Mapping the Politics of the Social Web for Marketing Purposes

Every point of data can be useful in reaching your target office, so from Engaged.com here’s former GOP online strategist Patrick Ruffini with the red-blue divide in Social Network Platforms: The Politics of the Social Web

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The icons plotted to the left represent Social Media frequented by liberal voters; the closer to the center, the moderate the customer, the further to the right the more conservative.

The more politically engaged, the higher on the chart, the icons plotted lower on the chart represent less politically engaged visitors. Using this kind of chart you can target your ad campaigns and marketing to the type of consumer you think best fits the profile of your potential customer: Are your customers very politically engaged? Focusing on Google, PayPal and Ebay are your best bet for your advertising.

Are your customers low-information types who don’t really follow politics? Games like Angry Birds and Farmville and sites like Pinterest might be a good place to engage them.

Similarly, if the right/left dichotomy is applicable to your product, you might consider Ebay for a more conservative clientele or Reddit for a more leftist demographic.

Like to sell stuff on eBay? You might be a Romney voter — and you’re probably very highly engaged politically. Like xckd and Tumblr? You’re totally in the Obama camp — but a bit less likely to exhibit political interests, at least if your Facebook likes are any indication.

A lot of this makes sense intuitively. Conservative sites are more oriented towards commerce and personal finance: PayPal, eBay, Zillow, LinkedIn and Amazon. The more politically engaged visitors use Quora, BuzzFeed, and Wikipedia, which emphasize information and knowledge.

Visual pinboards and social games are a good place to find new customers, as those sites often demonstrate defined political leanings combined with lower levels of political engagement. If you were to push sites in various categories into one camp or the other, you’d come up with this:

Data is the driving force behind creating a Marketing Strategy, and the more data you have, the better plan you can devise. SaleWarp Storefront Management System has a number of tools for Reporting and Analytics to track your visitors, helping you reach the demographic groups best suited for your product.