5 Things to Know Before the Upcoming Election

 In In the News

What is at play in national politics? What should leaders and CEOs be paying attention to? Here are 5 things to know before the upcoming election, and why you should be paying attention to them.

#1 Media is predicting a wave.

Depending on the media outlet you listen to, they’re predicting a blue wave or red wave for the upcoming election. So, how can you tell who is in control? Start by comparing and looking for commonalities between this election and the historicals (keep in mind that the landscape is changing and historicals may not actually matter now). A useful tool for helping to determine this is the National Generic Ballot (NGB), which can be used to measure the temperature of the country. According to the NGB, if the election was today, the Republicans would lose seats.

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#2 Elections change quickly and are often full of surprises.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an excellent example. How did she, a young newcomer, beat a top-ranking, well-known Democratic boss? In a nutshell, she ran a successful Grassroots campaign, which is a type of campaign that is generally geared toward younger audiences and minorities. This strategy worked in her favor due to the high population of these groups in the district.

Do’s and don’ts of Grassroots Campaigning: 


DON’T:

  • Spend all of your money on large, expensive campaign ads.

DO:

  • Go knocking on doors.
  • Utilize social networking.
  • Find the right influencers to get the word out about who you are.

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#3 Money is shifting away from TV.

Broadcast TV is not nearly as effective as it was ten years ago. Due to the way young people are consuming tv, they aren’t watching commercials anymore. Money is coming out of broadcast and print advertising and being spent on influencing online instead. You might be wondering, what does it mean to put money into influencing? Influencers are people with a large following, who are able to impact their audience via social media outlets. If you get them talking about what you want them to, in the right way, you stand a better chance of being successful.

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#4 Everyone is a reporter.

The minute something newsworthy happens, such as a crime being committed, someone is recording it, taking photos of it, and instantly sharing it all over the internet and social media, reporting about it much faster than broadcast TV is able to. In turn, there is less need for people in newsrooms today because of the fact that news stations aren’t where most people, especially the younger generation, are finding out their information. The best reporters are people who use their platforms to speak about what they see happening around them and what they think about it.

Everything we’re used to about reporters is shifting.”
– Steve Patterson, CEO Broadnet

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#5 Knowing your audience is key.

Some of the most successful companies have in common that they pay attention to and understand their consumers’ behavior and use it to give them what they want. For example. Netflix wasn’t always the big time company that they are today. They began by snail-mailing DVDs, transacting other people’s content, and paying attention to what kinds of movies and shows people liked and wanted to see. They now spend billions of dollars to create original, highly successful content and are able to target customers based on other shows they’ve watched. Amazon is another example of a company that understands its customers well, and consequently are able to make recommendations based on past purchases and searches. It’s important to know that not only are younger generations used to this, but they expect it.

Each generation is unique, which is why it’s so important to understand them individually. The younger generation is hard to reach because they use technology in a completely different way; They don’t watch TV or answer phone calls from numbers they don’t recognize, making them hard to poll. They are also very independent about where they get their news and consume information from, which is typically not through traditional news outlets.

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The rules of how to affect an audience have changed, the way people consume information has changed. Accept it, embrace it, and do the right thing with it to help people move the way you want them to.

Election Day is November 6, we wait to see the results.

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