How Barack Obama won the 2008 Election using Social Media Barack Obamas presidential campaign was

a huge social media milestone because it began a new connection among candidates and their supporters. Since the introduction of social media, an immense number of individuals had a new kind of active and direct role in Obamas campaign back in 2008, and since that new way of connecting, the Obama campaign will change citizens and consumers roles in government and business. When Barak Obama set out on his presidential campaign, he had many immediate hurdles to overcome, seeing as very few people had heard of him, he was up against a national hero and nobody had an existing afnity which meant getting people to actually listen to his policies was very hard, even if they were outstanding, so getting people to invest in his services would be very problematic, he felt he needed something new and fresh to grab the publics attention. Finding a Unique Selling Point (USP) to pitch the the American public, to catch their eye, and offer something that his opponents were not, the campaign slogan was imperative to this USP which was Yes we can, he was ghting the corner of Change and how the people of the USA dictate their own path to the future. Once he had these key things down, he needed a strategy to outmaneuver his opponents and reach his nal goal of becoming president of the USA and changing it for the better. So, his strategy was to get his supporters to integrate the internet into everything they do, and make the web, the hub of most of our daily operations, take it all back to grassroots and get inside the head of is potential supporters. When making these connections with them, big or small, he then set out to make them part of his mission. Via social media he set to create a centralized database, as a way of targeting specic groups easily, this would ultimately determine the line between wise and poor marketing. Social media has the power to inuence large audiences quickly, for example Obama reached 2.4 million fans on Facebook alone, to McCains 620 thousand thats roughly 380% more, exactly the same as their respected Myspace percentages. Obamas campaign expanded to 15 different social networks, reaching 5 million followers in all during the campaign (he has expanded a lot further now) his Twitter alone has 24.5 million, only four years later. Viral videos can cause a massive spread to the public, with videos on demand whenever his supporters wanted them, Obama made it very easily available on Youtube incase you missed a large debate or speech on television. 139 thousand clips were uploaded at the time, with 1,800 Ofcial Clips and 14.7 million hours of Obama and other related videos. The Yes We Can music video had 14.5 million views alone at the time, as well as 15 other Obama videos viewed more than 1 million times. In short, Barack Obama had 403% More Subscribers than McCain, which also meant that he had 905% more views. This was massively inuential when researching the specic demographic that he was targeting through Youtube.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) was critical, and targeted online banner advertising drew a huge response. Creating most social network pages is a free process, the only output would be time put in to creating and monitoring these various sites. The exception is advertising space, like these banners on Youtube and other popular social sites, it can get extremely pricey depending on volume and display timings. Behind every successful campaign is funding, most of which is derived from donations from democratic followers, where his philosophy is that No sale is too small in generating a relationship with the customer. Through social media, Obama received donations from over 6.5 million different donors adding up to roughly $500 million, I nd this incredible seeing a 6 million of those were donations of $100 with an average of $80 per head. Unsurprisingly, direct emails were one of the most effective ways of generating income for Obama, in total, over 1Billion emails were sent, within these emails, he made them tailored for specic demographics he was targeting, so out of all of those emails, there were 7,000 different variations to make the message seem more personal, including links to his other various social networks, sometimes including links to his Youtube videos, remembering that a selfmanaged social network can succeed, if it lls a void in the market. MyBarackObama.com was created to ll a niche. 2 million + joined immediately, creating 200 thousand ofine events over the duration of the campaign, with 70 thousand people raising $30 million on their personal pages towards the appeal. micro-sites were also generated in these cavities which would spread to further audiences that he would have normally missed. Mobile applications that were created for the campaign were a great way for Obama supporters to engage with the campaign, it enabled him to connect with his audience anytime, anywhere, giving the latest news on the bid, via SMS text message or via an iPhone app, over 1 million people signed up for this, A signicant portion of Obama supporters have continued their support this year in the Re-election to make the change happen. This will bring changed expectations of action and collaboration from the supporters to their leaders. Business leaders nowadays have learnt a huge amount from this revolutionary way of thinking and now, new business customers are changing expectations of their leaders. Obamas use of social media has increased, and the election proved to only be the beginning. In conclusion, the Obama campaign illustrated a massive, meaningful impact that social media can have on getting young people engaged and involved. It wasnt just a campaign, it was a movement that made politics accessible through social media people were already using every day.It changed the face of political and other campaigns forever, but even more so, it made getting involved as easy as opening up an internet browser and creating an online prole.Above all, The Obama campaign made history and showed the power of social media to do nothing short of changing the world.