Barack Obama Social Media Update

A few the unique ways Obama’s campaign targeted the gaming community by advertising on the billboard of Burnout Paradise – a popular game on the X-Box platform. We also touch on the strategy behind the campaign’s Tax Calculator page, as a creative piece of content to reinforce his message to those he’s trying to engage. To learn more about these particular moves you may want to check out my blog entry over at Inc.com’s technology blog – Barack 2.0.

The second podcast is the last one before the election. David and I cover a lot of ground here, as well as take a look back at the last three months of doing these weekly updates. We discuss the impact of Michelle Obama’s blogging on BlogHer.org, and how the campaign is still marrying offline/online activities. Also David and I each share our personal observations as to what was the most important lesson to take away from analyzing Obama’s campaign – a campaign that led Ad Age to name Obama as their marketer of the year. It was also one of the driving factors in me writing a white-paper you may want to read, entitled Social CRM – Customer Relationship Management in the Age of the Socially-Empowered Customer.

We’ll have one final weekly update after the election to conclude the story that is Barack 2.0.

David and I are also pleased to let you know that the Barack 2.0 site was featured in the November issue of Black Enterprise as part of an article discussing the Obama campaign’s use of technology.

Thank you all for your great interest and support. David and I are extremely appreciative to for your kind words and comments.

If you can find captivating ways to express your ideas to the world, the world will help you spread that vision in ways you may never have dreamed of. If you share your vision with the world, the world may help bring perspective to it, and make it better.

This week we look at how the Obama campaign embraced the above philosophy and create an environment where people, inspired by their message, invested their own time and money to create compelling content that literally has reached millions of people. Content that extends the ideas and vision put forth by the campaign, but powered by the creativity of individuals inspired by the original idea.

We look at the following for examples of user-generated content inspired by the ideals of the Obama campaign and how they have worked as unofficial surrogates:

Dipdive.com (also check out it’s sister site HopeActChange.com)

Yes We Can Grassroots CD

Election.Twitter.com

As you will hear, these are a few interesting examples of how great ideas, expressed in captivating ways, can inspire people to help us spread our message. Now these examples are on a much broader scale and scope than any small business could really expect to function on. But we really don’t need this scale in order to find success with these strategies. Great comments left on blogs are examples of effective impactful user-generated content. Tweets from customers can be as well. The thing to remember is to concentrate on sharing your ideas and vision in ways that move people to act – on your behalf!

When most people think of social media they think of sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and a few others. These sites have millions of active members, so it makes total sense to have a presence on one or more of them. The Obama campaign has active presences on each of these sites. On Facebook, for example, he has over one million fans. And he’s the most followed person on Twitter.

As Important as it is to get involved with the big-name social sites, there are many other lesser-known sites that can be just as important in helping you connect with the kind of people you’re looking to build business relationships with.

Below are a few sites the Obama used in addition to the big guys that may be able to help you as well.

Ustream.tv

Ustream is a free service that allows anyone with a webcam and Internet connection to broadcast live over the Web. And while you’re broadcasting, those viewing your broadcast can communicate with you via instant message — making it a truly collaborative experience. Your live streams are also archived for on-demand viewing. Obama’s campaign has close to 150 archived videos on their Ustream channel, which has been viewed more than 250,000 times — adding up to almost 90,000 hours. Now this is a far cry from the millions of views for his videos on YouTube, but it’s a quick, easy way to connect with people in real-time that is growing rapidly in popularity.

FriendFeed

With a growing number of people “tweeting” on Twitter, bookmarking sites using Delicious, commenting on blogs via Disqus, and performing other random social acts, it makes it hard to keep up with all the activities and conversations we’re having. FriendFeed makes it much easier for people to see what we’re doing online by allowing us to easily create a feed from the activities we perform on many of the social sites we belong to. So instead of having to go to several different sites on the Web to see what a colleague is up to, you can see it all in one location via his or her FriendFeed page. And they can follow you’re Web “adventures” as well. The Obama campaign has been using FriendFeed to make it easier to follow his tweets, FlickR pictures, YouTube videos, and blog posts.

Meetup

Meetup is used by organizations, groups, and clubs to organize their in-person meetings. It’s a great way to get the word out about your events to people who may have common interests and would like to participate in group activities. People get event information, view member profiles, and RSVP to attend meetings. Meetup definitely makes it easier to share information, communicate with the membership, and manage group activities. Obama has used Meetup to encourage those interested in his campaign to get together, share ideas, and work with his team.

Below is this week’s B2.0 update:

This week we’re glad to have a conversation with James Andrews. James is Vice President at Ketchum Interactive, specializing in the creation of online media/blogger strategy, web/application development, and content production. James is also Founder of TheKeyinfluencer.com. Additionally James is an Expert Blogger for FastCompany.com.

