GOP Provided Social Data Tech to Key Senate Campaigns | Data-Driven Marketing – Advertising Age

On Oct. 23, Georgia Senate hopeful David Perdue was interviewed at a local Dairy Queen in Forsyth where he discussed a top international concern: Ebola. Two days prior the Republican’s campaign suggested on Twitter that “The American people are concerned about Ebola, but Obama is just concerned about his political allies.”

Social-media analytics helped influence the campaign to step up messaging about Ebola. The Republican National Committee facilitated the social-data research that the Perdue for Senate camp has used to detect what Georgia voters care about, and how that differs from what voters in other closely watched Senate-race states such as Arkansas care about.

The RNC has been using a customized version of Sprinklr’s social analytics platform, and feeding daily and real-time reports to campaign consultants, directors and field staff for messaging, early voting and election-day get-out-the-vote pushes. RNC communications staff is also referencing the reports.

“We saw that the Ebola conversation really picked up in Georgia,” said Wesley Donehue, CEO of Push Digital, a GOP digital agency. (Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital is one of four U.S. hospitals geared up to handle Ebola patients and the Centers for Disease Control is headquartered there as well.)

On the other hand, he said, “It wasn’t a trending topic in Arkansas.” The consulting firm runs digital operations and tech infrastructure for the Perdue campaign as well as for Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, in his battle against Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor. “When you’re running for office and all your voters are concerned about an issue, then you join the conversation, too.”

via GOP Provided Social Data Tech to Key Senate Campaigns | Data-Driven Marketing – Advertising Age.