Who Will Speak on Behalf of Social Media to the Next Congress? [OP-ED]

Maury Litwack is a lobbyist, former Hill staffer, opinion writer, and founder of Capitol Plan – A Comprehensive Washington Advocacy Strategy.

A great deal of ink has already been spilled attempting to “read the tea leaves” on what the midterm election results from earlier this month mean for social media. I would surmise that most of the prognostications are reading the relationship between social media and Washington incorrectly.

Analysis has focused on which member of Congress supports or opposes important social media issues such as net neutrality and privacy. This analysis is off because it doesn’t address the bigger question — who speaks for social media in Washington? Who speaks to this group of more than 100 new members of Congress?

Social media is popular among politicians as a conduit to communicate with their constituency. Recent elections seem to indicate that its usage is prevalent among voters as a tool to learn more about candidates and their positions. But the use of social media doesn’t translate into legislative movement on the issues.

Advocacy is key in driving social media policy. Whoever speaks for social media in Washington, like other lobbying entities, must be adept with a majority of the traditional lobbying tools — money, good issues and voters. Money, in the way of corporate or individual donations, is what funds campaigns for reelection. Good issues translate into name recognition for supportive legislators and thus also helps win reelection. Finally, voters are obviously important — if not the most important — to reelection.

An outside influence will vocalize support for a position by demonstrating a representation of a large or key bloc of voters. The AARP and NRA are consistently ranked among the most influential advocacy organizations because they demonstrate time and time again that they represent engaged seniors and gun-owners, respectively. An effective social media entity that can speak for the industry should be able to fire on two of these three cylinders — money, issue or votes. Do any of the current social media giants do that?

It is surprising that it took so long for a company valued at $1.5 billion to finally determine it needs a Washington office, but Twitter just opened its home base in D.C. However, the man they hired to run it isn’t planning on being a lobbyist; instead, he told the press that he wants to help politicians manage their TwitterTwitter feeds, build online voter bases and facilitate general campaign outreach. This proposal sounds eerily familiar to FacebookFacebook.

Valued at $30 billion, Facebook only has two registered lobbyists in Washington. One of its lobbyists described its small operation as more educational in nature, due to the fact that “other people have to write checks to get in front of legislators; we have members using Facebook at their desks.”

The approach Facebook and Twitter are taking is heavily reliant on their value as social media giants with large user bases. Facebook and Twitter assume that they can stay above the political fray by reminding politicians how valuable their services are to them and their constituencies. The problem is that this approach not only lacks the necessary financial investment in advocacy, it also lacks issues and makes social media dependent on the personal usage and whims of politicians. Honestly, who really cares that members of Congress use Facebook or Twitter? They also drink Starbucks, own Verizon mobile phones, and shop at Brooks Brothers — social media isn’t alone in its popular usage among elected officials. Facebook’s and Twitter’s approaches to advocacy scream, “We have a constituency of your voters, but we are afraid to tell you what they think.” Social media should not follow this model.

Google, meanwhile, takes a different approach and has embraced the influence money brings to politics. Google’s lobbying is up by 11% this year, it has staked out serious positions and its executives have invested serious money in politicians who support their issues. But social media can’t rely on Google to be the face of its issues. GoogleGoogle has its own reputation and individual battles.

Google is also not able to turn to everyone who uses YouTubeYouTube as a clear constituency that can be galvanized; they lack the power to influence voters. They don’t really represent you like a group such as AARP or NRA does to their constituencies; they represent themselves and their money in Washington is vested in their self-interest and not necessarily the broader and persuasive social media issues.

Post-election, a group of passionate Redditreddit.com users formed a political action committee (PAC) to fight for net neutrality, and within that movement lies an interesting voice for social media — the users (i.e., you). If such a group is able to get this off the ground, it will have created an important model that can utilize money, issues and voters. Unlike other social media political groups, Reddit’s is wisely starting by pursuing issues its members care about. If it can galvanize enough people to support a position, it will have demonstrable voting numbers that politicians can’t ignore. Finally, any fundraising done through such a political action committee can be used to bolster supporters of its positions and to combat its opponents.

This type of advocacy would have to be built with active, in-person support that collects donations, contacts member of Congress, and spreads information on the issue. The success of such a group would address Malcolm Gladwell’s assertion social media cannot create true change. Among other things, Gladwell identified social media’s lack of strong ties and lack of financial or personal risk as key factors that inhibit its ability to engage in social activism. I think that if social media users can become actively engaged advocates by voting, lobbying, and investing money in what they believe, then it is possible for the social media community to bring change while avoiding the pitfalls that Gladwell articulated.

Social media as a whole can’t rely on large corporations to lobby for its needs; their approach is often either too meek or too self-interested and therefore destined to fail at bringing to the table the voters, issues or money required to change policy.

Yet the potential for engaged social media users, advocating for positions they care about to have an effect has already been demonstrated — only without actual users making it happen. A recent study noted in Technology Review, indicates that special-interest groups have been faking public interest on Twitter for a variety of positions in an effort to highlight issues to the public. Now imagine if that support was real.