Social Media outlets are right now testifying in Congress about how Russia influenced the 2016 Presidential Election by purchasing “Pro-Trump” ad space on their networks.
What they’ve proposed, and began implementing, is a strategy of extreme vetting of the ads proposed by the consumer. These “Draft” ads have been and will be vetted by either human eyes or artificial intelligence and be allowed or denied, based upon the outcome of the vetting process. By taking it to the next level, social media outlets are proposing to hire more people to vet and more programmers to develop A.I. software to vet. In a perfect world, this would be just fine and dandy, however, with the track record of social media executives and the track record of the software industry in general (leaning heavily liberal), there’s a really good chance that this vetting process will be corrupted from the onset.
To counter this bias, I propose that all of us that are libertarians or conservatives, who use social media, prepare to donate to our particular candidates via advertising on a Facebook Page, Twitter account, Google adwords/display network, Google+, etc. individually. There’s two main reasons for my line of thought on this subject:
Because I am a digital advertising professional, I know how the system works. Without going into any detail, these methods will cause the vetting process to become inundated with the sheer volume of ads that we can “roll our own” and put out to the consumers. And of course, the traditional reason to putting up these “roll your own” ads would be to get the word out, which has always been the reason for advertising in the first place.
Everyone with a Facebook account can create a Facebook Page for their candidate. Call it “Your Name for Trump” or “Your Name for Rand Paul”, whatever. From that point forward, you can create a post and for a few bucks, you can promote/boost this post to a small target audience (your neighborhood!). Everyone with a Gmail account can create a Google Adwords account and from there, you can effectively promote your candidate on a small scale. Same with every other type of media. This can happen and this needs to become a thing. Everyone could spend their tax-deductible contribution directly toward promoting a candidate, which in reality, would strengthen the candidates position much more than donating to a campaign or a PAC. By doing so directly, you’re cutting out the middle-man costs of administrating the flow of money. By doing so directly, you are getting the word out in as quick of a manner as possible.
For as little as $10 or so, maybe less later on – you can reach a couple of thousand people with your message. For $100 or so, you can reach 8000-10,000 people. That’s a lot of bang for the buck. If you’re already donating to your political party (which is idiocy if you’re donating to either “party” because they’re all talking out of the sides of their mouths, neither party does what the party “platform” is based on, they do whatever it is those that are in control want done), you can take all or part of that money, invest it in social media marketing and promote your candidate directly.
This is what the marketing industry refers to as “Guerrilla Marketing” and if it’s done correctly, it can be an unstoppable force in advertising.
There are a few rules to go by, you won’t be able to go hog-wild and spend your life’s saving legally when doing this. It is advertising and you are advertising for a political candidate, so some election rules will apply, depending on what State you live in, you’ll need to consult these rules before opening yourself up to litigation, but the point is, it can be done and it’s probably a great idea to get the point across quickly.
