Did Obama Win The Election Using Twitter?

Written by: ggaskill | July 23, 2009 5:13 PM in Marketing & Advertising | 1089 views | Tags: Social Networking , Branding , Media Marketing , Search Engine Marketing , Strategic Marketing , Website Marketing , lead generation , sales leads

Democracy is supposed to be a country run by the people for the people, with the one voice, one vote camp clearly on the side of people power. There could be arguments that the Electoral College chooses the President over popular vote, but that's just semantics in a tight race. In the last election, President Barack Obama embraced social media in a way that made every American feel like they were a part of the election process. Fans and supporters took to the Internet to voice their opinion about this new kind of candidate from the very beginning, and many of the online marketing tools spread the message like wildfire.

A fan, Obama Girl's videos were downloaded over a million times, and became an Internet sensation. Her endorsement videos were passed from friend to friend (word of mouth marketing) and spawned dozen of imitators and even a farce on late night talk shows. As the saying goes, you can't buy that kind of advertising, and this particular presidential candidate didn't have to. Obama's camp recognized early that a connected constituency could be the key to a successful run at the Oval Office, and their theory was proven correct. Obama's MYSPACE page had 844,000 members versus McCain's 219,000, a clear indicator not only of how popular his candidacy was, but of the engagement of a voting public.

Social media gave people a voice in the election, and outlets like blogs twitter and YouTube videos game them an outlet. The fact that most internet users who used social media to promote Obama, also fall into the very desirable 18-34 advertising demographic shouldn't be overlooked. In the blog-o-sphere, Obama had 500,000,000 (that's 500 Million) blog posts from the Democratic Convention until he was elected. McCain only had 150,000,000 (150 Million), so again, the sheer weight of words mentioning Obama insured great search engine rankings about the candidate, which served to increase his online visibility. Obama enjoyed three times as many followers as McCain, and on Twitter, the instant status update tool, he had a clear numbers advantage too, 118,000 followers versus only 5000 for the Republican candidate.

The use of social media is here to stay in all future elections since Obama clearly demonstrated just how effective giving the people the power to participate can be. And after all, isn't that what Democracy is all about? The same methods Obama used to gain a popular following online can also be used by smart business owners to grow their business. An electronic brochure as a webpage is no longer effective in a web savvy society. Smart business owners need to engage their customers, give them a voice in their business. If you need a carefully crafted strategic marketing plan to help you utilize social media, hire an expert online marketing company to save time, money, energy and effort so that you can win the votes and profits from your clients.

Greg Gaskill

President

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