Fake followers and manipulations: the political marketing 2.0

1 in 5 people all around the world are using a social network that represents more than 1.66 billion potential targets.

Social networks politics partner or enemy?

First, we will see the different stages of political marketing and then we will discuss about the threats of thereof.

Since 2000s, political marketing is knows a new era about their communication tools. Indeed, there is a success of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and has transformed the media practices and communication policies of political parties. This new way of communication implying more and more professionalization of modern political communication and the main strategy for politicians is to get closer of their followers. The personal account of politics makes people believe between them and the politicians as should be a journalist or a newspaper. Moreover, their speeches are not distorted by some press agent in people mind.

The best example that we can give is the Barack Obama's victory in 2012. The American president used Twitter to announce his famous “four more years”. It was the message the most tweeted of the history with 20 billion posts all night long representing 327 000 tweets a minutes.

TVs, newspapers and radio are only local or national media. Thanks to Internet and its social networks do not have boarders. Using the same example, it's all around the world starting with the loyal partner David Cameron and others; congratulate the reelected president.

Not only a communication tools, twitter can also be strategic. In fact, according a study, 22% of Americans have disclosed their votes on social networks during the vote day which and constitute a good pool source for the parties.

But on the other hand, the social networks can also be one of the major threats for the politics. In fact, control a journalist’s questions or field is much easier than manage all a social network community. Everything is said, scrutinized, analyzed and interpreted commented. Manage the communication 2.0 became a priority for the politics’ staff that one its parts is dedicated to. This, show how important are these new kind of media.

We can quote now the Kevin Spicey’s series “House of cards” when the vice president looking for the resignation of the president says that politics is almost treason. We can consider the word quite strong but the meaning remains. In the politicians’ way of view, looking for more followers or likes than the opposite site deserves political leaders. In fact, all the messages posted on the social networks will touch a higher number of impacted people by the message. Moreover, the number of likes or followers can also constitute a kind of approval rating. That is why; buy Facebook likes or Tweeter followers became common in the politics world and more largely, business sphere. You do not need a number account or password or nothing to buy some likes or followers to a Chinese company, for instance. Last month, six of the remain French political leaders (former Prime Minister, Agriculture Minister and others) got between 50 000 and 60 000 more followers in only one night. Manipulation you would you like to say? I do not, four of them come from the left wing, and the two other ones belong to right wing.  War between the two main parties?  Ego war? Coincidence? Cyber activist who wanted to show political manipulations obviously?

One thing is sure, political marketing 2.0 is a reality that we have to take into consideration. When I say yes, I say the legislative power, in order to regulate and supervise this field to not manipulate people anymore. But some authorities try to fight against the abuse of these new kinds of media. For instance, in France, there is a huge debate about the regulation of twitter but it’s hard to control internet. In fact, the freedom of speech is the most important value in France but also for most countries… That is why, authorities need to find a solution to limit the abuses without to disrupt this freedom.

That is why, nobody need to don’t forget that on the one hand, Twitter or Facebook are an amazing tool for the communication and on the other hand, they are a way of manipulation…