Should Businesses Avoid Politics on Social Media?

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS

Image Credit: Tom Fishburne Marketoonist – Cartoons for Sale for businesses ~ free for blog use with attribution ~ Click Image for How to Use his Great Cartoons

Even if you aren’t interested in the Presidential Debates, you can learn much from how social media is used to change public perception. This is key to knowing what is being done that will affect your life and can be applied to marketing your business, blog, or brand.

Social Media is being used for Presidential campaigning because it greatly increases involvement – and that can also benefit your blog or business. Here’s how.

VIDEO MARKETING

Video is going to continue to become more and more important as we illustrated last month with these video app growth statistics and Smart Phone growth projections. These combined mean your business needs to be using video.

LIVE VIDEO EVENTS

Live video adds an element of urgency that can get more people to tune in instead of putting what you want to show them off for a “later when they aren’t as busy” that usually never comes.

Record your live events and make them available for those
who missed them so they can continue to benefit you.

While that may reduce immediate viewers, it is likely to benefit you more than not making them available in the hopes of forcing people to be at the live event. Many may wish to but have conflicts in their schedule – and even more will intend to be there and forget or get busy and not make it.

Video highlights:

Video marketing will continue to grow
Live video in a major trend that grabs attention
Political controversy can increase interaction and engagement

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE SOCIAL MENTIONS

In the Alerti graph below you can see that social media sentiment surrounding the live broadcasting of the 2012 Presidential Debates on YouTube is largely positive. To measure what people are saying about you, your brand, blog or business you use a social media monitoring solution.

To test drive Alerti, which is one of the easier to learn sm monitoring tools
Sign up for Alerti free social media monitoring account trial
Use Bonus Code alertivideo to extend the trial
from the usual 30 days to 90 days.

Click image to see larger version for easier viewing

Presidential Debates Links

Presidential Debates Schedule
Presidential Debates Topics
Huffington Post First Presidential Debate Mention Meter – tracks the number of times a topic is mentioned by a candidate during the debate.
How to view the debates on iO6 iPhones and iPads

Do Business and Politics Mix?

Each person must decide whether to protect their income and allow our societies to continue to decline into moral decay, or take a stand – and if that costs them business and income so be it. You may end up with fewer but more loyal customers or you may take a loss – but in the end your conscience will be the better for it.

Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.

Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” ~ Robert F. Kennedy ~

Business and Politics

Should people stay silent on their beliefs? Here are the results (so far) of a poll taken by Southwest Minneapolis Patch asking Should Companies Take Positions on Social Issues? Click that link to read the full story and see the latest poll results. You can also tell us what you think in the comments.