{"id":579,"date":"2008-11-05T20:11:56","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T03:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/?p=579"},"modified":"2008-11-05T22:06:18","modified_gmt":"2008-11-06T05:06:18","slug":"social-media-the-iphone-and-the-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/social-media-the-iphone-and-the-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media, the iPhone and the election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, another election has come and gone, but unlike other elections, this is the first election where social media had an impact on the outcome.<\/p>\n

Obama used a grass roots based approach building and managing the organization. Just 4 years ago, it would be hard to imagine the level of organization and communication required to build and manage such numbers as those involved in the Obama campain through traditional top down means. But with youTube, Facebook, twitter and even the iPhone and Blackberrys; social media and the hand held tools that expand their reach has changed politics.<\/p>\n

First, lets think about fund raising, something I’m sure everyone will agree was one of the major factors in this election’s outcome. What the Obama team did was focus on small donations via the internet. Although web based fund raising is not new, the way it was done was different.\u00a0 In this campaign, we saw donate buttons on web pages and emails. Then, what I consider the first markable impact of social media, the ‘yes we can’ video.<\/p>\n

Although the lyrics are entirely quotations from Sen. Obama’s concession speech<\/a> in the New Hampshire<\/a>[<\/span>3]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> the Obama campaign had no involvement in its production.[<\/span>4]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> The viral<\/a> music video<\/a>, shot in a sparse black-and-white, features Barack Obama’s image in collage fashion; the performers (celebrities including musicians, singers and actors) echo his words in a hip-hop<\/a> call-and-response<\/a> manner as his voice plays in the background. The song was produced by will.i.am; the music video was directed by Jesse Dylan<\/a>, the son of singer Bob Dylan<\/a>.[<\/span>5]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> The music video (which Joe Klein<\/a> of <\/em> primary,Time<\/a> later characterized as “brilliant”)[<\/span>6]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> premiered on the national media on ABC News Now<\/a>‘s <\/em>What’s the Buzz entertainment program on February 1<\/a>, 2008<\/a>.[<\/span>5]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> On February 2<\/a> it was featured on the Obama campaign’s community blog,[<\/span>7]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> and later promoted as a viral video by the campaign on its website.[<\/span>8]<\/span><\/a><\/sup> Obama played the clip prior to a February 12<\/a> rally of nearly 20,000 at the Kohl Center<\/a> on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison<\/a>. <\/em>cit-http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yes_We_Can\u00a0 at this writing, there has been 1,035,880 <\/span>views on youtube.<\/p>\n

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Once this video went viral, not only did the word get out, and people become inspired, but social media links were established. As the campaign wore on, the obama campaign used all forms of social and digital media where they could, even to the point of putting ads in video games.<\/p>\n

What really impressed me during the summer, was how the campaign was starting to show up everywhere I normally was. Twitter, Facebook, my iPhone!\u00a0 I wrote about an Obama campain aid app from iPhoneDevCamp<\/a>, there were plenty of twitter sites dedicated to the Obama message and discussion, the 1 million strong Facebook group, and on and on. \u00a0 Have a look at this info from speakmediablog:<\/a><\/p>\n

Election 08 Social Media Showdown – <\/span><\/strong>Here is a look at the activity surrounding each candidate’s social media outreach.<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Senator Barack Obama<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n