Why Did Barack Obama Use Social Media?
Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign made history, Not only was Obama the first African American to be elected president, but he was also the first presidential candidate to effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. Social media activity rose rapidly in recent years and the bigger platforms touch people’s lives multiple times everyday.It is easy to lose sight given how global social media is today, that in 2008 sending out voting reminders on Facebook and interacting with people on Twitter was a big deal. When Obama announced his candidacy in 2007, Twitter had only just started and it is hard to believe that there was not even an iPhone yet.
In the the next few years, social media market begins to change. there …show more content…
The real power of social media is not in the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured by content spreadability, With his existing social media base and spreadable content, Obama had far higher ranking. Social media also allows information and opinions to travel across networks, like ripples in a pond, amplifying ideas and allowing each person to participate as an opinion leader through media production and distribution, not just by passive consumption. There are lots of social dynamics that influence people’s opinions and behaviors. From social validation to familiarity that turns into acceptance, social networks and the ability to link peer to peer, supercharge the type of self-organizing movement that Obama’s campaign seeded through strategic social media use. A final aspect of the Obama campaign’s social media success comes from the increasing online data collection, The ability to collect and analyze data on a large scale allowed the Obama team to model behaviors and coordinate and target communications based. They could, for example, predict which types of people could be persuaded by which forms of contact and content. The Obama field offices ranked call lists in order of persuadability allowing them to predict donor behaviors and to mobilize volunteers to get people out to vote, particularly in the critical swing states. As the 2012 elections has shown, social media is no longer the “exciting new factor” for political campaigning. Social media is a normal and common form of communications with distinctly different properties than traditional mass media approaches. Obama has set the bar for future campaigns but social media and network structures should be given serious attention in the media strategy, whether it’s for politicians, organizations, brands or public service
In the the next few years, social media market begins to change. there …show more content…
The real power of social media is not in the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured by content spreadability, With his existing social media base and spreadable content, Obama had far higher ranking. Social media also allows information and opinions to travel across networks, like ripples in a pond, amplifying ideas and allowing each person to participate as an opinion leader through media production and distribution, not just by passive consumption. There are lots of social dynamics that influence people’s opinions and behaviors. From social validation to familiarity that turns into acceptance, social networks and the ability to link peer to peer, supercharge the type of self-organizing movement that Obama’s campaign seeded through strategic social media use. A final aspect of the Obama campaign’s social media success comes from the increasing online data collection, The ability to collect and analyze data on a large scale allowed the Obama team to model behaviors and coordinate and target communications based. They could, for example, predict which types of people could be persuaded by which forms of contact and content. The Obama field offices ranked call lists in order of persuadability allowing them to predict donor behaviors and to mobilize volunteers to get people out to vote, particularly in the critical swing states. As the 2012 elections has shown, social media is no longer the “exciting new factor” for political campaigning. Social media is a normal and common form of communications with distinctly different properties than traditional mass media approaches. Obama has set the bar for future campaigns but social media and network structures should be given serious attention in the media strategy, whether it’s for politicians, organizations, brands or public service