With his unique perspective as a social media expert, James shares with us his professional and personal experiences attending last week’s Democratic National Convention. James fills us in on how social media infused the event, how the Democrats embraced the blogger community, and how he used Twitter and Facebook to connect with people while at the convention. He also shares lessons he wants small businesses to learn from the Obama campaign’s strategic use of mobile messaging as well as social media.

We also had the honor of having our original Barack 2.0 slide presentation featured on the homepage of SlideShare.net last week. Here it is below. Please feel free to download at your convenience:

We do our weekly check on how many folks are following Senator Obama on Twitter, and also touch on the impact of the text message announcing the choice of Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate.

We look at the impact the text message announcement had on Sprint:

We discuss a very interesting Washington Post article discussing in detail the role social media played in the Obama campaign.

We also take a look at FightTheSmears.com and discuss the importance of picking the right domain names from a small business marketing perspective.

You may also want to check out this related article:

Master of My Domain Names

Let us know what you think!

On last week’s update we pointed out that Barack was about 500 followers short of becoming the most followed person on Twitter. It didn’t take long for him to jump into the number one spot, as many media outlets pointed out – even TechCrunch covered it the day he took the top spot. Obama now has more than 59,000 followers – over 2,000 more followers than the number two person on the list, Digg’s Kevin Rose.

While much has been made of Obama’s following on Twitter, Facebook and other “mainstream” social networking sites, there are other lesser known sites he is participating in just as actively. MiGente.com is a great example of a social site Obama is a member of that doesn’t have the hype of the larger social networking sites.

MiGente.com is a social site dedicate to serving the Latino community. It’s a great looking site with all the functionality of the bigger-name sites. But what it has that the other sites lack is the singular focus on the Latino community, the issues of importance to them, and content that appeals to their community. And with the Latino vote being critical in the upcoming election, it makes a great deal of sense to reach out to them – where they are, in ways that are comfortable to them.

So while TechCrunch heralded Obama’s rise to the top of Twitter with over 59,000 followers, they didn’t report that he has almost as many friends (almost 54,000) on MiGente.com. To us this is equally as noteworthy as the Twitter news, and maybe even more interesting from a small business perspective. Because we as small business people need to participate in social networks that fit the niches our customers and prospects participate in. In many cases these more focused sites can provide deeper, more meaningful interactions that could accelerate relationship building. So while you work Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other major social networks, don’t ignore the MiGente.com’s of the world that represent niche’s in your field/industry. Barack didn’t.

The Book – Barack 2.0: Social Media Lessons For Business can be purchased below.

On Sunday, the Obama campaign used Twitter to inform followers that their VP pick would be announced sometime between now and the start of the Democratic convention.

The way that this is being handled is causing significant buzz in the marketplace…

http://my.barackobama.com/vp

The interesting thing here is the offer the campaign is making. If you want to be among the first to hear who Obama’s tapping to be his vice president, you can sign up to receive a text message or email notification. Below is the sign up for to receive an email notification:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/firsttoknow

There are a few takeaways here. The use of text messaging to instantly communicate information of value to those you wish to engage creates opportunities to learn more about them. And by giving people the option of whether to email or text them, you learn which method of communication they prefer.

And just as the Obama campaign offered people interested in being the “first to know” that opportunity if they provided contact information, you can do this as well. A good business example of this is what Borders has done. You can sign up for their free Borders Rewards club by providing some basic contact information. By doing this they send out emails with discount coupons of up to 40% off. That was nice but it was still inconvenient having to print the coupon off and bring it into the store. Sometimes I’d be in the store when I would receive the email and had no way to use it. But then Borders started offering text message coupons, and all you have to do is show the text message to the cashier and they would immediately apply the discount. I went with the text message offer, while I’m sure those who prefer email stuck with that.

So you may want to think of ways you can entice customers and prospects to let you communicate with them via text messages and/or email. It’s cost effective and keeps you instantly connected. And more and more people will initially read their messages on mobile devices. But it’s important to let them make the call on how they want to be reached, which is why the Obama campaign was smart to let people sign up for either text or email option.

Also capturing contact information is as easy as creating a basic web page that is integrated into a service like Zoho CRM or Microsoft Office Live Small Business. For example Zoho, free for the first three users in a company, has a function that allows you to generate a contact form that pushes the information submitted on your web page directly into your Zoho CRM account. So you’ll have a central location for the contact information you’ll collect, which is critically important. You can also set up auto-responders to let people know you received their information.

One last thing, don’t let typing stop you from sending text messages and using sites like Twitter. You can use a free service like Jott, that will actually let you create and send text messages by creating a voice message. Your voice message will get translated into a text message and will be sent out on your behalf.

You can preview and purchase the Barack 2.0 : Social Media Lessons For Business Below.