Fresh Thought

• Thanks @Tomagotchi for the wave invite. Now what the hell do I do! #
• RT @TrendTracker 1 click to integrate Twitter Into #GoogleWave: http://j.mp/2Ijahs RT @zaibatsu @BuzzEdition @Twitter_Tips #

• @woodangus Apologies, well get cracking on those hail marys! in reply to woodangus #

• Twitter Updates for 2009-11-09 #
• Google Buy Admob for $750m #
• How Social Media Wins Elections http://bit.ly/3auUMX via @AddToAny #li #
• How Social Media Wins Elections http://bit.ly/3auUMX via @AddToAny #in #
• Thinking of fun things you could do on the CBS digital screens in tube stations at London, examples I have seen seem boring. Ideas? #
• http://open.spotify.com/user/davedwards/playlist/09Tk5lp856BuNggWAXIHKo Spotify playlist: Jamie Cullum – The Pursuit #
• Interesting phone conversation between #Brown and #Janes http://bit.ly/P4ZmR #
• RT @google Find locations near you for both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccine http://bit.ly/4nOr53 #
• RT @BBHLabs When data is truly beautiful – Realtime downloads from Apple App Store; mesmerizing – http://j.mp/2YbjS7 (via @bigspaceship) #

• @RohanSix Mate it is a Sunday … #
• http://bit.ly/q0p78 – A cracki… #
• #Wordpress iPhone app is exciting mow no excuses for not updating http://www.freshthought.co.uk #
• RT @andrewpascoe last London Lite to be printed THIS friday – http://bit.ly/1di4mJ – A collectors item surely! #

It was clear from the onset of the US Presidential Elections Obama had one of the best marketing teams known to man. Not only was the election historic in terms of the first black president being elected, it was also one of the first that took marketing to the next level and used all forms of medium in an effective manner. Medium used:

• Press – See picture on the right
• Tv – A full 30 minute ‘infomercial’
• Blog - http://www.blogobama08.blogspot.com/
• In game advertising (Cost $44.5K)
• Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, youtube, podcasts etc.

Obama’s campaign was also noted for the groundbreaking way in which social media was successfully used to engage and arm voters, not merely as a fad. I have just stumbled upon a report carried out by Endelman which covers Obama’s use of social media in thorough detail - social-pulpit-barack-obamas-social-media-toolkit-109.

Summary:

The whole social media mix had 4 main stages, Crawl, Walk, Run, fly and there was online monitoring through all of these stages to analyse the success (or failure) and optimise towards the best solution for each stage. The succes behind this was very simplistic; it firstly captured individuals and slowly turned them into supporters (obviously this worked due to the strength of Obama’s manifesto and ideals). Secondly once these non-bias individuals became supporters they were then armed with richer content which served to educate them of Obama’s idealism’s. Once this was done these individuals effectively became mini canvassers themselves. This was due to people using their own social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) to spread the word. One of humans most trustworthy source of information is through our peer groups as we feel we know these people and what they say we can relate to. The whole backbone of these 4 stages served as a small hook dangling bait to a fish and once converted the individuals themselves became huge trawling nets used to pull in friends and family.

The other key learning companies and politicians can gain from his use of social media is how to make sure the content is not only portraying a message but more importantly is seen to talk with the people not at them. Without this the campaign would have alienated itself as people would not have felt a part of the process. Some ways in which this was achieved was via email updates and more importantly the way Obama was completely open behind ‘closed doors’ such as personal images of him behind the scenes with his family which allowed the people to touch a deeper level with, what in history has been regarded an untouchable figure head, the Peoples President. Essentially what was done during the elections could be set as the milestone for others to follow, learn from and expand even further.

Sitting at my desk I got a new message at work. Opened it up to see a potential life saver that will put a smile on my face. It ended up being a letter sent to Richard Branson by a guy who was massively dissatisfied with the in flight food. For the rarer few of you who still have not had this delight enter your inbox you can see it here (click the blue download button in the new window).

After time I started to hear more and more people chatting about it until eventually it was on The Times’ website so obviously this was starting to get media attention. The thing that shocked me though was just how quickly the online social media hype exploded with chatter about the letter. Using Twitscoop a colleague produced the below graph:

This was sent round yesterday and as you can see there was an exponential increase in hype on Twitter.com. It turns out that the key spark to this inferno was Stephen Fry (twitter name – stephenfry) who mentioned the letter on his twitter page.

This exercise shows the power of social media and the potential in harnessing it for brands to get an insight of how they are regarded at a peer to peer level and a non bias audience. The more companies start to see social media as a serious influence to their brand image, the more we are going to see encroachment of corporations into our online personal live’s to influence what we think. Obviously I am all for it otherwise I would have some serious moral dilemmas with my job however it is going to be interesting to see how far it is taken.