Last night was the culmination of a political, social and media battle. Fought not just on the TV and papers, but on the social media frontline. This election, with the highest turnout in recent history, caught a world zeitgeist for another way.
The evidence is in the (well over) 2,000 facebook groups, millions of twitter posts, tens of thousands of diggs, and literally tens of millions of blog postings. YouTube has clocked up an impressive 662,000 Obama clips and 354,000 McCain clips. At the time of writing, Google had marked up 14,525,318 Obama blog entries and 8,892,290 McCain entries. We can only guess how many billion comments have been made. Just look at the search stats (above graph) - excellent marketing in motion - proof that word of mouth can snowball a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you talk about something, the more people will talk about it.
We were always going to "sit up and stand up" to this election, but perhaps the noise generated by so many collective voices - so many people amplifying a cause - spurred on an outcome the whole world clearly hopes will alter the political landscape as we know it. Perhaps apathy is dead, but all we can really say is... wassup? Change. Change.
5 comments:
Did you know, turnout was at levels not seen since women were first given the vote in 1920. Election officials predicted turnout would come close to 90% in Virginia and Colorado, and 80% in Ohio and Missouri. It is truly amazing.
Kenya has declared today an official holiday!
that was 22months, 22 whole months of an election.. amazing.
Goes without saying - most commentators are saying that Obama's innovative use of technology, particularly the internet and social media were crucial in securing his success.
The below link explains how Obama collaborated with the creators of Facebook to develop his unique fundraising platform, which incidentally is set to transform the way politicians attack fundraising in the future.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7704360.stm
Obama's campaign targeted the gaming community by advertising on the billboard of Burnout Paradise - a popular game on the X-Box platform. check out www.barak20.com which gives loads of insight on how social media was used to facilitate his campaign..
and talking of gaming - it's been in the news today. More popular than films and music. This is a brilliantly fertile ground for brands to get into, either in terms of in-game banners, or actually making the games. Something to think about.
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