That social network helped Obama's campaign collect an unprecedented amount of voluntary information on its would-be voters, allowing them to drum up grassroots participation in the final stretch. Says Raseij, "If you think about the fact that they have cell phone numbers, emails, blog comments, donations and MyBarackObama profiles and so forth, they have multiple levels of data about their supporters. Let's say they then take that data and mash it with voter files, for example. They find someone who visits BarackObama.com every day, has given them $10 a month for the last few months, has offered their mobile phone number, has voted in Democratic primaries for the last 12 years. That's probably someone who‘d be willing to volunteer for them." And out goes an email and text message about volunteering to Joe the Voter, with specific locations near his home or work.
All this effort was especially vital because of the volume of rumor and nonsense that candidates have had to combat online. It was crucial that each campaign generate enough of its own Web material that when prospective voters searched the web for "McCain" or "Obama," they ended up finding more positive, official, on-message links in their search results than negative press. Negative exposure like the recent "Little Known Facts About Sarah Palin" meme can be devastating--and may have been decisive. Search-engine optimization can help, but there's no substitute for making an in-house video or positive article go viral. Team Obama was simply more successful at doing it to their candidate's advantage.
The extent to which the Obama campaign focussed on their online campaigns not only promises to change future elections, but also the President-elect's administration. According to Rasiej, President Obama could keep contact with his constituents regularly, reaching out to them for support of legislation in specific parts of the country, or taking informal referenda on big ideas. At a technology debate held last week by Wired magazine, Reed Hundt, former FCC chairman and Obama technology advisor, said that the forthcoming administration would have a commitment “to have our entire democracy include everyone and through these tools [like Twitter and text messaging] be able to share information in a rapid way and have ideas shared from below." How did Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior advisor and surrogate respond? In a move that smacked of the campaign's larger Web initiative, he failed to show up for the technology debate at all.
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
Recent Comments | 12 Total
November 5, 2008 at 3:35pm by david winston
I tip my hat to fastcompany for solid reporting. They first cracked this story last winter detailing how social networking would redefine political campaigns in favor of Obama. GOOD CALL.
The NEXT BIG STORY is going to be OBAMA and GREENTECH. His inner circle is already murmering that ENERGY will be first on the agenda. THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY IS A HUGE WIN RENEWABLE ENERGY/CLEANTECH/GREENTECH -- to learn all about this:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/analysts-call-obama-election-a-wi...
EXCITING STUFF!!!
or go to
http://www.greentechmedia.com/
YES WE CAN!!!
November 5, 2008 at 9:54pm by Jay Berkowitz
This is an interesting story, thank you!
We used a combination of internet monitoring tools to predict the primaries and the election on The Ten Golden Rules internet Marketing Podcast. By evaluating 13 different internet measures we correctly predicted John McCain and Barack Obama as the party candidates last August 5th, 2007, and we predicted Obama's win for President October 30th. Listen to our podcasts for more details on the methodology:
Primary Prediction:
http://podcast.tengoldenrules.com/10goldenrules-podcast-episode4.html
Presidential Prediction:
http://podcast.tengoldenrules.com/10goldenrules-podcast-episode30.html
November 6, 2008 at 2:39am by juliana fernand
I agree that Obama's website is a tour de force of web magic, with seemingly every social networking base covered. I was also impressed at how the first page you're confronted with on Obama's site is a donation form! It's not done in an 'in your face' style either, there is a 'skip this page' link very clearly marked at the top of the page if you don't wish to donate.McCain's new site is impressive too. Donations, calls to get involved, and social networking are features to the fore, and overall it is a clean and usable design. It does indeed seem to take inspiration from Obama's site, down to the "A leader we can believe in" motto!
--------------------------------------
juliana
{"Chat de sexo ao vivo","http://www.sexxat.com/livechat_pt.html"}
November 6, 2008 at 2:39am by juliana fernand
I agree that Obama's website is a tour de force of web magic, with seemingly every social networking base covered. I was also impressed at how the first page you're confronted with on Obama's site is a donation form! It's not done in an 'in your face' style either, there is a 'skip this page' link very clearly marked at the top of the page if you don't wish to donate.McCain's new site is impressive too. Donations, calls to get involved, and social networking are features to the fore, and overall it is a clean and usable design. It does indeed seem to take inspiration from Obama's site, down to the "A leader we can believe in" motto!
--------------------------------------
juliana
{"Chat de sexo ao vivo","http://www.sexxat.com/livechat_pt.html"}
November 6, 2008 at 1:11pm by david wayne osedach
This is eye opening reading for McCain and the Republicans. They should leave no stone unturned.
November 6, 2008 at 2:24pm by David Mullings
As someone who was a member of the My.BarackObama.com social network, I can attest to its power. I was informed of events nearby such as the opening of campaign offices close to my house, speech watching parties (I attended one in Boca Raton) and rallies (I attended Obama's rally in south Florida the night of the infomercial).
I found out about all these things because of the social network and the personalized emails they were able to send me as reminders.
Flawlessly executed and a case study for how businesses, charities, volunteer outfits and other politicians can really leverage the web thanks to social networking.
November 17, 2008 at 1:38am by Zach Kupp
For crowdsourcing local policy change look at www.PolicyPitch.com - It's a community action platform that allows individuals to pitch ideas for local change, gather resources and collaborate, and transform online communication into real world action.
August 29, 2009 at 12:53pm by maxcoffee max
I was also impressed at how the first page you're confronted with on Obama's site is a donation form! It's not done in an 'in your face' style either, there is a 'skip this page' link very clearly marked at the top of the page if you don't wish to donate.
dvd Player
September 23, 2009 at 10:55am by Weldon Brant
Thanks for the tips and the information
cigarettes
September 25, 2009 at 11:40pm by joe lee
Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you! Thank you for your info.And this is DoFollow Social Bookmark site. It pretty much covers DoFollow Social Bookmark related stuff.
Thank.
________________
โปรโมทเว็บ SEO Directory
November 4, 2009 at 1:20pm by Taras Kolodny
I was also impressed at how the first page you're confronted with on Obama's site is a donation form! It's not done in an 'in your face' style either.
энергия ци
November 23, 2009 at 3:11am by renwen yan
Video Cutter is a very useful software which can easily help you to cut video clips.
iTouch Converter for Mac has the feature of converting video to iTouch (iPod touch, iPod touch 2) compatible video formats on Mac OS.