Romney 2012 Becomes First Political Campaign to Buy a Twitter Trending Topic

[trailmonkee]

Source: gizmodo

In what is by all accounts a pathetic bid for social currency, Mitt Romney's campaign has officially become the first political campaign to buy a trending topic on Twitter.

There are several ways you could look at this:

1. Romney 2012 fears that, come Thursday night—which is the last night of the RNC and when the trending topic is set to go live—the GOP nom's campaign will still need an added boost to achieve social relevancy.

2. Mitt Romney is patently unaware of how trends work—which is organically, not by the dollar.

3. Mitt Romney really likes Twitter and wants to set a trending topic precedent in his bid to become president .


Read more: http://gizmodo.com/5939123/romney-2012-becomes-first-political-campaign-to-buy-a-twitter-trending-topic

[xxqqqzme]

1. I don't tweet so

I do not completely understand this. He gets to control a trending topic?

[TheDonkey]

3. This is why I left twitter. It is now so obnoxiously corporate

Now they allow companies to buy trending topics. It is ridiculous, but a way for twitter to make money off of corporations betting on twitter people's desire to participate.

[itsrobert]

2. I was reporting them for spam

blocking.

[AsahinaKimi]

9. sounds like a great idea

Thanks

[progressivebydesign]

4. God they're pathetic. Hope someone comes up with an almost IDENTICAL topic...

I would LOVE to have some fun with that. Just make a new hasthag with "NOT" at the end of whatever their trend is.. hmmmm

[TeamPooka]

6. that's good

[onehandle]

5. Twitter is ruining Twitter. nt

[no1uno]

7. twit, tat, twat

Mittt you don't have a twat so you don't know diddly squat.

[DURHAM D]

8. Not a good first post.

[Fridays Child]

12. Maybe so but...

...your response to a new DUer wasn't too classy, either.

[truthisfreedom]

14. Interesting.

[BlueToTheBone]

15. Welcome to DU

Right now we're fairly hinkey over the WOW and your slang for vagina might be interpreted as being sexist/rude, so get ready. But you are right, he knows nothing.

[starroute]

10. Can somebody explain how you can even do that?

I use Twitter for this and that -- like to keep up with what my kids are doing, or what sort of merry mayhem Anonymous is up to. But I've never paid any attention to this "trending" thing. I mean, why would it matter to me to know that some actress is pregnant? Or why would I need Twitter to tell me that a lot of people are concerned about New Orleans?

So I have no clue how you can "buy" a trending topic. Does it mean that your name suddenly shows up on the "what's trending" lists with an asterisk explaining that it isn't really trending but that this is a sponsored ad? And even if it does, if you're not pregnant or being hit by a hurricane, why would anybody bother clicking on it?

Or am I totally misunderstanding how this thing works?

[xxqqqzme]

13. That is what

I want to learn. I don't have an account so I don't understand the significance.

[TalkingDog]

17. Let's seeeeee... A good analogy for a trending topic would be

the Pet Rock of catch phrases. Except in this era of disposable digital it doesn't last a year, it last for days.

So the #RomneyFail hash tag listed below is a great example. #AmericanBorat is another. When Romney was in England those two phrases swept through the Twitterverse like wild fire. People were using the phrases in Tweets. But more importantly, they were using them outside of Twitter. Posting them on Facebook, DU, etc. This got even more people to use their accounts to generate buzz about the phrase.

You can follow trending topics on Twitter. Or if you follow a lot of people you might see it in their Twitter Stream. For instance, I follow Barack Obama. His tweets show up in my stream. If I used the hash tag phrase #BarackObama, it becomes a topic. If I use it along with other people and we all follow that topic it starts to "trend".

So. Long and short, Romney is buying watercooler catchphrases because he thinks that speaking the lingo that all the kids are using will make him a cool cat daddy-o.

[TalkingDog]

20. See the explanation here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=212809

I'm not sure how they would implement the "trend". The author of the article seems to agree that it's going to be difficult to make something that tends to grow organically, be sustainable.

[starroute]

21. I still don't understand how you can "buy" it

I understand hashtags -- I've occasionally found them to be a good way of following breaking news or the latest running joke.

I get that there are websites that will tell you the most popular current hashtags, both worldwide and in selected countries or cities.

I understand that Twitter has its own algorithms for deciding when a hashtag is "trending," based not just on popularity but on rate of increase -- and that it has been accused at times of burying certain hashtags for political reasons.

But what I don't understand is how you can "buy" a trending topic, if it's supposed to be the result of an objective algorithm. Does it mean you bribe Twitter to show it as trending even though it isn't? Does it mean you pay a third party to send out a million fake tweets and overload the system?

What's the deal?

[6000eliot]

11. Can we start a trend based on "The clothes have no emperor?"

[TalkingDog]

19. too many words. more pithy and succinct.

#EmptySuit
#MannequinMan

The idea is to be able to incorporate the phrase into your 140 character Tweet

So if I were going to use #EmptySuit in a tweet to talk about Romney

#EmptySuit thinks money can buy anything including his own trending #Twitter topic.

Then, to lump it into other like topics I could add: #Rmoney #1Percent

In fact, I'll post that to Twitter right now.

Then, if people who follow me like it they can RT (retweet it) to their streams. And if their followers like it...etc. And it could go viral.

You can follow a trend by going to Twitter.com and putting any hash tag in the search bar at the top.

[sofa king]

16. #Romneyfail

[wordpix]

18. kind of like how Linda McMahon (R-WWE for Lieberman's seat) buys advertising here on DU

For nearly every topic, I see her lying ad against the fantastic Dem progressive candidate, Chris Murphy. Ban her ads, DU!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

22. An accessory for his purchased twitter followers?

Maybe someone explained those cool looking bot accounts aren't able to create a trend?

Money can't buy America's love Romney. You're just looking more pathetic and desperate by the minute.