“‘Twas the night before the election…”
Here it is, the eve of the 2008 presidential election, and we’re (finally) about to elect a new president of the United States. This election has been long in coming and it has spawned a new way of politicking. (My own opinion is that it should have happened much earlier, but presidential campaigns are run by people who make money by creating TV commercials.)
I wanted to take a look at the level of online involvement that each campaign has inspired. For the past nine months, I’ve seen plenty of banner and large box ads for Barack Obama – a wise choice in my opinion – but not nearly that much for John McCain. Online display ads can be targeted and can bring a person right to an intended page so the person can get information that they are likely interested in.
But what intrigues me the most is how the campaigns used social media as marketing and networking tools. So I decided to tak a look at the larger social networks to gauge each candidate’s presence and the effectiveness. Looks like Barack Obama wins hands down.
MySpace
As of this writing, Barack Obama has 834,815 followers on MySpace. Compare that to John McCain’s 218, 136. That’s almost 4 times as many followers for Obama than McCain, with a difference of 616,679 – only 9,000 less than Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska.
Obama’s page is filled with videos that a visitor can view or grab for viral effect. It has polling information. Basically tons of information that a fan could use to reach out to others in hopes to either impress them into voting for Obama and how and where to actually vote. His use of space was excellent and, for a page that has so much, it downloaded very quickly. One of the best features is the “Obama Everywhere” section, where the campaign connects you to Obama profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, iTunes, and Digg. Very simple, but truly shows how valuable social media can be.
McCain’s page is giving me problems. The masthead is excellent, but there isn’t much there. A video, a chart comparing the two candidates, and a link to polling places s there, but not much else. In fact, I’m getting a lot of blue space where there could be more info. Problems downloading? Poor execution on their part? I don’t know…but I tried reloading twice and got the same thing.
Here, Obama dominates once again. He’s got 2,392,582 followers. That’s larger than 15 of the 50 states. Just as the MySpace prensence, the Facebook group page is filled with info to grab, fan followings, and up to the minute updates. The cleanliness of the site itself makes it better than the MySpace page if you’re looking to be informed or to connect with others, while the MySpace page comes off as more enthusiastic.
McCain’s page is it’s equal in content as if features a game called “Pork Invaders”, a tribute to his crusade against earmarks. But, unfortunately for the candidate, he has only 621,846 followers. Again, that’s just over 25% of the amount Obama has. Here, I’d say that the lack of overall enthusiasm on social networks shines through. Updates are sporadic. It makes it seem participation on these sites aren’t important.
YouTube
Well, you can obviously see a trend here. Barack Obama has 1805 uploaded videos with 18,474,483 views and 115,208 subscribers. John McCain has 330 videos with 2,044,717 views and 28,838 subscribers. Not even close. Again, four times as many subscribers. The big difference is the amount of views and subscribers.
What I’m thinking is that the Obama people know that social networks are a great tool and that their likely voters are part of that culture. McCain’s team has undervalued this resource.
Yikes! Obama’s got 113,304 followers and McCain’s got only 4,686. While Obama doesn’t have that many updates, 258, McCain has only 25. From the way they’re written, it seems as if they’re from a supporter…or at least someone that has a connection to the campaign, but isn’t officially tweeting. A sorry effort.
Conclusions
While I think that social networks are more likely to attract younger people and younger people are more than likely to be Obama supporters, the difference in numbers here is telling. It’s a combination of those demographic trends and a likely lack of understanding and interest from the McCain people. This is a big mistake on the campaign’s part and it could harm the GOP for a long time.
Social networking is how many now communicate. How people get their news – or at least how they are directed to their news. It’s how people connect with others. That the Republicans haven’t taken initiatives to in some ways match the Obama’s campaign shows me that the apparatus put in place by the Democrats could give them the knowledge base and experience to dominate in online politicking for years to come.
This is going to be a close election, closer than most people think. And while I can’t say that online social media efforts will win it for Obama if he ends up being victorious, the connections that people make on line, the enthusiasm that it breeds, and the calls to action will, in my opinion give Barack Obama hundreds of thousands of votes…votes that can make a difference.
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Jonathan,
I really enjoyed this summary of the election and social media. I think Obama did a brilliant job using all networks and trying to reach out to everyone he could no matter which way they were communicating. It’s interesting to have a President who understands all of this and what we do.
I hope in the next four years it changes the outlook between business and social media.