12 November 2008
Social media spurs on Obama
Learn how Presidential campaigners drum-up support using technology.
It's now been a week since the world learned of Barack Obama’s successful bid to become the next US President. We've singled out one particular segment of his campaign to hail as a triumph – his use of social media.
My Barack Obama
During the campaign, the iPhone, for example, was used as a political recruiting tool via a "Call Friends" option to organize contacts. On Obama's website, My Barack Obama, the iPhone software is described as a tool “designed to help you become more directly involved in our campaign to change the country."
My Barack Obama's homepage brings people in with the message, “Join My.BarackObama, our online community with over a million members. Get access to the tools you need to effectively organize for Barack Obama and build this movement for change.”
This social media aspect of Obama’s campaign cleverly lets supporters "do their bit" remotely, and appeals to us as individuals as well as becoming part of something much larger.
Howard Dean was the Wright brothers of social media in elections – but Barack Obama is Apollo 13.
Obama: the first "wiki candidate"
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have run techno-savvy campaigns, using the web for fundraising, YouTube for advertising and Facebook for profile-raising.
Noam Cohen’s New York Times article suggests Obama could even be the first “wiki-candidate”.
“Mr. Obama’s notion of persistent improvement, both of himself and of his country, reflects something newer – the collaborative, decentralized principles behind internet projects like Wikipedia and the ‘free and open-source software’ movement,” Cohen says.
Reaching out to individuals
We asked one of our editorial board members David Ferrabee (pictured, left), social media expert and managing director of Able & How comms consultancy, for his views on the social media aspects of the Obama campaign – and its lessons for communication professionals.
“Obama in particular has used it to reach out to people in a very personal way, which he wouldn’t have been able to do in the old days," says Ferrabee.
"It doesn’t matter how many town halls he attends, he wouldn’t previously have been able to reach anywhere near as many people,” he continues.
"Barack Obama is Apollo 13"
Ferrabee referred back to Democrat Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign of 2004. “He was a pioneer in American politics for running online,” he says. Dean was the first to create a website where people could donate towards fundraising – changing how the US Democratic National Party connected with people.
Those of us who thought social media was going to be the new thing a couple of years ago have been surprised that nobody is talking about it anymore.
"On the TV recently someone said Howard Dean was the Wright brothers of social media in elections – but Barack Obama is Apollo 13," Ferrabee recalls.
What makes someone "Apollo 13"? Ferrabee says the Obama campaign has been innovative in many ways, particularly using social media for fundraising. He suggests a similar approach could be used in business. For example, to get management information to employees around the organization – and globally.
Ferrabee is impressed by the number of links to social media sites on Obama's website. Scroll down the page at http://www.barackobama.com/index.php to see the "Obama everywhere" list.
Spreading the message, fast
“Years ago, when I was doing social media training around the UK, Europe and Middle East, he was the only candidate using Twitter,” Ferrabee says.
“You could sign up to Twitter and get Obama messages up to 160 characters on your mobile phone, anywhere in the world, within a couple of hours. That’s amazing – a fantastic way of getting your message to individuals."
Ferrabee is particularly impressed by the number of links to social media sites on Obama’s website. Scroll down the page at http://www.barackobama.com/index.php to see the “Obama everywhere” list.
Lessons for communicators
“The big lesson for us, looking at it from a communication perspective, is that there probably isn’t a set way for a business to use social media,” Ferrabee says. “But there are many opportunities to use these channels to do things you might not otherwise be able to do, or would find much harder to do.”
How quickly are companies adopting social media? “They’re still a bit slow in some places,” Ferrabee acknowledges. “Bigger businesses are very slow to adapt. For example, some are still upgrading to Windows 2000.”
Ferrabee compares his own new start up, just 3 months old, with other companies. “We’ve got Vista and most places we’re working with don’t have it yet. The bigger the company, sometimes the slower it is to adapt to these things.”
The big lesson for us is that there probably isn’t a set way for a business to use social media.
No longer the big bubble
However, Ferrabee sees changes beginning to creep in via intranets, where intranet managers are finding ways to hook new pieces of networking software to the site.
“Those of us who thought social media was going to be the new thing a couple of years ago – and turned it into a big bubble – have been surprised that nobody is talking about it anymore,” Ferrabee says. The reason? Social media has moved beyond “the next big thing” to become simply “a thing” that passes without comment.
“There will always be something a little newer and more geeky. As things shake out, they become functional and just get used – or else they don’t. Business use of social media has now become part of the communication tool set,” he concludes.
Meet Barack Obama: Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Have your say
The Hub concurs with Ferrabee – social media seems to have become simply “a thing” – even for election candidates. Consider how past innovations that helped politicians organize supporters are now commonplace: printed debate transcripts, use of postal services and radio, informality in speeches and television coverage.
Will the current buzz around social media spur your CEO into adopting the Obama approach? How do you calm senior leaders’ fears that these channels might get out of control – particularly in generating communication they've not instigated?
Recommended resources: Q&A: How can we work with employees to use Facebook productively for the company?
Melcrum report: How to use social media to engage employees
10 rules of social media strategy
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