Barack Obama's social media machine aims to strike an early blow (Analysis)
Why has Barack Obama entered the presendential race so early? It is to mobilise his social media army, according to Freeserve co-founder and BCS Director Rob Wilmot.
I heard on the news last night that Barack Obama has filed the formal papers to declare that he’ll be standing for re-election. And he’s done this way ahead of there being any clear opposition candidate coming forward. So why call it so early?
Obama credits social media as a significant contributing factor in his successful presidential campaign. Let’s not be under any illusion that it was this alone that swept him into power but there’s no doubt that social media made a very real difference.
Back in 2008, Obama’s campaign team was savvy enough to advise him – and he was savvy enough to listen and understand – that there was a massive groundswell of potential donors and voters who use social media every day via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Obama tuned into these online communities as a way of appealing to the ‘the person on the street’, including the previously hard to reach disenfranchised and lost voters.
A very smart move as social media tapped into the ‘a lot of a little’ phenomenon to raise campaign funds. Tens of thousands of 10 dollars here and 20 dollars there were pledged by ‘normal people’, as opposed to the Republican candidate who relied on the traditional model of tapping up a comparatively few large donors.
But it was much bigger than just the money. Obama gave every average American who pledged hard-earned dollars the feeling that they had personally helped him into office; that their small contribution made a big difference. People felt engaged and empowered like never before and that made them love him even more.
This time around, Obama literally has a massive social media following to call upon. But it’s much more than that. He’s created a real ‘community’ in the truest sense of the word, a vast virtual campaign team ready to unleash the latent power of the ‘like’ and the ‘retweet’.
So that’s why he’s called early: to gain a formidable head start, by unleashing the Obama social media machine.
A final thought, though. It’s not been a bed of roses for the Obama administration, so watch out for the Republican social media counter attack.