Social Media and Political Campaigns

During this last election I made a number of comments to facebook, blogs and twitter. I questioned the methods of those who refused to embrace the idea of social media. I have thought a lot about the questions that came back to me from candidates and readers. As we head into a new world flattened by technology, I believe we will see more candidates and political pundits embracing social media. At the same time we will have many nay sayers to the idea of new technology. The old days of writing letters and phone calls will still exist (for awhile), but are quickly being replaced with emails, twitter and facebook profiles. History is full of examples of people and groups who refused to embrace or even look at change.

Some examples:

1. Western Union. They stated the idea of letter writing would never catch on and telegrams would always be the preferred method of communication.
2. Kodak. They thought no one would ever use a digital camera. Digital is dumb.
3. FranklinCovey. When I worked there they would say, "Paper has been around for 3000 years no one will ever use a digital planner or smartphone."

Each of these companies and their CEO's made fundamental decisions to not look nor embrace changes in technology. In fact they did everything they could to avoid it. You will also notice most of the CEOs left their companies once profits tanked.

Here is an interesting video and article on this very subject posted in UtahPolicy.org .

If you are newly elected or thinking about it, get involved with social media. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish. Don't push it away and write it off as a fad. Really look into this and see what it is all about. It isn't the solution to the best campaign or the best politician. But it is an amazing tool to push to the next level.