The 2008 U.S. presidential election was unprecedented in many ways, one of which was the wave of support from younger Americans who had suddenly become aware of and stood up and took notice of their political landscape – Arthur L. Jue et al, Social Media at Work, p2.
This emergence of passion, commitment and enthusiasm to vote, was something America had never seen before from their younger voting population. These voters managed to swing the votes from the Republican Party to the Democrats. So what triggered this phenomenon? The key it has to be said was the new way in which Barack Obama engaged and communicated with his nation. He understood that the usual means and methods of traditional political communication were not effective in reaching the huge voting potential of younger Americans. It was not making an impact with them. Barack Obama decided to use the new voice of the youth-social media.
The strength of this campaign was the creative use of internet tools, both on public sites as well as within the campaign organisation. Obama managed to reach beyond the traditional methods and communicate directly with the people who mattered to him. He did this through Facebook, YouTube, twitter and myspace . He understood his audience and how to engage with them. He was quick to realise that simply talking at his potential voters is not enough; it does not resonate-especially with younger voters. Instead, he talked with his audience, engaging them and therefore creating loyalty. He made them get involved, making them feel like they were valuable and a part of something, part of a movement. This is the essence of political communication in the modern day.
“One ardent Obama supporter was Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. He parlayed his passion to elect Obama into an innovative political campaign that focused in large part on online discussions hosted by the website MyBarackObama.com. According to Fast Company, Hughes helped develop the “most robust set of web-based social-networking tools ever used in a political campaign, enabling energised citizens to turn themselves into activists, long before a single human field staffer arrived to show them how. Part of the campaign’s strength rested in how volunteers leveraged wikis, blogs, microblogs, and other web 2.0 tools to scale grassroots efforts.” – Arthur L. Jue et al, Social Media at Work, p 108
These efforts managed to motivate a large audience to become active and band together to achieve one common goal-elect Barack Obama. The president managed to keep people involved even after the election. Immediately after his election, he e-mailed his supports, writing “We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.”
Obama managed to capture the essence of social media – to engage, create relationships and staying genuine. This was the driving force in that resulted in Mr Obama getting elected. This has brought about a change in the way political communications operates. It will be interesting to see if the British election will be as equally successful in capturing the magic of social media communication as effectively as the Americans.
Links
Perspectives; Exploring Social Media in PR
New York times; How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power
