TRENDSHIP...Entering the New Age of Politics
TRENDSHIPS (Trademark) In Digital Marketing for a Presidential Election
In June 2015, Tom Pick wrote, “Social may be sexy, but search still pays the bills” (Pick 2015). Not this election year.
Moore's law refers to an observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965. He noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention. In 2004, Facebook had 1 million users. As of the third quarter of 2016, Facebook has 1.79 BILLION monthly users that regularly, on a daily basis, “click”, “like”, and “share” both factual and nonfactual information (Statista 2016). While sites such as Facebook do not quite live up to Moore’s standards for exponential growth, the recent national election clearly demonstrated that social media is not only sexy, but it also guarantees users will most assuredly co-mingle with Cookie Monster riddled self-affirming political wormholes that reflect and expound upon suggested and real beliefs.
While homemade chocolate chip cookies are explicitly enticing, hidden cookies on sites such as Facebook tempt individual users in more subtle ways. Subtlety, however, has not been a hallmark of the recent Web presence of the 2016 Presidential race on social media. Regarding the Presidential campaign for Donald Trump, run under the digital direction of Brad Parscale of Giles-Parscale, the marketing guru Pascale successfully shifted focus from television ads to the Twenty-First Century platform of social media (Andrews 2016).
A close look at both behavioral psychology and technological innovations is necessary. Robert Cialdini of the University of Arizona has long engaged in the study of persuasion techniques. Of his six recommendations, this campaign cycle's digital presence focused on all of them, including: reciprocation, social proof, commitment and consistency, liking, authority, and scarcity. The major candidates left many people feeling uncertain, perhaps more so this year than during any other prior election. Research repeatedly demonstrates that when people are uncertain about a particular course of action, they look for guidance, especially from peers. They tend to agree, or "like," information disseminated by people they know and by people they hold in authoritative positions. They gravitate towards an idea if it is considered a scarcity, such as the "anti-establishment" concept. When people are alerted that they cannot have something, their desire shoots up, and they provide a vicious defense of it. Social sites, in many ways, are defining new cultural and social norms. While there is no statistical information related to how many people were "unfriended" during this election season, it is suspected that the rate is rather high. Thus, the wormhole effect created normed thoughts, words, and behaviors that became, for many users, merely self-affirming rather than steeped in controversial debate and intellectual discourse. For several years, Dr. Sundaram of the University of Illinois has been conducting innovative research that identifies mechanisms to encourage cooperative behaviors in large groups. How does one change and influence human behavior? In the field of technology, the practice of group formation is called "community discovery." There are detailed ways to increase a rise in coordinated behaviors, and behavioral research shows how individuals' decisions may be influenced by their "friends" (Sundaram 2016); however, as Cialdini notes, "People's ability to understand the factors that affect their behavior is surprisingly poor." Couple this with the lack of knowledge about how technology can influence human behaviors, and Election Day can bring about a stunning surprise.
Social media is intricately interwoven into the daily lives of Americans...simply consider the feeling of panic people experience when they realize they are without their smartphones. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed people all over the world to act upon the extraordinary desire humans have to connect with one another. What users may not understand is how marketing companies deliberately manipulate information for distribution. Once a database and the network topology is created, a company configures thresholds such as the number of messages to be sent, the time of day they will blast, the positive and negative framing of messages and the appropriate demographic groups for which these should be directed, and various types of statistics, skewed or not, to be displayed. This technology is no longer in its infancy. This year, it grew up through unceasing, calculated nudges that increased collective action and social traits.
Parscale previously worked in the digital marketing business, most recently for Trump’s real estate interests. He explains his initiation into the world of Trump like this: “The invitation to bid on Trump Organization business came in 2011 through a referral. It was a small project in Web-design terms—the Trump International Realty Website.” (Parscale 2016). “Through some aggressive networking, Parscale got some business with big New York City real estate firms. He came to Trump's attention and from there he did various projects for the Trump organization. They ranged from sites for buildings, one of Trump's real estate operations and even Trump's winery” (Marshall 2016). With knowledge gained from previous digital marketing campaigns in private business, Parscale proceeded to dominate the social media platform with messages that were both factual and fictional.
