UXIdeas blog

Social Media played a large part in the success of the Obama election campaign. Here’s a few notes from an InternetWorld seminar i saw by Leo Ryan from Ryan*MacMillan.

- In 2004 Howard Dean was the first presidential candidate to really understand the power of social media in his 2004 campaign. He utilised blogs and used the Internet to raise a large sum of money for the elctoral campaign. For more info on his campaign look here.

- On the other end of the scale, in 2006, Replublican Senetor George Allen used what appeared to be racist language towards a voulenteer for one of his opponents, during a speech. The volenteer was filming him as he said this and it wasn’t long before the video had spread like wildfire accross the Internet.

- In 2004 the Democrats created ActBlue, a website dedicated to the constant promotion and fundraising for Democratic politicians in the States.

- To successfully support a campaign online, engage with voters by creating a tool and effectively use other existing tools to;
1) allow quick and easy donations to raise money
2) engage with voters and promote the campaign
3) Foster organisation of supporters

- In the race for presidential nominations between, Obama used new media far more productively than Hilary. While Hilary only allowed users to send messages to her through her website, Obama  was fostering communities of supporters to come together and promote his campaign (using tools like Meetup). Also, while Obama followed nearly as many people on Twitter that followed him, Hilary didn’t follow anyone, which was effectively like telling the world that she wasn’t listening to them.

- Obama embraced every social media channel he could during his presidential campaign including Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Meetup.

- When reports came out that Obama’s friend; the Reverend Wright caused controversy, Obama chose to make his response through the Huffindon Post, allowing him to give a full statement without it being twisted by the mainstream media.

- Will.i.am made the unofficial campaign song ‘Yes we can’. Although not endorsed by the Obama campaign, it was incredibally viral and Obama was in a good position to respond and take advantage due to his massive online presence.

- After 100 days in power Obama sent out an email listing all the things he had done since being in office. In the email he prompted people, that if they liked it, to forward the email on to their friends. This is a very democratic email.

Leo Ryan then ended his seminar by saying that it is important to remember the thousands-of-years old ways that we communicate and that it is important to continue these online. Remember to be human and don’t be nasty and people will respect you more than if you use social media as a means of spreading slander etc.