Since we started analyzing the social media performance of US Presidential hopefuls, we have been quite vocal in our criticism of the candidates for their lack of strategy, focus, and even basic understanding of new media.

Now is the time to extend our kudos to the only candidate who “gets it”: Barack Obama. (Well, OK, hindsight is always 20/20). Some may question his ability to deliver on change beyond rhetoric but the Traackr team can attest that when it comes to incorporating new media into a presidential campaign, Obama has probably forever changed the landscape of political campaigns to come.

The Obama camp has a strategy about what they want to achieve and how to use social media and they have shown mastery in its execution.

Barack Obama’s approach from the inception of his campaign has been to reengage in the political process people who have felt left aside and disconnected. Social media has been a core element of this strategy.

The result so far is that Obama dwarfs all other candidates combined with his popularity on social media and the amount of buzz he has managed to create. What we find most impressive in Obama’s performance is not the fact that he beats 4:1 Hillary Clinton for popularity and 10:1 for buzz; what sets the Obama campaign apart is that he has found ways to engage users, get their support, and have them relay his message: the popularity of Obama on social media, when accounting for these users, is yet multiplied threefold.

How did he achieve such astounding results? Here are some principles of success with social media that help understand Obama’s success:

- Be fast – one critical factor of social media is the rapidity of publishing new pertinent content. This often goes against the doctored approach followed by most Presidential candidates (and if we were looking at a broader spectrum, traditional corporations) who are too mindful of what and when they say something. Since the Soprano Finale spoof by Clinton on YouTube, we should all know that carefully scripted content doesn’t always amount to good judgment anyway, so why hold off?

- Be everywhere – one of Obama’s key achievements has been how wide he has spread his visibility: YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, just to mention a few sites. Obama has also managed to be present in many different places on each of those sites, and this mostly thanks to his relays, who publish content outside of the political realm. Maybe the most famous example is the notorious Obama Girl, by barelypolitical on YouTube.

- Let go of control – this may be the hardest thing for political leaders to do but it is essential to getting the support of the social media user community. Obama’s latest “hit” has been a video by Hollywood artists that has now reached over 10 million views and 50,000 comments on YouTube. Maybe the greatest achievement of this video has been the number of users who have modified the original video to add subtitles, made a remix, reinterpreted the song by will.i.am.

- Ease tension between traditional and new media – contrary to most advertising agencies’ misconception, social media campaigns don’t necessarily happen in a media vacuum. As this new form of communication matures, we will see agencies take into account both new and old when setting up a new campaign; something that the Obama camp has already understood as they launched the “yes we can” song campaign on ABC before publishing its content on the Web.

- Be flexible – communicating on YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, or Facebook requires an understanding of the platform and of the rules defined by the community of users in order to be accepted.

Maybe the only negative aspect of Obama’s performance so far has been the surprising lack of focus on the Latino community, which is, as we know, Clinton’s turf. One would expect Obama to leverage his knowledge of the social media toolset and use it to his advantage to reach out to Hispanic voters. Even some of the most basic rules, like offering tags for assets (see our article on this topic) in Spanish as well as English, have been mostly ignored so far. Vamos Obama, solo un pequeño esfuerzo!

Tags: election campaign, influential, marketing buzz, viral marketing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Influence in Politics, We Search, We Score, We Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.