Is Barack Obama Your President Without The Internet?
Russ Henneberry | Dec 21, 2009 | Comments 4
Barack Obama
I ran across some very interesting statistics while reading a book called Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. This book is a fascinating look at the drastic changes that have occurred due to the advent of social media. The book is current, fresh and very relevant to tiny business owners.
One of the chapters in the book discusses the way that Barack Obama was able to leverage social media to drive small $5 and $10 donations to his campaign amounting to millions of dollars in campaign contributions.
The statistics below are a snapshot of the numbers at the time of the election.
| Network | Obama | McCain |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook Fans | 3,000,000 | 600,000 |
| MySpace Friends | 800,000 | 217,000 |
| Twitter Followers | 113,000 | 4,000 |
| YouTube Views | 20,000,000 | 2,000,000 |
| Blog Mentions | 500,000,000 | 150,000,000 |
Obama also encouraged the youth of America to get out and vote by using online video and the powerful video sharing site YouTube. The video below, which is a spoof of the classic “WASSUP” Bud Light commercials was released one week before election day and at the time of writing this blog post had over 7 million views on YouTube and over 20,000 comments.
The “WASSUP” videos had been successful at selling millions of Anheuser Busch beers and were apparently equally successful at marketing the Obama campaign.
Could a relatively unknown Senator from Chicago have rocketed to the presidency in just four years without the power of the Internet? Are there similarities between Obama’s use of the Internet and JFK’s use of the new medium of television?
Leave Your Thoughts In The Comments Section! Remember — This is not a political discussion but a marketing discussion.
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Filed Under: Marketing Articles • Online Video • Social Media
Russ:
Great post.
It shows how communication and promotion of products and services (Obama is a product offering services for change), has evolved.
It will change even more rapidly as more young people who live their lives by the new technologies replace older folks who still, to a great degree, work with older technologies.
Totally agree Fred. A politician is trying to sell themselves just as much or more than any product or service.
New technology has a big payoff if you know how to use it properly. As Fred mentioned above young people are using these new technologies to the fullest extent.
Exposure in social media is a great way to gather an audience around your products or services. Obama has done a great job of this.
Thanks Ivan! I think this type of marketing will be fairly status quo in the next election. Politicians from both sides of the aisle will “study the film” on the 2008 election and be ready next time.