Social Media in Political Marketing: A Study of Teman Ahok

Deferring to McCombs and Shaw's agenda setting theory, this research aims to study the power of social media in the political marketing of incumbent candidate Governor of DKI Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) by Teman Ahok (Ahok's Friend). This paper tests the theory that what is considered as important by media will be perceived as important to the public as well. Teman Ahok was established long before Ahok was nominated to run for the governorship. Teman Ahok organization employed social media as the basis to market its candidate. Social media used were Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, blog, website, and WhatsApp. Social media was considered as effective to reach the general public. Through the message delivered continuously to the public via social media, the proponents expected that the public would consider that the message delivered was important and the candidate they support would be elected during the election of DKI Jakarta's Governor.