PR Communications

A PR Strategy Not Social Media Tactics Won The Presidential Election 2008

Understanding audience’s concerns was critical to the success of the Obama campaign.

I’ve been struggling with what to write about this week in regards to the election and the Obama campaign. Then I realized it was a simple matter of thinking about how public relations strategy influenced the political campaign, a theme I’ve consistently used in this blog.

Public relations strategy to me is all about the process of identifying what is top of mind in a community and relating your brand, product, organization or campaign to what is most relevant to your community. That process is really all about listening to your audience and making what you have today relevant to their concerns.

In that light I thought I’d describe how the Obama campaign first rose to prominence, won the nomination and the election.

Lessons From The Campaign Trail

Concerns change with time & audience. For Barack Obama the start of the campaign was about connecting with those in the Democratic base who were dissatisfied with the Iraq War and had the desire for change. Once the nomination was secured, his strategy changed to connecting with voters over their concerns about the economy, especially in the last few months.

Offer change without risk. In the last few days of the election the Obama campaign gained further by suggesting change was possible yet at the same time demonstrating that change would involve a steady hand at the ship of state.

McCain’s Strategy

John McCain also attempted to tap into the country worries about the economy; his call for a halt to the campaign was an attempt to demonstrate to the American people he thought the economy was much more important than even the election. This tactic did not help McCain’s campaign once the consensus in Washington DC broke down and it took a long time to broker a deal both Congressional Democrats and Republican could agree upon.

New Social Media Tactics Were Important For Obama’s Rise To Prominence

While Kennedy’s election heralded the Television era in Presidential politics. I think the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 demonstrated to political campaigners the importance of using social media during the 2008 election. The 2008 Obama campaign showed that social media tools that empower supporters can help candidates gain money and build a powerful political organization for organizing. A vital lesson from the 2008 campaign trail is not a public relations strategy, but the use of social media as a public relations tactic. The Obama campaign used social media to empower people, giving groups of individuals who did not have a voice the power to organize in a way that was difficult to achieve just a few short years ago. Without the use of social media it would have been much tougher for Obama to organize new donors and a political organization beyond the existing political infrastructure within the Democratic Party.

Strategy Took Barack Obama To The White House

I think the use of social media tactics gave Obama the opportunity to compete, but it was his skillful use of political or public relations strategy to the right audience at the right time that got him to the White House.

The Election 2008 Post For Media Bullseye

Sarah Wurrey and I from Media Bullseye collaborated on a piece about social media and election 2008. Called Decision 2.008 (Sarah's nifty title), we review some of the social media highlights of the campaign.

Don't Mess With Joseph Carrabis, He Knows The Outcome To the 2008 Election

Joseph Carrabis's presentation on Thursday at the Society of New Communications Research Symposium and Awards Gala included a reference from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He called people who are information freaks, Sherlocks, and those people who promote a Sherlock's ideas, Watsons. This is a leaf out of Gladwell's book, but from a larger literacy figure.

The part of the presentation that most interested me was when Joseph showed us a chart of the candidates who were the leading Sherlocks in the current US election. McCain came out tops, with Edwards second. What Joseph did not explain is what does that mean? Are either McCain or Edwards are going to win? In Joseph's presentation he did suggest that Watson's get wider acclaim for spreading Sherlock's ideas. So that suggests a no vote for McCain and Edwards. Clinton was definitely a Watson.

I want to ask Joseph Carrabis what the spread was in the last election cycle, as he suggested that his company predicted the winners and losers through each step of the primaries and election. Joseph, do you have the chart available for 2004?

YouTube Election 2008: Voice Of The People Or Cure For The Summer Media Blues?

Were the YouTube Election 2008 debates a publicity stunt meant to break through the summer media doldrums, or a great example of voter generated media? Both in my view. However if you take the use of such social media technologies to their eventual conclusion, white house press conferences will have YouTube producers with questions on video from the public, and politicians will be using digg like social media technologies to determine the pulse of the public's interests.

Dell has developed IdeaStorm a web-based application that gives customers the ability to suggest product ideas, and other customers can vote the ideas up or down. Dell has already produced products based on the website. What if we had a voter Opinion website similar to IdeaStorm? Well just as a few people and their friends can manipulate Digg you might have a lot of ideas that the majority of the population don't agree with.

Social media does have a role to play in democracy and citizenship; it has already played a significant part in past elections, through forums, blogs and online campaign contributions. It will be interesting to see if politicians interact with social media for policy decisions in the future or just use social media as a publicity stunt.

Election 2008 - Obama's Website Judged The Most Social Media Friendly By Journalism.org

The project for excellence in journalism at Journalism.org has developed a project for the review of the candidates in election 2008. Called, "Election 2008 - Candidate web sites, propaganda or news?" The study reviews each of the candidate’s websites for a number of factors.

I was most interested in how candidates are conducting dialogue with voters and stakeholders. Apparently, "Candidate Web sites have fully embraced politics as a two-way conversation with voters. Twelve sites also offer the opportunity for visitors to turn that dialogue into grassroots action (organizing their own events, fundraisers, etc). Add dialogue and action together and Democrats have the most interactive sites, led by Barack Obama, followed by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Bill Richardson."

The study gauged the ability of each candidate's website to allow participation and engage voters. It appears that Barack Obama's website wins out among the candidates. Factors that contributed to this standing include open comments, citizen blogs, and interaction with social networking sites like MySpace.