Crowd-sourcing Political Persuasion in Social Media

Update: Although this post was written a while back, people are still finding it and reading it. I have updated it here and there to reflect the post-Trump realities.

Right after the 2016 US election, we heard a lot about the "echo chamber" that saw a lot of people talking about issues in social media, but mostly to people of similar beliefs.

Why did neither side have much success persuading people of conflicting beliefs and what should we do differently for the futute?

The problem was that most people do not use social media right, if their goal is to persuade.  They post a photo or an article link, and just assume that people would "get it" about the problem or solution.

Many do get it, but the people you most want to influence may NOT get it, and many of them actively resist changing their minds.

What do we collectively need to do differently?

Using social media for political persuasion is a crowd-sourcing endeavor.  We want the people we are trying to influence to get the same message, again and again, from many sources.  But even more, we need to create our posts in ways that will motivate action - the action we want them to take (like voting our way).

We need to say WHY the thing we are posting about is important, WHAT we want readers to do as a result, and include an urgent-feeling CALL TO ACTION.

It's that simple. If you want people to take action, tell them what action they should take, in clear, vivid terms.  But most people using social media for personal use do not do this when sharing things they think are interesting.

An urgent call to action is what got protesters to Reagan International Airport in 2016 to support foreign nationals being blocked from entering the country -- a crisis message of "drop everything and get to the airport NOW."

It's what has activated counter-protestors to BMW, neo-NAZI, and other ultra-right wing events.  "We have to show that they don't speak for us, so be there at _____."

And it is what's missing from almost every politically-motivated social media post I see.  We get a link to a story, and if there is any comment at all, it is something bland to the effect of "this is bad" or "this is stupid" or just a repeat of the story headline. 

Too often the message we get is NOT "this is bad, and it's important because _____ and we have to do this ______ to stop/change it."

Motivating Action

Remember, sometimes the call to action needs to be for something big, like a critical rally or election day vote.

Sometimes it should urge a medium-level of involvement, like calling or emailing a congressional office.

Sometimes the action we want is simply "pass this message on and tell YOUR friends why you think it's important."

The big websites with political agendas do this all the time, but everyday folks usually do not.  Successful crowd-sourcing of persuasion means everybody who supports the political agenda needs to assert why the thing is important and what people should do in response.

Regardless, crafting your politically-motivated posts to produce action is essential.  When it comes to election day, it is too late to build the foundation which would motivate the big action of voting the "right" way.