These conclusions point out to the importance of social media, considering more people are engaging with the platform.

Social media presence is insufficient in guaranteeing voter conversion, as electoral candidates still need to strike a balance of air and ground campaign, a lobbying and political management firm said.

In its recently released final Social Media Intelligence Report (SMIR) on the 2019 midterm elections, PUBLiCUS Asia concluded that political brands will have to get involved in social media to further their bids, considering that more and more people are engaging in online platforms, but also maintain strong ground presence to support their online campaigns.

PUBLiCUS makes use of available data to monitor how Filipino candidates, campaigners and voters utilize social media as a main campaign tool. It measures the candidates’ strength through four categories: popularity, virality, exposure and social capacity via a proprietary software by AutoPolitic.

PUBLiCUS’ report highlighted that candidates can get boosts from a “detailed, well-organized social media site” and not by just being active in social media.

“A good combination of ground campaign and television presence (ads and debates) alongside a well-managed social media site remain a better tactic to pursue considering election data is not made available for purposes of conversion,” the firm said.

In terms of online presence, PUBLiCUS noted that “emotional attributes” remain more relatable to the voting public although intellectual discourse is a factor for posting. Considering popularity and virality, PUBLiCUS said these points have significant moderate relationships with the elections’ outcome.

“Five candidates have consistently ranked well in the Top 12 of these attributes (Grace Poe, Bong Go, Ronald de la Rosa, Bongbong Marcos and Bong Revilla) and eventually won. The more viral your videos are, the stronger impression and name recall come E-Day,” PUBLiCUS said.

Making its point in the correlation across the four SMIR categories, PUBLiCUS said Go in particular maintained a good balance of all the factors. Go won third place in the election, having secured the president’s endorsement and enough resources to fund his social media mobilization campaign.

Comparatively, PUBLiCUS noted that another senatorial candidate, Dr. Willie Ong, was not able to mobilize his online presence despite its strength, due to the lack of air and ground support necessary to support his digital presence.

“These conclusions point out to the importance of social media, considering more people are engaging with the platform. Any political brand will have to get involved in these activities to expand his/her base and secure wider presence or coverage,” PUBLiCUS said.