How Rand Paul's Digital Team Helped Re-Elect Bibi...
Funny he should say that. Four months ago, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul hired Harris Media to run the digital operations for his RANDPAC–and, theoretically, for his coming presidential campaign. A month later, Likud hired the same consultants to help reach out to voters in the snap election. While Paul was fending off occasional attacks from American hawks, who view him as insufficiently pro-Israel, and declining to sign on to new AIPAC-backed Iran sanctions, Vincent Harris was Instagramming everything from his run from Tel Aviv to Jaffa to his "digital team" (surrounded by Netanyahu posters) to his tour of Israel's wine country.
More importantly, Harris and Duncan were bringing American tactics to Israel's race, and capitalizing off of Netanyahu's moves. The prime minister's speech to Congress was a major boon for social networking. The video led OnlyTheLikud, and viewers were asked to provide personal data, like WhatsApp contact numbers ("that's huge in Israel"), that the campaign could mobilize them with.
"We really capitalized on the prime minister’s visit to Congress to push back on the narrative that his influence had been damaged," said Duncan. "We were able to use great quotes and content from the United States and Israel, these great quotes from members of Congress who supported Bibi. We used digital to push back entire on that entire, biased narrative, and I think it was extremely effective."
They wouldn't know just how effective until all the votes and data were in. "I'm interested in seeing the turnout in the settlements, in particular," said Duncan.
What Duncan did know was that the Netanyahu splash page had more than 500,000 unique views, in a country of around 5 million voters. The mobilization might have turned out or changed the votes of people who'd told exit pollsters they planned to do something else.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-18/how-rand-paul-s-digital-team-helped-re-elect-bibi