Crucial Social Media Marketing Eludes Presidential Candidates

Uh.... what??

I'm very curious how you're defining "social media". It sounds like the case you're making is that because only Clinton's campaign made a "viral" (whatever that is) video, they're the only ones doing social media.

Clinton's camp has a blog, Obama's camp has a social networking site, John Edwards has a Flickr account, many have official YouTube presence...the list goes on.

Obama and Paul both (as well as the others) have raised HUGE amounts of money through the Web.

I guess I just don't know what you're driving at here.

One other thing I'd like to challenge you on is the statement re: MoveOn's FB app:

"The problem: Facebook is under fire by the digerati and may fall from favor before the election."

May "fall from favor"? And what if it does? Do you think that those of us industry people debating the FB issues have SO much sway that we'll take a few million users with us when/if we decide to throw our hands up and leave? And where might we go instead? The "digerati" has turned from MySpace in no small way, yet MySpace is far, far from "dead".

More importantly, what does FB's digerati favor have to do with the impact of success of this MoveOn app on the overall campaign? Are you saying that the only way the app has any marketing effect is that FB must stay "good" until November? Not sure I'd agree with that, if so.

Jake - you'll find a pretty clear explanation of how i define social media here http://tinyurl.com/229ty5 and volumes of information if you click on the categories Social Media or Social Media Marketing in the category list in the right column.

Show me a candidate who actually writes on their blog. The "candidate blogs" are just marketing mouthpieces, not real communication.

Yes, money is being raised online. Not through effective use of social media.

I think a site like Unity 08, or even Big Think will have more actual influence on the election than anything in Facebook. Facebook has too high a noise to signal ratio.

BL, that link gives 12 *best practices* of social media marketing, not a definition.

Show you a candidate who writes on their blog (I assume you mean personally)? Why? Show me how many CEOs post themselves. Saying that social media marketing efforts fail because the candidate doesn't post personally is ridiculous. How often does Bill Gates post a blog entry personally? Does Microsoft fail with their blogging efforts because of this, despite 3000+ blogging employees?

As far as the money, Ron Paul raised the most money in the last quarter of 2007, more than any other candidate. He's not getting huge media attention, in fact is often shunned in the traditional media. He gets a vast majority of his money from individuals, like Obama. So where is his money coming from if not online? And do his efforts fail because he's not personally taking time out of his 18 hour+ days to post a blog entry or respond to a blog comment, despite the fact that his staff is?

Let's not be zealots about the space here - realistically, candidates are in a mad dash to come out on top, giving a level of effort most of us will never know. This election cycle has brought the tools of social media to the forefront (Ron Paul has a iJustin channel for crying outloud!). In the last election cycle there was basically one candidate, Dean, using any sort of social media strategy. Perhaps we should cut this crop some slack here for fully embracing the tools. Perhaps they need another cycle to fully flush out the strategy.

You've made a bold claim with this post that has no detail or support. I'm curious what you're driving at when you say: "But neither he, nor Obama, nor Hillary have used social media marketing well." Perhaps you mean to say something like: "Despite using all the tools of social media (flickr streams, blogs, grassroots organization, social networking, MySpace profiles, Facebook groups, YouTube channels, and more), they're still not achieving effective results with these tools because ______"?

Please fill in the blank. (Or replace my assumption with your own statement)

there u go jake. you've written your own blog post and now you can post it in your own blog.

have a great evening.

I think a site like Unity 08, or even Big Think will have more actual influence on the election than anything in Facebook.Facebook has too high a noise to signal ratio.

I guess I just don't know what you're driving at here.

....................

Dinu

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