Millennial Votes Driven by Branding, Social Media
Posted On November 1, 2012
The recent Intelligence Group survey of Millennials found that they interact with candidates and political parties in the same way the interact with their favorite brands: through causes and social media.
In Millennials, the president of the Group sees “little distinction between airing their support for a candidate, a cause, a team, a movie, a birthday, or a pair of shoes they’ve purchased.” Indeed, brand loyalty and brand evangelism expressed through social media channels are key Millennial consumer traits that shape their political activity. Two-thirds of them said in the survey that social media activism was more effective at creating change than traditional forms of political activity.
Engaging Millennial consumers through an effective social media presence is a key part of any branding strategy and was clearly an integral part of the success of the 2008 Obama campaign. It remains an edge in the incumbent’s favor: The Klout score, a measure of social media influence, for the incumbent is 99 (out of 100), higher than Lady Gaga, Twitter, or Nike. Since 2008, other political “brands” have learned to use social media effectively to target Millennials (the Crossroads Generation and Generation Opportunity sites are great examples). Their task is to “catch up” with the brand that got to digital natives on their home turf first.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2012/10/24/generation-y-ready-to-stand-up-and-be-counted/