In many ways, the challenges Barack Obama's presidential campaign faces are representative of the obstacles we run into every day as small business owners and entrepreneurs.  It may not appear like this is the case, as we see him on television, on the cover of national publications and in photographs with world leaders. But that wasn't always the case, as many of us had never heard of him just four years ago.  And even when he announced his candidacy, he still wasn't taken seriously by political insiders…or outsiders for that matter.

Somehow he and his campaign went from these inauspicious beginnings to winning (presumably) his party's nomination for the presidency.  How did he do it?  There are various reasons for the way things have turned out to date.  But one area that continues to have a significant (and still growing) impact on the outcome is social media.  And the Obama campaign has leveraged social media tools and strategies to:

• Organize and energize millions of people at the grass roots level
• Engage people who have not participated in the political process to be active members
• Raise hundreds of millions of dollars - much of it coming from ordinary citizens

The Obama campaign has fully utilized social media to change the way political campaigns are run.  And there are many lessons small business people can learn from studying his campaign.  Just as Obama has used tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to "win friends and influence" people, small business people cand do so as well.  And finding enough new customers efficiently is one of the leading challenges small businesses face. 

Now we may never have 1M fans on Facebook, or 50,000 followers on Twitter. And we can only dream about raising hundreds of millions of dollars through our blogs and websites.  Lucky for us, we don't need to.  We're not running for president, we're running to be competitive and profitable.

The focus of this site is on helping small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs learn from the moves the Obama campaign made with respect to social media.  For us, this is not about politics - it's about business.  In fact, below is our "official statement" so you know exactly where we stand on this:

We have no affiliation to Barack Obama, or his campaign to be the next President of the United States of America.  Our focus is solely on how the Obama campaign used social media to engage people at the grass roots level in order to win millions of votes and break political fundraising records.  We do not talk about political views or take political positions.  We look at the role social media played in his campaign, the tools and strategies they deployed, and the lessons small businesses can put to work for themselves.

We hope that helps set the stage for everything you see on the site going forward.  And we look to you to make sure we stay on point with our objectives. 

We look forward to sharing with you some of the things we feel will help you get a better understanding for how social media can impact your business.  Whether it be a blog post, a webinar, e-book or other form of digital content, the objective will always be to help you benefit from the social media lessons Barack Obama's campaign is putting together for us all.

Brent Leary and David Bullock