Musing about Politics and Social Media

Research generally shows that posts about issues on social media do not change minds.

So why are we bombarded by advocacy in social media?  Why do businesses, organizations, and politicians invest so much time and effort into social media marketing?

First and foremost, individuals like and share things they like, often not fact-checking and filtering them for accuracy.  

More specifically, people often like and share posts about issues that validate their pre-conceived opinions and biases.  They rationalize this by saying "my friends might be interested." We know from the research that nobody's mind gets changed, but by posting, people feel that they are doing something about the issue.

When it comes to businesses and organizations, it is different.  Largely they want to accomplish two things -- reinforce the perceptions of people who already like them and influence those people who have not made up their minds.  This is a lot different from trying to change the minds of people who dislike or are unhappy with the company.

In addition, the biggest successes in social media marketing come from inspiring happy customers to say positive things, i.e. give testimonials.  People see such comments as highly authentic and believable, more so than what the company says.

In politics, such as the upcoming presidential election, this is why negative campaigning works so well, and is particularly rife in social media:

Negative claims about the opponent 

validate those who already support you and 

influence those who have not made up their minds.

This is why Donald Trump, for example, uses the recurring pattern of 1) posting an incendiary statement on Twitter and 2) a day or so later walking it back.

The initial Tweet does its job of validation and influence, but the later walk-back changes the "record" of what he intended to say.

The news media has been VERY slow to pick up on this strategy, dutifully reporting the over-the-top post and the later modification or fact checking.  By then the post has accomplished its goal of validation and influence, and to those people, the walk-back gains little attention.