A new trend, in what Politico’s Eamon Javers calls “fickleness” among consumers and voters, is causing grief among advertisers and pollsters alike. Javers suggests the American people are now, “less beholden to old attachments and more willing to make dramatic changes in lifestyle and preferences.”

Javers points to a series of examples ranging from switching cell phone providers to the increasing divorce rate among marriages of 50 plus years to the overnight popularity of Barack Obama and his administration. The implications of such trends are unclear, but such a drastic change in the collective social behavior could be threatening to the traditional American political system.

There are indicators that the erratic nature of public thought and opinion has forced those invested in political outcomes to be more creative and innovative, in order to maintain an edge.  This has lead to a push for politicians to create an active presence on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  These outlets have allowed politicians to speak directly to their constituents and voters on pressing issues – providing immediate feedback and opinion before they even vote on a piece of legislation.

Javers uses Apple’s destruction of the iPod (with the introduction of the iPhone and iTouch) as an example of a corporate strategy that encourages the death of loyalty to a flagship product for another newer and better product. Political trends often ride in the wake of private sector trends.  If such movement is as rampant as Javers claims, and companies are feeding into this rapid change trend, political behavior and political tactics are sure to follow. Could loyalty to a party or cause become a thing of the past?  Could voters’ never ceasing hunger for new issues and new leaders change the way parties and political movements operate?

The concept of voters looking for the next big thing, could effectively weaken a long-term party or political agenda.  This could make it difficult for legislators to collaborate and make actual progress. A major effect could be the increase in ever-changing interests leading to the decentralizing of coalitions and parties (i.e. the current healthcare debate).  This also raises the question: will today’s issue matter come November?

Politicians’ careers might become endangered if they stick to principles.  They might find longevity by becoming dependent upon keeping up with fast evolving voter opinion. This is in the same vein as obsessing over polls or following the wind.

Be on the lookout for parties rolling out agenda’s as fast Apple operating systems.

If you haven’t noticed Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube offer beefed up targeting strategies based on demographics and interests.  For example, if you’re on Facebook and you’ve recently gotten engaged, you will immediately begin to notice a plethora of ads pushing all types of wedding services.  This is what many in the advertising world believe is the future of smart advertising.

According to respondents in a recent survey this is a good thing.

A study by Q Interactive, and reposted on Mashable, offers some interesting insight for advertisers. Notably, 56.6% of US internet users between the ages of 35 and 44 would view and advertiser favorably based on online ads tailored to their interests.  56.2% of this same age bracket also prefers to receive free online services and information in exchange for the use of their data to target relevant data to them.

According to the study, while some suggest creating ads targeting a consumer’s interests would be excessive, the study found consumers welcome it.

This is just one of the many ways in which social networking sites provide advertisers with plenty of data that can be utilized to make ads as effective and potent as possible.

For political campaigns and issue advertising, this is the beginning of an important new trend. Political advertisers put tremendous stock in the ability to target audiences.  As it’s been determined long ago, voters rarely act in one mass group, voting for people based on one overarching issue.  Voters, like consumers, have niche tastes and interests, and vote according to which candidate appeals to them on the issue(s) they care about most as an individual or member of a particular demographic.

While most voters get weary of the constant drumbeat of ads touting one or two specific campaign issues, this new advertising method, based on interest targeting, may prove more welcome.

Here I stray from the business of politics:

Recently, I joined twitter.  And like the many other people using this online social networking / information pushing platform, I have an opinion.  

I was hesitant at first to join twitter.  My first taste of this online platform was not inspiring.  I read a colleague’s cross twitter posts on facebook, covering all details of personal travel, fast food preferences, home supply store visits and what they were serving for breakfast and dinner.  Not only could I care less, I was quickly becoming annoyed.  

While I appreciate online social networking for the ease by which I can follow friends, family and colleagues’ lives personal and professional, I really don’t care to receive a running commentary on their every move or the minutiae of their daily decisions.  I was reluctant to join twitter, as I believed this was another online place encouraging useless and time consuming social commentary.

It wasn’t until recently, on an outing with a small group of new media specialist friends of mine, did I get a taste of the type of important and interesting information being produced on twitter.  

I was encouraged so I joined.

At first, admittedly, I was a bit lost.  While, I take pride in my understanding of a vast array of online platforms and new media technology, I was perplexed by the almost bare bones format and feel of twitter.  I was eager to figure out how I fit in with all the other twitterers.  What did they gain by their participation and who cared to read what I was doing?

I turned to my friend, Liz Mair, who gave me a quick tutorial on twitter’s most relevant features and characteristics.  I was making my entrance and I sure didn’t want to trip onto the main stage.  If you do join, I recommend calling someone you know who is on and ask them a few questions…I’m sure they’ll be happy to guide you.

So here’s what I learned.  I hope these tips on initial steps help some of my other friends considering joining twitter.

1. When you join twitter pick a recognizable handle (meaning: one that best displays the closest recognition of your name)
2. Allow twitter to rummage through your contacts, like facebook friend finder, so you can view who else is on twitter that you know.  This will allow you to instantly begin following what others, who you know, are saying.  By doing so, you can quickly pick up on the lingo, etiquette  and culture of the twitter platform.
3. Use the “find people” feature to look up your favorite news sites, blogs, websites, celebrities and anyone else of interest to you  professionally or personally.  You might be surprised to see who is on.  Follow them.
4. Set your preferences on how you would like people to view your tweets (messages).  Some people are open others are more private, choose what fits your personality.
5. Start writing tweets.  These are short messages that allow you to convey anything to the world or to your “followers” (people who have shown interest in seeing what you write). The more you write, the more comfortable you get with the platform.
6. Use good judgement on your posts.  I liken information sharing on social networks to behavior you would expect in any public square.  Most people in a public setting would not choose to say wildly inappropriate or offensive things.  Also, in public settings people tend to not take interest in every minor detail of your existence.  These same truths tend to hold true in the online social interactive domain.  Often times this behavior leads to a lonely online experience…and who wants that?

From my short time on twitter, I’ve found it to be, not only interesting and fun, but very helpful in getting news and information at a very fast  pace.  I always enjoyed learning from collective wisdom.  As a political operative and consultant, I rely heavily on collective wisdom for better understanding news, people, events and cultural implications.

Twitter allows you to be hand fed information, commentary and links to articles on the many things you may find interesting and moving.  I chose people and entities to follow, whom I already knew and trust.  I now surf the web less, because these respected sources are gathering and sharing much of the information that I would normally hunt for on bulky websites.  

I’ll leave this last example of a recent event that really hit home twitter for me.  Earlier this week, I found out about the US Airways flight going down in the Hudson river, by the many tweets of the people I’ve been following.  I quickly went on news sites to find out more details and information.  The news didn’t even make most of the sites I quickly scanned.  The ones that did report that quickly, had no photos and little information.  Then I saw someone on twitter post a link to guy whom they knew, also on twitter, who was on the ferry closest to the plane in the water.

This guy had posted up close and personal pictures that he took from his handheld.  His quick comments also provided a feeling of excitement and concern as he was first on the scene to the crash landing.

See my twitter post: defining moment in twitter history ***http://tinyurl.com/8hj3ru***

This guy, whom I didn’t know had scooped all the media – in NYC no less!!!  It was then, an hour later, did I see his very images on the homepage of drudgereport.  

Not all posts are this exciting or interesting.  Some are funny and some are boring.  But my conclusion: tail is starting to wag the dog.

Find me on twitter…..http://twitter.com/BrianFDonahue.