Their Behaviors, people ' s behaviors tell you what they ' re into. Such as their purchasing habits, their job roles, their travelling habits, the events they have or are attending, the technology gadgets they are using among others.
That is the power of Facebook ' s Ad Targeting system. At the click of a button from the comfort of your desk, Facebook enables you to Profile particular individuals at particular locations, whose support you need. You can tailor diverse messages for them and using the data on this platform, Facebook will deliver at just the right moment when your target audience is online. This means you can be virtually present at the precise moment and location, when and where they are, influencing the decision they ' re about to make.
This is what a Digital Expert will call Behavioral or Interest-Based Targeting. This makes Facebook the darling of political players versus Google, whose targeting options are more limiting because you have to cookie-match.
Why Facebook Needs Politics
Social Media is the modern day word-ofmouth, we don ' t tell people things anymore; we read and see them online. And none else understands the power of this dynamic as our politicians. In my mother tongue, the term ' politician ' loosely translates to " one who complains " or " makes an argument ". It ' s all about the power of your mind and your mouth.
The trick when making campaign pit stops and speeches is to have an intricate understanding of who your audience at a particular location are and what message will resonate them. That ' s how you become popular and win votes.
Why Does Facebook Allow Political Ads?
Facebook needs to support the political ecosystem because of the huge tranches of money it brings and access to influential lobbyists.
Also, political conversation drives engagement on Facebook, via posts in groups, pages and personal profiles. This is important for Facebook as it keeps users on the platform which converges with the political interests of political players.
Digital Ad platforms once hooked into machine learning applications make it not only possible to identify persons who resonate with your candidate ' s messaging and your competitors, but also those who don ' t resonate with your competitors and those in the middle.
The Power Of Micro- Targeting
Using Digital, conspiracists can counter political opponents’ narratives in real-time. Take an example where the Washington Times, perceived as a liberal-leaning publisher by conservatives, publishes an article that conspiracists feel attacks their candidate, in this case, Donald J. Trump. They create alternative conspiracy theorist content and use the power of microtargeting, by creating custom audiences that target undecideds and non-voters whom they deem to share in conservative ideals, locking out the decided who are competitor leaning to promote that conspiracy content to.
To put this into context using a local example, take a case-in-sample recently where Kenya ' s Deputy President ' s philanthropic team donated foodstuff in Kiambu County. Within the week an alleged alternative donator branded in DP team ' s colors donated poisonous food substances in the very same location. It meant to change the conversation from the good deed that endears one political player to the people, to an alternative narrative that quickly trended on twitter and on local news websites, both credible and conspiracy blogs.
Digital Ad platforms once hooked into machine learning applications make it not only possible to identify persons who resonate with your candidate ' s messaging and your competitors, but also those who don ' t resonate with your competitors and those in the middle. You can then create unique sets and classify each of these, then you can create fake content about your opponent and feed it to those who support your candidate and the undecideds whom you can sway to your side.
Of note, however, is that you can ensure Facebook does not display this promoted content to your opponent or his / her supporters. Therefore, they may never know of the false information being peddled about them, which makes it impossible to respond to it or deny it. Unlike the old times when the only channels were TV, Radio or Print and launching a sneak attack on your opponent meant that the media would broadcast it to everyone.
The Puppet Role Of( Kenya ' s) Media
News Business is an event-driven business, investigative journalism is expensive and with media houses smarting from a spate of losses to Digital media platforms who have disrupted their advertising-based business models, the easier approach is to play the game leveraging the power of Clickbait, which political players have learnt to manipulate.
Most will monitor trending topics on Twitter, do some minimal research, push out news stories on their websites, then post it on Twitter tagging the hashtag to gain more viewers. Or create sensational political headlines that they know will trend online driving traffic to their website and broadcast channels.
However, politicians use Social Media to direct media coverage of events. For any media company to be in the business they need advertisers. The model is simple, advertising follows audiences and audiences follow content.
Unlike their Chinese peers whom the rest of the world has branded as " China ' s keyboard warriors ", these share a belief in China ' s cause. Kenya ' s twitter " keyboard mercenaries " do not align to a political grouping based on ideals but propelled by a financial incentive. However, if trending on twitter won elections in Kenya, then politicians like Peter Kenneth and Jimnah Mbaru would have won.
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