Millions of social media users were swayed to embrace messages they might never otherwise utter aloud. Parscale created marketing strategies and oversaw functional aspects of these strategies in collaboration with his partner, creative director Jill Giles. Clicking on one site during this election season, whether real or not, often led to other related sites on Facebook, as Parscale determinedly intended. Despite unsecured URLs that led users to contradicting sites in important rollouts such as the Vice-Presidential candidate nominee selection, Parscale’s techniques secured nearly fifty percent more in small donations (less than $200) over Hillary Clinton’s team’s online strategies. Of the nearly $18.4 million dollars raised in July by Trump’s online campaign directed by Pascale, $8.3 million went to Pascale’s firm. Zero dollars were spent on television ads in July 2016 (Andrews 2016).
In 2016, there were an estimated 207 MILLION cell phone users in the United States (Pew Research Center 2016), a number that nearly equals the total number of adults in the United States. Cell phone users are almost always “turned on.” These users constantly check social media sites. Google, Facebook, Bing, and other marketing interfaces realize this. Savvy marketers “hit” potential consumers constantly, and there is an almost Pavlovian response to the “ding” song cell phones make. Serotonin and other brain chemicals actually change when there is a digital response to one’s social media on platforms such as Instagram. Functional fMRI studies confirm this effect (Sherman et al., 2016). People “like” their ideas being “liked.”
Facebook explains its use of “cookies,” a digital marketing technique in this manner: “Cookies are small pieces of text used to store information on web browsers. Cookies are used to store and receive identifiers and other information on computers, phones, and other devices. Billions of data are collected every single day. Other technologies, including data stored on [Web browsers] or personal devices, identifiers associated with [devices], and other software, are used for similar purposes.” The NSA’s participation in the mega-data mining controversy, the Patriot Act’s allowance for infringement upon privacy, and the hotly debated 2013 investigation into large scale corporate company meta-analyses of data aside, small and large digital marketing companies got the message. Use. The. SEO. Tools. Great marketing techniques are like wildfire. Private companies, in recent years, have changed their policies and have started to create direct digital outreaches to consumers.
Parscale and his partner, Giles, were in charge of everything from email lists to digital ad placement, digital targeting, and data mining (Marshall 2016) in the Trump campaign. Despite the technical issues the firm encountered, such as unintended redirection to unrelated sites, and in spite of the firms attempts at tempting “foreign parliamentarians with cash asks to take on ‘Hillary’ and initial massive and totally unprecedented spam problems” (Marshall 2016), the Facebook psychographic profiles seemed to have worked to spread Trump’s messages…those that were sometimes factual and those that often evaporated the thin veil of decency that allowed Facebook users that were “hit” to delve into oftentimes racist and misogynistic “Trendships” (trademark) with other users that had previously hesitated from utilizing such rhetoric in person or online.
Clinton won the popular vote by over 2.9 million, a figure that trumped Trump to a tune larger than any other victory in history regarding a Presidential election. Some people have determined to exercise their right to peaceful protest. Unfortunately, some individuals, as when Obama was elected in 2008 when his transition faced burning effigies, threats of violence against himself and his family, and actual violence in the streets by anti-Obama protestors, have engaged in similarly unethical behaviors to inappropriately protest Donald Trump's transition to office. Some Facebook “shared” stories related to recent protests are real, but many are fabricated. "Bots" are real, but not real people, but for some, this does not seem to matter much. One example is the viral Facebook post related to a Philadelphia man who was supposedly beat down and killed by anti-Trump protestors. After thousands of “shares,” this post was “shared” to the sister of the individual who was actually involved in the attack that was falsely reported to be an anti-Trump attack. The woman identified her brother as someone who was killed one year prior in a completely unrelated event (Shaw 2016). This woman openly expressed her incredulity and asked, "Why would someone distort truth like this?" Despite this reality coming to light, the “shares” of this false attack continue…and so the cookie crumbles. In response, Twitter users are being hit with varying messages supposedly from Trump himself, but more likely from his digital marketers, regarding his exasperation with protestors and allegations of “fake” protestors.” More recently, scaled back marketed and juried messages have emerged from the Trump Twitter account such as, “Love the fact that the small groups of protestors last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!”
