During the month of November, I saw #MyFirstTime video and if you saw the smile on my face you would know I was not thinking politics. The objective of the video was to encourage youth or “born frees” to register to vote but importantly to make a sound & informed decision that will affect their livelihood. Within a matter of seconds, I laughed after discovering that Barack Obama also used #MyFirstTime promotion video during his 2008 presidential campaign.
South Africa is headed for what is likely to be it’s first heavily competitive election campaign. Most political parties are targeting the “born frees”, hence they have included online media in their strategies.
Democratic Alliance (DA) being the political organization with the biggest lead in social media space African National Congress (ANC) has over 82 000 followers on twitter and DA has just over 46 000 followers . ANC has a Klout score or 74 and DA has a score of 89 which proves that DA is the biggest influencer on the digital media. In order for DA to increase numbers on the social networks and also convert these to votes they will have to pull out all the guns.
DA KLOUT SCORE
ANC KLOUT SCORE
Obama’s 2008 election digital campaign gave a blueprint for digital electioneering. After the Know your DA ‘ campaign I’m sure the DA Communication Manager looked at Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and said “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. There are so many similarities to the digital campaign and here are a few that stood out:
FIRST TIME PROMOTION CONCEPT
MY FIRST TIME VIDEO BY DA
YOUR FIRST TIME VIDEO BY OBAMA
POSTER CONCEPT
Remember the “change” Barack Obama poster was an iconic image of Barack Obama designed by artist Shepard Fairey.
Now I wonder what other strategy from Obama’s 2008 election digital campaign will they use? Perhaps DA will use celebrities to encourage the born free to vote? Hey, DA can also do campaign songs. One thing I know for sure is that the DA will not be preparing a victory speech as yet in South Africa (SA) but if they are ready for the challenge here is the Barack Obama election victory speech, 2008 too for them to use.
Mr MMusi Maimane is highly confident about the DA’s digital campaign concept and strategy. One has to wonder if this will work to DA’s advantage and drives their objectives effectively. Will they be the leaders in securing the born frees? And importantly how effective will their digital campaign work in SA?
