Social Media Meets Politics: Creative.We.Is.
For a long time during this very long race, we stroked our collective chins in the study of how Social Media was being used by the campaigns of the various presidential candidates.
For example, in addition to his MyBarackObama forums, Obama has a presence on sites ranging from Facebook (for the kids) and Eons (for the AARP set), to AsianAve and MyBatanga and Faithbase. Clinton’s on fewer Social Media sites, but hits the biggies including Twitter, YouTube, and a nicely-done Flickr account. McCain’s set-up his own “McCainspace,” etc.
But, like Kaitlyn Wilkins of Ogilvy, to me the most intriguing example of how Social Media is impacting the campaign gets back to the grassroots nature of the medium. After all, “Social Media” is about content creation and sharing, by the people, for the people.
We can debate whether or not the efforts of a multimillionaire rock artiste like the Black-Eyed Peas’ will.i.am represent Social Media. Many are turned off by the Hollywood hype surrounding his “Yes We Can” video. But check out will.i.am’s candid explanation re: the evolution of his video (bottom-left nav, his “Dip-finition”): sounds to me like Social Media... he was torn between Obama and Clinton, beleive it or not. But when he finally got inspired, he rounded up some friends and made it happen…
Usually this process would take months... a bunch of record company people figuring out strategies and release dates...interviews...all that stuff... but this time i took it in my own hands...so i called my friends sarah pantera, mike jurkovac, fred goldring, and jesse dylan to help make it happen...and they called their friends…and we did it together in 48 hours...and instead of putting it in the hands of profit we put it in the hands of inspiration...”
And this rock&roll guy is not alone. When you have a minute, check out user-created efforts like:
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The Vote Different video – which probably counts as stirring the first Social Media flap of the campaign.
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ObamaGirl (hey, she started out as a lark!)
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I CAN HAZ HOPE? (oh, those crazy LOLcats.)
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HillaryIsMomJeans (15,000 submissions in its 1st week!!)
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YouBama (this YouTube clone dedicated to the Illinois senator has received entries from notables including Craigslist’s Craig Newmark!)
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Hillary Speaks For Me (similar to YouBama)
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The satirical John.He.Is video (watch it right after watching will.i.am’s video at Dipdive!)
Ogilvy’s Wilkins “(fears) to think what will happen when the back room politicos get caught up to speed” on the ways of Social Media and user-generated content. She’s right that faux attempts at consumer-generated content could become the “astroturf” of Social Media.
But call me an optimist. I’m not so worried. What’s not authentic and touching will simply not “go viral.” I trust the public to suss out the charlatans. And meanwhile the impact of these grassroots efforts are creative and inspiring to see.
NOTE TO READERS: My blog went screwy today. Among other challenges, the last 2 posts had to be re-posted and I lost the comments, etc. My apologies for any inconvenience, and even more so to those who were kind enough to leave their thoughts! I will continue to work on restoring those comments!
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Comments
Todd, good stuff and great links, will keep me busy for a bit.
Completely agree that the stuff these folks are doing are a terrific example of social media...they are generating content that is important to them and sharing it with their community. In turn the community is interacting with them and sharing it with others. In many cases this is inspiring folks to get active in the political process online and off...an extremely terrific outcome.
Although I looked at it from the campaign's viewpoint, a consequence of working on that side, it is good to sit back once in a while and appreciate some of the vids/music/posts being independently created. That, for me, is the true sense of social media.
Also...when is this race going to be over already, ugh ;)
/kff
Posted by: Kyle | February 27, 2008 05:37 PM
I agree that the will.i.am vid is probably not reaaaaally "social media" (however viral it did go!) But, this take on the original, which creates a "pixelated" quilt version of the video using supporter submitted jpgs certainly qualifies http://www.hopeactchange.com/ Just saw it today on AdRants.
I'm with you in that I hope that political social media efforts stay on the pure side (or that the average person can at least distinguish the difference between the real deal and social media swiftboating.)
Posted by: Kaitlyn Wilkins | February 27, 2008 10:20 PM
I can has hope.... brilliant! I only wish our politics was as interesting.
Posted by: Lewis Webb | February 28, 2008 06:22 AM
The political campaigns still have an issue surrendering control of message and organizing tools. We're talking about changing the way campaigns have been run for decades. So I think it's natural that the campaigns will want to reap the benefits of social media - effective small-donor fundraising, self-motivated organizing and GOTV, and the online echo-chamber of support - but most are not willing to take the risks.
The Obama campaign has surrendered the most control and they've reaped the most benefit. It still is an inherently risky strategy, but it's paid off for them so far. A few people have said now that the Internet is the only reason he's still in the race. I'm not sure I agree 100 percent with that - you have to have SOMETHING beyond a website to survive in a presidential campaign - but it's clear he's leveraged the online channel to more than make up for Senator Clinton's inherent advantages of relationships with big-money donors and the appearance of incumbency.
The political space is also a great source of innovation in social media. Businesses can learn a lot from mybarackobama.com and I'm sure they will be using a lot of those tools in the future.
Posted by: David Wescott | February 28, 2008 12:36 PM
Thanks for this post. I was really intrigued by this video when it first came out. Especially since it was based on a speech from a primary that Obama lost. I've been very invested in this presidential activity because I'm a PR student and it interests me, but I'm finding that Obama wins me over sometimes only because he (or at least his people) finds ways to reach me - via twitter or facebook or YouTube. This speaks volumes to me because I feel like, ultimately, if they want to reach my generation, they have to learn to speak its language (ie. enlist celebrities and make the most of social media.)
Thanks again. I blogged about this a bit, but I like the depth you took it to.
Posted by: Megan Soto | February 28, 2008 02:23 PM
I especially like your statement near the end - "I trust the public to suss out the charlatans."
Trust in your audience, your customers and your listeners. It is a basic fundamental and without it true social media cannot exist.
Posted by: zoe | February 28, 2008 02:51 PM
Hi - I'm based in England and am looking at the US campaigns quite closely. Is Obama Girl genuinely seperate from the Obama campaign?
Posted by: Mark Hanson | March 10, 2008 01:48 PM
Hi Mark - You can rest assured that the Obama campaign has NOTHING to do with the Obama Girl sensation. I know the fella who created and produced that video, so you can take this as gospel.
Posted by: Todd Defren | March 11, 2008 08:27 AM
Can we conclude that the Obama campaign has just been successful in creating the right vibe ie he is attracting the kind of supporters who are social media savvy and who are motivated to create a buzz in this way?
Posted by: Mark Hanson | March 17, 2008 04:48 AM