• by Emily Williams , Op-Ed Contributor, January 8, 2016

The New Year is officially upon us. For many, this is a season of reflection and resolution. For political campaigns, particularly at the presidential level, it’s go time.

Elections are not won in Facebook fans (yet). But in 2016, almost every campaign, even on the most local level, will devote some -- or a lot of -- resources to their digital presence, engagement strategies and paid media.

Candidates may not literally win online, but their use of digital and social media could tip an election in their favor.

What can campaigns do to maximize their digital resources and set themselves up for success?

Get your rapid response house in order

As was noted by Obama White House veteran Ben LaBolt, “rapid response used to be an innovation. Now it’s a necessity.” In the age of 24-hour social media-fueled news and commentary, campaigns must be prepared to simultaneously monitor everything from live events to news to Twitter.

They must proactively set the record straight and react to and capitalize on their opponent’s blunders.

Rapid response is all about timing, and a lack of infrastructure shows. Campaigns that do not respond quickly and appropriately are deemed to be missing the mark. They run the risk that their inefficiency becomes part of the narrative of the campaign.

Consider digital for persuasion

For persuasion messages, video is king. Traditionally, this has meant ads on television, but savvy campaigns know that to break through they need to reach potential voters early, often and with a certain frequency.

This means looking “beyond the box.”

Recent studies have looked at the effectiveness of using video for persuasion on digital channels and guess what? It works. Not just uploading all of your TV spots to a YouTube channel, though that’s a fine place to start), but delivering relevant content directly to your target audiences feeds.

Snapchat, for example, has been labeled “the one to watch,” which makes sense if you think about the intimacy people, particularly the younger generation, have with their mobile devices and the app’s innovative video format.

Make sure you’re not targeting too tightly

Technically speaking, you can use cookie targeting to deliver a digital ad to exactly one person. You can also, at least in theory, make a list of exactly 500 Twitter handles and only serve ads to those people. But if you only need to reach a couple of hundred people, and you know exactly who they are, why not message them directly?

The targeting capabilities of digital are tremendous, but they can also be overwhelming and frankly, confusing. As a rule of thumb, if you know who you want to target start there. (It can be as specific as a list or as broad as people of a certain age and gender within a certain region.)

Don’t, however, spend a lot of time guessing at their Facebook Interests. One of the nice things about digital ads is that they are relatively inexpensive and can be optimized in near real time, which presents an opportunity to cast a wider net and learn and refine from there.

Above all else, keep your eyes on the prize

For every political campaign in 2016, there is one goal: a win in November.

Every decision a campaign makes and every dollar it spends needs to be understood through this lens.

2016 will be a banner year for digital. When you account for the Summer Olympics and the presidential election, digital media spending is expected to surpass TV as the No. 1 advertising category in 2016.

This is a sign of our ever-changing media-consumption habits, not a directive to raise less money, knock on fewer doors, or in many markets, spend less on television.

Successful campaigns will tweak, but not necessarily throw out the tried-and-true playbook. They will build an engaging integrated program that uses digital tools and tactics to showcase their agility, creativity and smarts in the race to Election Day.