Politically, I have virtually nothing in common with Mike Huckabee. Yet during the course of the primaries I found myself passing along a link to his campaign website to friends. The Chuck Norris videos.
ChuckNorrisFacts.com was huge when I was at U of I. I recall fraternity brothers silk screening tshirts with things like “When Chuck Norris falls in water, Chuck Norris doesn’t get wet. Water gets Chuck Norris.”
Much like Hillary’s soprano’s video, Huckabee produces viral gold. Even better, he tapped a young crowd—and the younger the voters, the more likely they’re living online. In a crowded field of GOP candidates, Huckabee quickly evolved…er…”intelligently designed”…as a likely front runner.
In a few weeks, we’re swearing in a new president. I’m ecstatic because 1) I’ve been involved in his campaign before HQ was even open in Chicago and 2) all the case studies I built around the election are now success stories.
As part of my curriculum for PR Wired at Columbia College and my guest lectures/social media trainings, I talk through what viral videos in this election can show us– the do’s, the don’ts and the learning curves in online strategy.
For the company wandering into the social media waters, the candidates offer eye-opening peaks into where we’re headed. Nearly half the candidates announced their candidacy on YouTube—a option that didn’t exist in 04. (Hard to imagine what Swift Boating would have looked like online…where the videos would have spread quickly, but also been defended by e-Kerry supporters, right?)
Hillary the PC, Barack the Mac (?)
This 1984 vid was one of the first major challenges to Hillary’s inevitability. While created for online, all the major news stations picked up on it. I feel like this helped set the tone for the campaign and served as a preview of what was to come.And the best part…this wasn’t created by the campaign (well, officially)
Funny on Her Terms
Pop culture tie-in, small town dinner, jabs at Bill’s diet.The Clinton camp scored big with the popularity of this smartly produced vid. (the choice of song was a different story…)Hillary engaged voters to play a part in the campaign by choosing their campaign song.This spread like wildfire online and got all sorts of mainstream coverage.
But it was tightly controlled, scripted and produced.This is the corporation paying bank to re-created viral videos.Was this really anything more than a witty commercial disturbed over different channels? Overall, Barack did it differently and it’s authenticity paid off.
New York Magazine talks to “expert-ish doctor” and cites AAPR research. And you thought it was weird getting Facebook posts from Mother. It just got weirder. Older People Are Now Sexting Each Other It was only a matter of time, we suppose. As soon as older people starting learning how to use their cell phones for things [...]
Just last night I lectured about how traditional media pros use social media. Then, I see this brillant and fun Gawker story about Ann Curry and some fellow journs trapped in a NYT elevator—tweeking and posting videos the whole time! Ann Curry Trapped in New York Times Elevator for One Well-Documented Hour “What happens when a group [...]
“Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.” – BeatifulPeople.com founder Robert Hintze tells the BBC. As the site touts: Do looks matter to you, when it comes to selecting a partner? Do you want to guarantee your dates will always be [...]
Brands kill for it. Marketers promise it. But one problem with “user generated content” is, well, users. Props to Hanes for keeping this post live. Makes me wonder what kind of posts get censored from the underwear fan page…! Here’s the page. The video (if you dare) is here
I’ve heard of adults scaring adolescents with threats of hairy palms…but a hairy face? This is new turf. James Lipton’s Give It a Ponder PSA about the dangers of texting. http://www.youtube.com/GiveItaPonder Knee-jerk reaction: “Why is this old dude warning teenagers about sexting…do they have any clue who he is?” Then I think […]
Apparently, Charmin has a solution. In case cartoon bears wiping their butts on trees wasn’t weird enough, Charmin’s new YouTube video takes personal hygiene to a very odd place. Not quite funny. Not quite serious. But if this is what he does with his TP, I’m not looking forward to learning what he does with his [...]
John McCain’s daughter and blogger, Meghan McCain, stepped out of her pantsuit and into some controversy. It’s one thing when an old college friend tags you in some beer bonged Facebook photo, it’s another story when you post trashy webcam pics of yourself . This reminds me of words of wisdoms I’ve given to over the [...]
“We still tend to connect with the same people through online social networks who we connect with offline…” What a shocker! It baffles me that this concept is still a new revelation! It should be little surprise that moms talk to moms online, urban kids chat with urban kids…etc. Take for instance my class on social media [...]
