While Facebook and Twitter certainly existed four years ago, historians will likely remember this year’s political contest as the first social general election. The political campaigns for President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have come to embrace social media as a means to inform, engage, and mobilize the American electorate. The Mitt’s VP app alerted users as soon as Mr. Romney announced his running mate and allowed them to share the news in-app.   Since Paul Ryan became Mr. Romney’s running mate, the app has functioned as an information and donation hub. More recently, President Obama offered an off-the-cuff “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit. Both candidates have also appeared in Google Hangouts.

 Media coverage has similarly gone social. There are a number of apps and streaming options available to American voters. YouTube has a channel dedicated the election while Twitter has hashtags for the conventions. The data collected from these sources allows campaigns and advertisers alike to target voters based on demographics and political affiliations. Of course, ShareThis does its fair share. C-SPAN recently added our sharing tools to its DNC and RNC webpages. This infographic created by ShareThis illustrates the reach of our analytics tools by unique user and state.

 -Tony Vittorino
Publisher Services Team
@VittorinoT