Image by Esoteric Desi at Flickr.Com

A Barrack Obama 2008 Campaign Case Study

Overview

In this presentation I want to answer two main questions:

1. Why Did Obama Win?
2. And What Is Social Media Marketing?

 

1. Why Did Obama Win?

1. Technology Implementation
2. Excessive Cash
3. Clear Vision

1. He Implemented Technology Effectively:

• YouTube didn’t exist in 2004 and podcasting was yet to become a word.
• Video compression was still struggling to make files smaller and easily available.
• It’s not that McCain’s people didn’t try – they did but his political avatar seemed artificial and forced.

2. He Raised Excessive Amounts Of Cash:

• Barrack Obama’s charisma combined with a competent team proved to be a fund raising machine.
• He did not attend any big ticket fundraising dinners because he did not have the connections that McCain and Clinton had, instead he used social media marketing to collect donations from the public (almost 50% of all funds raised were small donations of less than $200).
• He then used the excess cash to flood prime time TV with hyper effective, superbly produced infomercials.

3. He Had A Clear Vision:

• For the last 232 years, the United States of America has had more or less the same president – caucasian, prosperous members of the powerful political elite.
• Obama’s message was a simple one “Change Can Happen”.
• In the end, it was the catastrophic 8 year reign of the worst president in the history of the United States of America that decided the election long before it even started.

2. What Is Social Media Marketing?

Image by World Economic Forum at Flickr.Com

“The election of Barrack Obama would not have been possible without you, the empowerment of individuals to use knowledge as a source of power that has come with the Internet.”

- Al Gore at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, November 7, 2008.

Social Media Marketing is:

• Utilising social networking and user-generated content platforms to promote a product, service or content.
• Creating and participating in a dialogue with the target audience, rather than forcing an advertisement upon them.
• Creating and promoting viral content that is meant to be shared by users.

• The BarackObama.Com blog is updated daily and features comments from readers.
• $650 million was raised from 3 million donors with almost 50% coming from those donating $200 or less.
• BarackTV on YouTube currently has more than 20 million channel views so far.

• The My.BarackObama.Com platform allowed volunteers and supporters to collaborate online.
• The Obama Mobile platform encouraged subscribers to contact friends during off-peak periods when calls were cheap or in many cases free.

• The Obama FaceBook page currently has more than 3 million supporters.

• After the election Change.Org was established – a new social networking platform for political, social and environmental change.

The Technology That Was Used To Raise $650 Million In Funds For The Obama Campaign Is Available To You Today And At Little Cost!

Conclusion

• The Obama campaign had a clear, simple vision and implemented it well using current technologies to create a fund raising machine.
• The Obama campaign proved that it is possible to use Social Media in order to dominate Traditional Media.
• And last but not least…

The Obama Campaign Changed The Way In Which The Game Is Played And With It The RULES OF THE GAME Have Changed Forever!