Keep in mind there are third party groups out there (for profit) who have amassed tens of thousands of Twitter accounts. Theoretically, a campaign could pay such a group to post using the hashtag and thus bypass Twitter's "promoted" identification banner by making a hashtag trend. These are the same groups who, if paid, can add thousands of followers to somebody who isn't really worth following, falsely inflating the social media influence of a given user/profile. If you wait a while those accounts are easy to spot since they do not regularly post and don't directly interact with others, but most people just look at the raw numbers and don't bother digging deeper.
It is safe to estimate that whenever any given social media network boasts user numbers (Facebook claims something like 900 million), anywhere from a third to half of those accounts are inactive, spam, or amassed by one of these companies. On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 11:36 PM, David Bruggeman <[email protected]> wrote: > Promoted Tweets and Hashtags are marked by the arrow you noticed from the > Trending lists (you can delete promoted Tweets from your feed by clicking > Dismiss. > > Most social media operations of campaigns seem to have some kind of hashtag > at the ready. The same can be said of some political operations, whether > it's a campaign or a party's leadership in Congress. The Obama > Administration has been pretty thorough in making a Hashtag for some of its > pushes for particular bills/policies. Haven't noticed Romney campaign > hashtags, but I haven't looked. > > That said, I think #Romneyshambles is a bit too clever for the campaigns. > Someone (more likely a few someones) probably appropriated it from the > coverage of the Governor's comments on the London Olympics preparation. > > I also have no idea how effective hashtags might be in communicating a > political campaign's message. > > David > > ________________________________ > From: PGage <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 2:11 AM > Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] Hashtag Politics > > > Thanks to both Kevin and Wesley for this. Does this mean it might be > possible for either presidential campaign to pay for a promoted hashtag? Is > it possible that the Obama Campaign, or some affiliated group, paid for the > current Romeny tag that seems to be so popular? <wait, going to check > something> > > I see on the Twitter right now the top hastag under trends is something to > do with Nike, and there is an arrow followed by the word "promoted". That > suggests that even if a political campaign could pay for a hashtag, we would > know that they (or at least, somebody) paid for it - assuming it is a > requirement that the promotion be disclosed? > > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
