Taxes, Libraries, and Politics: Social Media Marketing and Influence

I came across this story over at Crooks and Liars this morning. While it's an interesting story about the politics of taxes and spending at the local community level, it's also an amazing story of an advertising agency and a multidimensional social-media marketing effort. The video tells the story.

What the video and check out the tactics in this election campaign gone viral. Facebook pages, signs, other seed tactics all crafted with an astroturf-like execution. It's an interesting look at depth of tactics used.

It's also interesting to reflect upon is the politics of the whole thing. On the one hand, it speaks to the potential of the power of money influence message and, as such, a vote. I'm sure that some of the 'anti-tax' people on the right were probably unhappy with the both the tactics and the result -- and might complain about the 'astroturf' style of the campaign. But this is also different than an astroturf campaign. This one has a reveal at the end. You're never going to get that from an astroturf campaign.

Perhaps the most interesting thing of all is election results. Consider, after everything going on in the campaign, the end results weren't even close -- the community voted overwhelmingly to pay a little more to support their local library. When the conversation was no longer about how 'they' were 'trying to take our money' and instead shifted to one that was, in essence, 'what kind of community do we want to have', the question wasn't really a question at all.