
There have been many blogs writing and praising Obama recently for his amazing approach at leveraging himself online to win the recent presidential election. Obama has ignited a new path of thinking that I think we will start seeing many other politicians take to become visible for any political race.
Obama knew how to get the young vote and he did it with every possible social networking site he could get his hands on. Obama had created profiles at all the top social networking sites and the traffic numbers were astonishing. I think this shows the significant difference in thinking style from McCain. McCain did give the internet an honest attempt but I don’t think he ever thought that he really needs to step up his game online in order to gain an edge on Obama. I have a feeling McCain, like many others, thought there was no way the internet could give him an advantage but it did for Obama. Obama, in a very short amount of time, created a brand around his name. The Obama “change” brand which he channeled and pushed through the all the social networking websites was burned into the minds of many individuals of all ages. Many experts feel that his online marketing strategy clearly gave him a competitive advantage to winning this election.
In today’s day in age there are still many non believers in the power of the internet. They say its a fad or a gimmick and it clearly doesn’t work for their business. Well Obama’s belief in the internet might have very well allowed him to become the president of the United States. Sure for many businesses social media will not be end all be all but for all of those non-believers who don’t feel the internet will do anything it is time to allow your brain to enter the digital world way of thinking or you could find yourself closing the curtains on your business for good.



Couldn’t agree more, it’s been impressive to watch. It’ll be interesting to see how Obama’s weekly videos on YouTube are received. From the onset, you have to give him credit for utilizing the platform to continue that personal connection that resonates so well his style of leadership. Here’s a post I did mid-campaign comparing Obama and McCain’s social media strategies:
http://smeis.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/analyzing-barack-obamas-social-media-strategy/