Role of Mobile Apps in Politics

Mobile applications have been taking over mainstream businesses as well as some of the weirdest domains. Individuals have embraced mobile technology completely irrespective of the generation (X, Y, or Z). They don’t seem to leave their house without their smart companions (of course, I am talking about the mobile phones) and when they do, their entire day is an unorganized mess (remember, the last time you forgot your phone at home?).

So, what do mobile apps have to do with politics? A lot. Period.

Politics is all about listening to the citizens and establishing a trustable relationship among representatives and citizens. The constant evolution of this relationship leads to newer methods of communication. The citizens have become more aware and participative in politics today. They hold more power today because of the limitless information accessible through digital platforms. To influence the citizens, political parties must invest in mobile solutions for improved engagement along with the efficient working of politics at city, state or country level.

The first ever political application was launched by Barack Obama, Ex-President of the United States that had a political news feed, a donation interface, notifications about upcoming events, and a lot more. The application gained quick popularity various political parties tried their hands on it. This led to the digital transformation of politics across the globe.

Taking The Campaigns Mobile

Election campaigns are one of the most important political activities in which the community interaction begins with the representatives. Campaigns help the candidates and representatives to express their vision and discuss their motto. To help the voters understand different proposals given by different representatives, it is necessary for every candidate to use the digital platforms completely.

One must focus on a concrete strategy based on quality content that is distributed through digital platforms. The mobile application acts as a suitable tool for representatives to be expressive about their mission, vision, values, and background. Citizens, nowadays, look forward to having a more personalized connection with their leaders. They wish to connect with them on an individual basis. Including an about section in the application helps the supporters to learn about the candidate in great detail such as professional qualifications, experience, achievements, and interests. Supporters can further know about candidates’ day-to-day activities by following them on social media channels (a majority of which are again mobile or people prefer to use on mobile).

When running the digital campaigns, there are a few options that must be included in the mobile application. First, a candidate must be able to hold open discussions in which future voters should be able to participate. Thus, there should be some communication method or function in the application that enables candidates to collect data regarding the interests and concerns of their supporters. Additionally, supporters should be able to leave comments on specific sections. The candidates will be able to manage everything on the application. So, a mobile application will help you create a good reputation among modern citizens who are always online on their mobile phones.

Connected Communities of Citizens

Digital citizens stay on top of everything that happens around. Even when they are not using their smartphones, the applications notify them with the latest updates. Therefore, you would not want to miss on the push notifications in your politics application. You can send important updates to all the users or invite them to participate in certain activities in the application.

Your political application can also help you reach out to the audience in specific geographic regions utilizing the advanced features such as geofencing. This boosts engagement based upon locations, especially during election rallies.

Another important aspect is to make the citizens feel important by showing them that they are heard. This can be accomplished by implementing a Chat section. Candidates can easily influence their future voters through one to one communication.

Make It More Engaging & Beneficial For The Community

When getting your politics mobile app developer, you must pay close attention to usability. For instance, a simple Submit button in your app can prove to be beneficial as well as entertaining at the same time. People could use it to submit queries as well as post photos about a certain rally or event. You must take note that user-generated content is an effective way to understand how people apprehend your actions and improve the app gradually.

Having a Calendar feature in the mobile app will help candidates manage scheduled as well as upcoming events and occasions easily. Additionally, event reports can enable you to share the details with people who could not attend those.

To retain users, you can offer the latest & relevant news in which public interest topics can be addressed. Multimedia such as pictures, videos, and audios can be used to make the content more interesting and engaging. Users like to have more transparency which you can easily offer through a mobile application.

What else other than better political engagement?

So far, I have explained how mobile application can help candidates to be more vocal and transparent with their potential voters and how to improve their engagement. Having said that, you cannot (must not) neglect these additional benefits of having a mobile app for your political party.

Fundraising

Obama successfully raised a lot of money for campaigns and put it to good use. Several politicians followed this trend afterward and raised money too. Since then, people have been contributing to political apps happily.

Surveys

Politicians have a hard time to recognize the pain areas of the public which can be resolved by running surveys through mobile applications. Survey data can be collected at a tap and then processed to help the candidates make better decisions.

Final Takeaway

Being a representative of politics, you could stick to the traditional methods and fail or you could leverage modern technology and make the most out of it. The thing that you must notice is that your vote bank is aggressively surfing on mobile phones. Not having a mobile application in the coming elections might not work in your favor. Talk to Beyond Root experts to get you the best and faster-to-market mobile solution that helps you become a better and a modern politician.

Find more top mobile app developers worldwide on AppFutura.