Since election night in early November 2016, social media users, regardless of their political psychographic information, have been bombarded with messages, memes, and propaganda in an attempt to lure people into reading pro-Trump/anti-Obama messages. Humorous anti-Obama/Biden memes have been widely circulated, even by pro-Clinton supporters. Perhaps a Facebook check into the IP addresses of the original senders is in order to save face for Facebook. Excellent digital marketing is at work.
Hence, it is important to know a really good cookie recipe when marketing a product or a candidate.
It is also critical to understand Boolean logic. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a Website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine-- including Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. The term "Boolean," often encountered when doing searches on the Web, refers to a system of logical thought developed by the English mathematician and computer pioneer, George Boole (1815-64). In Boolean searching, an "and" operator between two words or other values (for example, "pear AND apple") means one is searching for documents containing both of the words or values, not just one of them. An "or" operator between two words or other values (for example, "pear OR apple") means one is searching for documents containing either of the words. “In computer operation with binary values, Boolean logic can be used to describe electromagnetically charged memory locations or circuit states that are either charged (1 or true) or not charged (0 or false). The computer can use an AND gate or an OR gate operation to obtain a result that can be used for further processing” (Rhinne 1996). Parscale clearly understands Boolean algebra. Parscale, and perhaps his partner, clearly understand the digital marketing technique of “flipping,” which is an effective method used to find the relationships between Web pages based on how they are hyperlinked together (Shukla 2015). Without employing the marketing of techniques of “harvesting” and “mining,” a less adept team sent out to recruit on social media stood little chance of success during this election cycle. Parscale employed all of this marketing methodology and academic research, and the over one billion Facebook users were stormed (or, as some would indicate, became Storm Troopers), thanks to his efforts. Reflecting upon this, as McDonald (2016) states, “The farce is with you."
The establishment and Donald Trump were successfully spun, via social media, as anti-establishment, while it is clear he and his contender were deeply rooted in the established political scene. However, Parscale demonstrated that spin is spin. As Marshall McLuhan once stated, “The message is the medium…Message…Mess Age…Massage” (1964).
It is interesting to note that Parscale is getting tremendous attention from media outlets such as Fox News while his partner, a female creative director is getting none. Betty Davis (the musician, not the actress) comes to mind. A few lessons from a critique of the recently defunct non-politically affiliated Nasty Gal viral online clothing business: 1) You can have a hero but don’t forget his story; 2) Growth doesn’t necessarily equal success; and 3) You can correct your dreams” (adapted from Everatt 2016).
For the many individuals who do and for the far too many who do not understand marketing in the digital age, this election was won, in large part, by directly employing social media.
For now, Russia will be omitted from this digital argument.
Imagine if social media users held up a sign indicating every time they viewed or “liked” a site. Imagine if social media users embraced “fake” news as truth. Imagine if this led to additional bombardments of related sites similar to those infamous “sale” promotions that hit emails, Facebook, and other social media posts after potential consumers search items they might be remotely interested in purchasing. Imagine if social media and consumers failed to understand the psychographic and search platform metrics. Imagine that? Add to this the concept of fake "bots" that can widely distribute information at incredible speeds, whether it is true or false, and most savvy social media consumers, if they understand this technology, will have their minds blown.
As Franco Olivo (2016) recently commented, Trump will be our first Social Media President. "In public, he speaks in short, simple sentences and makes the sorts of provocative statements that years of Twitter use have taught him will have an impact. His extensive social media consumption also gives him plentiful insight into the way his target audience feels and he tailors his message accordingly." Hemingway, Trump is not. Laconic and provoking, he most certainly is.
What will become of the United States in this new era of politics? Hopefully, more understanding of science, technology, and people. Hopefully, more truth and more truth in advertising. Many people will be more vigilant and careful, perhaps, as they move forward with and their comprehension of what shapes their digital lives and how these are influenced. It is hoped that all people, the ones who were nasty, the ones who used nasty words, and the ones who now embrace the new etymology regarding the word nasty itself, will become more aware in their daily social media endeavors. As for me, to quote the singer Betty Davis, “I ain’t nothing but a nasty gal now," and my digital perception is wide awake.