Abstract
Nowadays, social media are inevitably part of people's daily lives. Thus, political communication should also go through digital communication channels, particularly on social media. In such channels, it is important to define a digital marketing and communication strategy to attract new voters and consecutively more votes. As in offline communication channels and also in digital communication, one of the indispensable points in political communication is the candidate’s image. This image must show its own style and differentiate the candidate from his opponents. The main objective of this study is to understand the influence of social media on Portuguese voters’ decision-making process. Throughout the study, different research questions were also analyzed to access which social media are the most used to follow the online political campaign and which criteria influence the voting decision-making process. To achieve this purpose, exploratory research was carried out through questionnaire surveys. Three surveys were conducted based on the Portuguese presidential elections of January 24, 2021. The surveys were distributed before, during, and after the end of the electoral campaign, and 106 people were questioned and answered all 3 surveys. With the results of this study, it was possible to conclude that only 11% of respondents changed their voting intention due to the political communication made by political parties on social media during this electoral campaign. The social media most used by respondents was Facebook, which is also the one they consider the safest and most trustworthy to follow political communication in online media.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Pires, A.: Marketing—Conceitos, Técnicas e Problemas de Gestão (3a Edição). Lisboa, São Paulo: Editorial Verbo (2002)
Kotler, P.: Marketing, Edição Compacta, 1st edn. Editora Atlas, São Paulo (1996)
Kotler, P.: A generic concept of marketing. J. Market., (1975)
Wring, D.: Reconciling marketing with political science: theories of political marketing. J. Market. Manag., (1997)
Democrática, Á.: Comunicación política campañas electorales. Int. IDEA (2006)
Durán Barba, J., Nogueira, F., Izurieta, R., Perina, R.M., Christopher, A., Garnett, J., Vega, H.: Estrategias de Comunicación para Gobiernos. Washington, Quito-Ecuador (2001)
Castells, M.: Communication, power and counter-power in the network society. Int. J. Commun. (2007)
Fernandes, A.M.: Mulheres na Política—Retratos na Primeira Pessoa. Safaa Dib, Lisboa (2017)
Keefe, L.M.: What is the meaning of “marketing”? AMA’s Marketing News (2004)
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L.: Marketing Management (14a edição). Prentice Hall (2012)
Henneberg, S.C.M.: Conference report: second conference on political marketing: judge institute of management studies. University of Cambridge March 1996 12(8), 777–783 (1996)
Figueiredo, R.: O que é marketing político. São Paulo, Brasiliense (1994)
Çizmeci, F., Ercan, T.: The effect of digital marketing communication tools in the creation brand awareness by housing companies (2015)
Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., Setiawan, I.: Marketing 4.0—Mudança do tradicional para o digital. Lisboa, Conjuntura Atual Editora (2017)
Garcia, J.E., Rodrigues, P., Simões, J., Serra da Fonseca, M.J.: Gamification strategies for social media. In: Remondes, J., Teixeira, S. (eds.) Implementing Automation Initiatives in Companies to Create Better-Connected Experiences, pp. 137–159. IGI Global (2022). https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-5538-8.ch007
Rodrigues, M.I., Fonseca, M.J., Garcia, J.E.: The use of CRM in marketing and communication strategies in Portuguese non-profit organizations. In: Andrade, J., Ruão, T. (eds.), Navigating Digital Communication and Challenges for Organizations, pp. 223–244. IGI Global (2022). https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-9790-3.ch013
Marques, V.: Mkt Digital 360. Lisboa, Actual Editora (2018)
Habermas, J.: A transformação estrutural da esfera pública : investigações sobre uma categoria da sociedade burguesa. Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (2012)
Dahlgren, P.: Participation and alternative democracy: social media and their contingencies. Livros LabCom (2014)
Chaia, V. (2007). Internet e eleições: as comunidades políticas no orkut nas eleições de 2006. Logos Comunicação e Universidade.
Gibson, R., Nixon, P., Ward, S.: Political Parties and the Internet—Net Gain? Routledge, Londres (2003)
Silva, R.J.E.S.D.: Comunicação política no Facebook: um estudo exploratório de sete políticos portugueses (Doctoral dissertation, ES Comunicação Social) (2013)
Henn, M., Weinstein, M., Foard, N.: A Short Introduction to Social Research. SAGE Publications, London (2006)
Malhotra, N.K.: Pesquisa de marketing: uma pesquisa aplicada. Porto Alegre, Bookman (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Garcia, J.E., Vega, E.G., Purificação, P., Fonseca, M.J. (2023). The Influence of Social Media on Voters’ Decision-Making Process in Portugal: A Case Study. In: Reis, J.L., Peter, M.K., Varela González, J.A., Bogdanović, Z. (eds) Marketing and Smart Technologies. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 337. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9099-1_36
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9099-1_36
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-19-9098-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-19-9099-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)