Archive for the ‘Obamarama’ Category

Obama’s Fireside Chats

March 18, 2009

The tactic is old, but the media is new(ish).

I’ve heard a lot of hoopla around Obama on YouTube, Obama Using Social Media, Obama Keeps Blackberry.

At it’s core, this is nothing new. A president taking his message directly to the people to build a case for his policies. Love it or hate it, there’s something refreshing about having a leader talking directly to citizens (not just voters).

If he’s successful in building support like this, certain members should be growing worried. Obama may be talking more directly to your constituents than you are. If all politics are local…he’s bringing his message straight to your district. Is traditional local media outreach going to be enough to refute this? (How about pitching your POV to the Rocky Mt Times…oh wait…never mind)

I’m sitting here looking at the president’s YouTube page that’s has some 25k views and don’t see a single video response—either supporting or attacking this message. Where you at, Congress?

Obama’s set a new playing field and appears to be winning…wonder when more folks are going to join in the game.

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What video showed us about the candidates and your business (part 1)

January 2, 2009


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.

Set the Message and Let’em Run

(more…)

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