NEGOSENTRO | Election Digital Strategist Nievera Shares 5 Key Election Digital Strategies for 2022 | Rover Jones | According to Homer Nievera, a known digital transformation specialist and consultant, the national and local candidates for the 2022 Philippine elections must fully embrace digital marketing transformation or lose the elections altogether.
“Many political candidates and political parties have been hesitant to transform their organizations into agile ones by using the most basic digital and technology platforms, such as having a functional website,” he said. “This spells doom for them.”
According to Nievera, the Philippines has yet to completely appreciate the advantages of being connected via wi-fi and cellular technologies, and as a result, having a concrete digital marketing strategy has been a major issue for candidates. He said that political parties and candidates alike should study the recent US elections and the 2019 massive street protests in Hong Kong that were mainly run digitally. Nievera asserted that the Philippines is capable of doing the same.
Nievera has some digital marketing transformation strategies and tools that candidates and party lists running in the 2022 elections must use. Read on:
#1 The importance of having a mobile-friendly and functional website is number one.
The most valuable digital asset a candidate or party has and can exploit is its website. When it comes to reaching voters online or digitally, social media assets, according to Nievera, are just second in significance.
“Keep in mind that candidates or parties do not own Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter; but simply use their services. Your social media account could be deleted at any time, without warning, and you’ll have no choice except to file an appeal. Your website, on the other hand, is yours to own and control. In any firm, command and control are crucial ” Nievera stressed.
According to Nievera, one of a few master digital strategists during elections, and one of the Philippines’ Internet pioneers, says that having a functional website simply means having a combination of appealing material and ways for voters to engage with them. He thinks that having a mobile-friendly UI (user interface or look) allows a small organization to compete with larger ones.
“Especially if you’re targeting the millennials and the Generation Z and centennials,” Nievera says, “the style and feel of a candidate’s website can make the difference in obtaining voters.”
#2 Content marketing is the king.
According to Homer Nievera, voters value content, whereas businesses value customers.
Content includes articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, and more. To captivate the hearts and minds of your current and potential customers, you must be exposed to a wide range of information.
According to a 2016 Demand Generation Report survey, 47% of buyers watched 3-5 pieces of content before speaking with a sales representative. So, think about the voters. How many types of content will they read or view before deciding who to vote for in 2022?
“These days, visual content can be used on its own or in conjunction with text or audio content,” Nievera explains.
According to a Hubspot poll from 2019, 51 percent of B2B marketers consider producing visual assets to be a high priority in their content marketing strategy. Visual content is the most important type of content for B2C marketers, with 45 percent feeling it is the most important type of content. (Data courtesy of the Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
Homer Nievera, a digital transformation expert who also operates a content writing company, helps businesses establish content strategies that increase their search engine optimization, or SEO, on their websites. He believes that his connection with this organization has given him access to a pool of English-fluent Filipino content writers. As a result, he is able to boost the writers’ earning potential – and be able to boost a campaign’s messaging send out.
#3 Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
When it comes to basic digital transformation, if you haven’t heard of SEO yet, you’re very behind the times. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it simply means that people use search engines like Google to find information on the internet. You’re at risk if your products or services aren’t listed in their search results.
Top Rank SEO Philippines, for example, is a company that specializes in assisting small businesses in getting ahead in the search game.
“SEO helps your website work harder and longer than social media since people get to your website (or landing page) better by optimizing keywords and key phrases onshore and offshore,” Nievera adds.
Because search engines use bots to scour the internet for answers to people’s requests, having a good SEO strategy increases your chances of getting found. Small businesses will benefit because they will be able to outperform large corporations just by being discovered faster. This is why many entrepreneurs hire SEO consultants and firms to help them.
During the previous five years, digital publications with high domain authority (DA) sites for business content, such as WorldExecutivesDigest.com, ExecutiveChronicles.com, TradeTravelJournal.com, and Negosentro.com, have experienced a surge in demand for content and article uploads and contribution. These high DA sites have been used by companies such as digital agencies and SEO businesses because of their search engine trustworthiness, which makes it easier to rank content.
“SEO is a long-tail marketing method that any company should be aware of and use to its full potential if they want to win in 2022,” Nievera concludes.
#4 Influencers are the biggest leverage
The 2022 Philippine elections will be a battle of influencers of all sizes. That’s from nano influencers to the use of celebrity social influencers.
With more people online from the 2020 lockdowns until today, the entertainment shift online has produced hundreds of influencers with thousands up to millions of fans or followers.
The value of nano influencers who have at least 2,000 friends or followers is that they personally engage their audience more than the bigshots with millions of fans. They actually have the most raving fans.
Now, because of sheer volume, the celebrity endorsers are making a killing on Youtube. This is the new TV, especially when ABS-CBN was closed.
Thus, the rise of influencers is something to look out for in 2022.
#5 Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs Trolls?
During World War II, mathematician Alan Turing was able to build the first computer, which was a primitive version of today’s artificial intelligence. Its mission was to decrypt Nazi codes created by the Enigma system.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in a variety of fields in computer science. Its goal remains the creation of intelligent machines capable of doing tasks that would typically require human intelligence. As an interdisciplinary discipline, its application in machine learning and deep learning is generating a paradigm shift in virtually every sector of the computer industry.
Chatbots, which are widely used in social media accounts and websites, is an example of artificial intelligence. However, AI is now executing tasks that were previously thought to be only performed by people in some areas, such as BPOs and contact centers, with spectacular outcomes!
So, think about using AI-powered chatbots to answer those human trolls on your very own social media page? That will be a cool addition to one’s arsenal, right? Instead of having one-on-one tit-for-tats, let those chatbots do the work. Your human resources can be valuable somewhere else, like in Facebook Groups, or the like.
“AI is most appreciated, in my opinion, when it is used by any organization for process automation such as auto-replies or commenting intelligently and even vote to forecast,” Nievera stated.
As a result, in 2022, conducting research into a variety of AI applications for your campaign is vital. Competitiveness is one of the most crucial elements to consider when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Conclusion
The year 2022 holds a lot of promise for digital-savvy political candidates during the Philippine national elections. Digital marketing will surely be integrated into every candidate’s overall strategy. Other aspects to think about including digital privacy, trolling and counter-trolling, and so on. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you must act promptly or else you will be left behind.
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