Social Media & the 2012 Presidential Election

This 2012 election has been called “the first social media presidential election” and early data has shown just that.

The Twitter Government and Politics Team tweeted out on Sunday night that before even starting, there were more tweets about the Republican National Convention that day, than the entire week in 2008.

Syracuse University has even opened a class for the fall semester dedicated to social media and the 2012 election.

Both candidates are utilizing social media tools like Twitter to reach out to optimize their campaigns. Obama is leading the way by far with more than 19 million followers, while Romney hasn’t quite hit the 1 million mark yet. 

Click the link below for the social media guide to conventions to learn more and get involved in the social aspect of the election!

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/27/cnns-social-media-guide-to-the-conventions/ 

Facebook Testing Promoted News Feed Posts for Non-Fans

Companies may now be able to advertise in the news feeds of users on Facebook who are not a fan of their pages. Facebook revealed on Tuesday that it will begin testing promoted posts for brands so that they have the ability to reach people who haven’t become a fan of their page.

Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta announced that Facebook will shortly be starting a very small test which will allow companies to promote posts to users beyond the fans in their news feed. The promoted posts will appear both on desktop and mobile versions of the site.

The promoted posts will look like typical updates in a user’s news feed, but they will be labeled as “sponsored.” As of right now, only fans of a company have the option to view their posts in the fans news feed.