An internet professional's perspective on the underlying trend Ron Paul's campaign indicatesI have worked in Internet related businesses for my entire career (since 1996). My perspective is skewed by that fact.
In 2000, it was news that John McCain collected $1M in online donations. In 2004, it was news when Howard Dean collected $7M in online donations. Now, in 2008, it is news that Ron Paul collected $20M in online donations. And while it would not surprise me to see a candidate collect $50M+ in 2012, this exponential increase in donations is really only part of the story.
Let's first look at the data of media consumption by different age groups. The chart below shows media usage by different age groups to find information about companies or products [ed note: and presumably, candidates]. As you can see, there is a 50% jump in usage of the internet by people aged 18-31 vs baby boomers aged 42 to 62. Conversely, Newspapers, Broadcast TV, and Magazines register significantly lower for people aged 18-31 vs. those aged 42-62. Gen Xers also rate highly for internet consumption. It should be noted that those 62+, which make up more than 20% of voters (see below), register in the mid-teens for
overall internet usage and even lower for research oriented usage.
In 2004 (according to the
US Census), the voter turnout for those aged 45+ was 71%. The turnout for people aged 25-44 was only 52% and only 42% turnout for those aged 18-24. The 45+ age group comprises 57% of voters. By virtue that voters are older, broadcast TV, newspapers, magazines and cable TV continue their impact on elections. But as the digital population grows older and becomes more involved in elections, the internet becomes ever more important to election outcomes. The fact that the Internet rates #1 for all segments is very interesting and indicative of a generational, but probably slow moving change, that will likely be reflected more and more in subsequent elections because...
There has been much hay made of Ron Paul's popularity in Social Networks like Facebook, YouTube, and most importantly, Meetup which has brought online people to the offline world. Look at these numbers below showing social network usage for teens (aka the next generation of voters). By 2012, more than 84% of teens will be using Social Networks at least once per month. These are the same teens who are nowhere to be found on TV and not reading newspapers. Ron Paul's 1200+ meetup groups may represent the future of grassroots organization for both national and local political campaigns.
The next set of data shows that 53% of kids aged 3 to 17 will be on social networks at least once per month. A drop-off from the teenager numbers cited above, but still considerable. From the cradle, children are going to be trained that the internet is an access point to a world of interaction, social connections, organization and massive amounts of information.
And, most importantly, they will not be locked to their desks. Kids today are accessing the internet through a multitude of devices that will make it easier to mobilize, organize, communicate and coordinate. Just like Toyota's just in time supply management, the campaign of the future will have just in time campaign coordination. People wondered how Ron Paul supporters could be everywhere when they thought there were so few of them. It was because of constant communication via email, mobile and video platforms that the people can be on the move.
What I find interesting about this next graphic is that proactively communicating and finding information are the top 7 most popular internet activities while reactively consuming news is only #8. People who use the internet control their own destiny and control their content. According to a 2007
Comscore study, the average broadband user views 126+ internet pages per day. Google is the US's
number one website with 131M monthly visitors. Wikipedia is #8 with 55M monthly visitors. The user is in control and not going to cede that control to anyone.
John McCain in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004 and Ron Paul in 2008 are proving that there is a way to compete with (and now beat) the massive donations some campaigns receive from different interest groups. The masses are showing that they can organize online to mobilize offline. And if the statistics above are correct, information flow should be much freer and more fluid.
Even though I griped about social news users in
my previous post, there is real value in alternative sources of news and information like digg, reddit and Google News. And with sites like Facebook and Wikipedia continuing momentum, the consumer (and voter) is bound to get more empowered.
Yes, overall I am optimistic. Ron Paul placed 5th last night and that is OK with me. I suppose to me, and probably many other Ron Paul fans, I was drawn by his specific policy surrounding Iraq and US Imperialism, approved or tolerated his other positions, but was (and still am) most inspired by the grassroots campaigning on the internet.
This campaign is showing the change what we can all expect in the future. We all need to work hard to see it happen, but it is clear that the way the majority of the voters get their information today and the way they get it in the future will be much different. And that is a reason to be optimistic, thankful and happy about the election so far.
UPDATE: Barack Obama's online fundraising has completely smashed my expectations. Incredible. More importantly has been his embrace of customer relationship management best practices and engaging his audience in an interactive discussion. Great work.
