What is the social media impact on political campaigns? Example of the French presidential election

As we mentioned on the Foursquare and Politics article published on April 25, 2012 , Nicolas Sarkozy used Foursquare as a big tool in his social media campaign. Social Media became a major stake in politics. Unlike the 2007 presidential elections, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram became part of the candidates marketing campaign. However, if the outgoing president Nicolas Sarkozy were active on these four major applications, François Hollande, social candidate focused on Facebook and Twitter and decided not to use Foursquare. Finally, François Hollande won the election.

What do you think of both candidates strategies? What was the impact of Foursquare on Nicolas Sarkozy strategy? To what extend do you think that Social Media played a role in the presidential election?

What businesses are the “mayors” in France ?

Mikaël Posty, a French Foursquare ambassador and community manager, has been gathering information concerning the top brands mayors, top locations and also brands notoriety since late 2011. I invite you to follow him on his twitter @MikaelDorian .The document was released in mid-April 2012.

As we can see:
- the top brand mayor is the French luxury fasion house LOUIS VUITTON, with nearly 190k followers
- the top mayor city is Toulouse, located in the south of France. It is stated that Foursquare is more developped in this part of France.
- the top mayor on the politics field is the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his party, the UMP
- the top mayor in the transportation domain is the Airports of Paris, followed by the National French Rail Company
- the strongest presence on Foursquare is attributed to the French global banking group BNP Paribas, which is the largest bank & company in the world

Foursquare and Politics

In the second round of the 2012 French presidential election, the actual president and candidate Nicolas Sarkozy launched a Foursquare operation to attract potential electors to its campaign venue. All the users that check-in at Nicolas Sarkozy’s venue were offered “Carla and Nicolas” limited series of “petit sables” (French traditional cake). Within a few hours, already 439 check-ins were posted.

 

What do you think of this social media campaign?