Barack Obama’s successful bid for the White House in 2009 was hailed as a triumph of social media. No presidential candidate had ever before utilised social media so successfully (or arguably had the opportunity to do so prior to the invention of Facebook and Twitter), allowing Obama to reach out to a younger and previously indifferent voting pool.
This year has seen a challenger to Obama’s social media crown, with a different lesson for us all – if you are not prepared to be quoted, then step away from the Twitterverse. Fast.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has attempted to use social media in a similar fashion, and has either shown brilliant communications skills or perhaps how bad communications kills a campaign.
Recent reports have quoted him as managing to offend many major powers in a matter of weeks, with US media labelling the trip ‘around the world in weighty gaffes’. A few choice quotes are Tweeting that the UK is not ready to host the Olympics; that a better culture is why Israel is more successful an economy than Palestine; and his press rep. telling journalists to kiss his unmentionable during a visit to Poland.
Is this however a stroke of genius and are these so-called gaffes been to show his more traditional Republican voters that he has strongly held opinions and means to stick to them? Or is he really just committing a series of uneducated blunders?
Perhaps in Romney’s case the old adages are the best – silence is golden.
