How Obama used social media to drive his campaign. And how you can use it to drive yours.
Posted March 10th, 2009 by Michael
Recently I had the opportunity to attend an MITX event on how Obama used social media to fundamentally change the nature of politics in America. The panel included people who had been involved with the campaign’s web site, technology and data analytics.
As everyone knows, Obama’s campaign used the social web in ways never before attempted. For me, one key insight was around the relationships that the organization was able to build with voters across the social web. These relationships were built on multiple social media channels, rather than a single social platform (which is typically the case).
As an engaged Obama supporter, you could connect with the campaign by being a fan of Obama’s on Facebook. But you could also connect with Obama supporters on obama.com and Twitter and through other channels. This integrated approach allowed the campaign to track voters and volunteers across the web, and engage with them through the voters’ channel of choice. This also supported the gathering of data on individual voters that allowed the campaign to meaningfully target people for special events, get out the vote drives, and financial support.
The other major insight I gained was the degree to which the Obama organization not only allowed but enabled and encouraged passionate Obama supporters to take the campaign into their own hands. Through the various social media channels, supporters connected with each other on particular topics, debated the issues, organized locally on their own, and distributed messages on behalf of the campaign.
A great example of how the campaign used the full power of the social web was when an issue arose regarding the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate. The campaign quickly created a fact-checking microsite, www.fightthesmears.com, and posted all of the relevant information on the topic. Voters were able to check out the facts on the issue and were encouraged to spread the truth by distributing the message and links to their personal social networks on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. With reach they could never achieve through traditional news outlets or advertising, the Obama campaign was able to quickly quash unfounded rumors and short circuit the typical 48-hour news cycle.
I think there are several key lessons that marketers can take away from the Obama experience as they develop and enhance their own social media activities:
• Know your users: Too often companies build social media programs that don’t build in the ability to deepen their knowledge of the users. With planning and forethought these tools and techniques (simple registration, email capture, opt in, etc.) can be built into programs to allow engagement to become much more than an anonymous exchange.
• Integrate across social media channels to drive stronger engagement: People use many different social channels as they engage with others across the web. However, frequently I see companies using only one channel to support a social campaign, such as YouTube or Facebook. Engaging with users across multiple channels and then letting them choose how they want to communicate broadens reach and ensures deeper, longer-term engagement.
• Trust your enthusiasts: There’s an 80/20 rule in business. But in social media it’s more like 95/5, where 5 of the users are truly engaged with the brand or product and the rest are passive observers. Just as the Obama campaign used their most passionate followers to help distribute the message and organize locally, marketers can engage their most passionate users as well to help them broadcast relevant content. When you connect your enthusiasts to the tools and trust them to drive, great things can happen.
• Manage the social web: Once in a great while a largely unmanaged social media campaign takes on a life of its own and achieves remarkable results. But in reality this happens about as often as a blue moon on Tuesday. Just as the Obama campaign aggressively managed the social web, marketers need to dedicate resources to manage core social media programs and initiatives. Unmanaged communities based on UGC almost never succeed.
No doubt there are many other lessons that are worth discussion. But social media practitioners who embed these four lessons into their programs will be taking an important first step toward success.