Appealing to the younger generation

The success of a political party, organization, or candidate is greatly influenced by how they appeal to a young audience.  Unfortunately, it is something that followers and leaders in the liberty movement seem to be struggling with in comparison to those of the left.  Though you’ll never hear me say this in any other context but this – it’s time we take a small lesson from the left.  After suffering from the results of the 2008 elections, it’s time we, as conservative and liberty-minded individuals, make a serious effort to get online and make a change in the way we are perceived by the digital generation.

After analyzing some successful, yet liberal sites, it is easy to see that there are a few things the left is doing right, in terms of appealing to both the younger generation and those who frequent the internet:

Overall layout and visual appeal – When you ask anybody what first attracted them to their spouse, the smart ones will always say, “It was their personality.”  However, the cold hard truth is that most are first attracted to physical appearance.  Just as one doesn’t fall in love with someone’s personality at first site, individuals don’t fall in love with the content on a website at first site either. As much as we hate to admit it, looks do matter. Having an aesthetically pleasing color scheme and user-friendly layout can go a long way.

Social networking – Social networking sites are not solely being used for people to keep in touch with friends and family.  More and more they are being used as a search engine when trying to find out about candidates or organizations, especially by young audiences that want to be engaged in the political process.  They are becoming an essential part of the political process, and the left is using this to their advantage.  Not only do left leaning sites excel in making their content very easy to share on facebook, twitter, flickr, youtube, etc. via links on their site, but they seem to have a bigger active presence on facebook as well.  After searching through prominent left leaning organizations’ fan pages and groups, and comparing them to those of the liberty movement, it was easy to see that we have some work to do.  While some prominent conservative groups have fan pages with a few hundred members, many left leaning groups can boast numbers in the tens of thousands.  Don’t get me wrong – the liberty movement is making some fantastic strides; however, there is still much work to be done.

Extras – If you want to be able to influence the younger generation, you first have to understand them.  The left appears to fully understand this concept based on certain content that is offered on their websites.  Having been a college student during the 2008 presidential election, I saw first-hand the left’s success in influencing my peers.  It became trendy and fashionable for college students to walk around campus wearing t-shirts with a presidential candidate’s face on it and campaign buttons on their backpacks.  They did this by marketing it to an online audience. They understood the appeal of pop culture icons, for example the characters in the Twilight series.  (Which I believe to be a ridiculous craze) They used the commonly touted terminology “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” to formulate “Team Obama” t-shirts and bumper stickers.  They even used college mascots to reach students.  At a nearby university, t-shirts with the words “Rock Chalk Barack” sold like hotcakes and were worn to class constantly, which I assure you, influenced many more than just the students that bought them.  Anyone who has ever walked into a college dorm room knows posters are practically essential to a young person’s room decor.  The left, having marketed “Hope” posters during the election, was able to reach a plethora of young individuals with their message simply by making these products available on left-leaning websites.  It’s much easier to appeal to a group of individuals when you understand them, and the left understands.

I’m not saying that we need to copy the left or change our message to something that could be summed up on a trendy t-shirt.  Our message needs to stay consistent; however, we need to make it easier for a younger generation to get involved and feel engaged.  Though not all of the digital generation is able to make an immediate difference in terms of voting now, recruiting them to the movement as early as possible will help shape them into the kind of active citizens that will make a positive impact on their country.  Changing our online appeal will not only help the movement in appealing to the younger and politically active generation, but will also be an investment in our future.