud-slinging in politics, there is likely to be many more than just 1 negative comment, video, site, etc.

 

Who has the valuable digital advantage?

 

And while the Politico talked about how Pres. Obama had a digital advantage, when I searched for "Miami Obama office" I didn't get to a mobile site, but when I searched for "Miami Romney office" the first result led me to a fairly decent mobile site... and according to some of the research out there this may be one advantage that shouldn't be ignored.

 

Sources:
- Google to Political Campaigns: Get Online Now
http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/google-politics/

- Cell Internet Use 2012, Pew Internet & American Life Project

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Cell-Internet-Use-2012/Key-Findings.aspx

- The Growing Need for SEO in Political Campaigns
http://searchengineland.com/the-growing-need-for-seo-in-political-campaigns-96953

- Obama's Digital Advantage
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77213.html

- Political Campaigns Go Viral, Karl Rove
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576190472697049288.html