The use of Facebook in Rahm Emanuel’s successful 2011 mayoral
campaign could offer progressive causes — and candidates — important lessons in utilizing
the social network to galvanize support.
“The ’08 campaign taught everyone in
politics that by talking to people where they are, on Twitter and
Facebook, you could quickly get your point across to them,” said Thomas
Bowen, executive director of Emanuel’s political action committee, New Chicago
Committee. “I’ll give you one example. We knew that early voting would
be very important, so we used Facebook to push specific messages, even
during specific time periods. If it was a weekend, you saw something
like ‘your early voting location is open now’ ads.”
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