Social Networks and Political Campaigns: A Web 2.0 Manifesto
Posted 2/11/2007 01:12:00 PM |
By launching a private-label social network, Obama's campaign achieves two goals. First, it gets people talking, particularly the neterati who care about these things. It establishes Obama as a net-savvy candidate, in an election cycle that will increasingly play to the mores of the social web. Second, it sets a precedent. I believe that the other mainline candidates will follow Obama's lead, and there are likely a whole host of vendors salivating at the chance to represent a political candidate with their private-label SNS.
At the outset, Obama's site is inoffensive. There's not a whole lot you can do, interactivity is somewhat limited, and the site lacks the dynamic feel that I've come to expect from social networks. However, this isn't a terrible strategy. I believe that putting simple, core features in the hands of users and iterating on top of those features is a fair plan (if that is the plan). The fact Obama's site has a 4 second reload on everything you do is completely bizarre, however, and should be fixed quickly. It is a little too DIY-feeling for a presidential candidate.
With all social networks or communities, the ultimate question to be answered is "What goal is the technology helping achieve?" In the case of Obama's network, it really isn't clear what purpose the network serves. Sure, I can log in and find other people, or blog, look up an event, but isn't that much easier on a site like Facebook, where the Obama group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack) already has 250,000 members? Ironically, Obama himself doesn't even belong to this group (Note to the Obama web people, wake up and embrace the social media). By attempting to create a social network to solve a need that other social networks have solved, is Obama just reinventing the wheel?
In the 2008 election cycles, different networks will serve different purposes. Facebook, Myspace and the other premier social networks will undoubtedly serve as connection vectors for followers of political candidates. Why? Network effect. There are always going to be more people on Myspace or Facebook than on Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or Sam Brownback's social network. As such, it is absolutely important for campaigns to realize that they'll always be competing with (and losing to) these social networks. So what good does a private label network provide?
The answer lies in answering situationally relevant information needs of individuals in a simple, low-involvement fashion. The candidate's social network should serve as the nexus of information about the candidate. It should be the place that I can go to to find anything and everything about the candidate, information about events, snippets and facts I can blog about, heavy integration of social media such as Flickr or Youtube so I can experience everything about the candidate in a single place. It should not try to act as the sole vector between the candidate's supporters. In fact, doing so could be significantly harmful, as it might give supporters the impression that this private-label group is the only netgroup that supports the candidate, obviously leaving aside the millions that support the candidate in other groups.
My vision of the purpose these networks would serve is actually quite simple. The information need is clear: people need to know stuff about the candidate they support. The candidate they support is a lifestyle brand. The social network is the perfect place to embrace this lifestyle brand, in the sense that it connects information sharers. What if I logged into Obama's social network and what I saw where 15 great Flickr pictures, all creative-commons licensed, that I could easily upload to my blog. What if I logged in an I could find a set of widgets that I could post on Myspace, Bebo or that would update my network with information about Obama, or even things like his travel schedule ("See Obama Here!") or fundraising goals ("Help me raise the last 10% for Obama"). What if I logged into Obama's network and I saw a list of Obama groups in other networks ("Join the 250,000 supporters on Facebook!"). In the words of community marketer extraordinare Tara Hunt - what if Obama "embraced the chaos."
In reality, 2008 is going to be about the enmeshing of networks. Some of the action that goes on in the networks will be centrally maintained, but some (as in the example of the Facebook group) will be produced by people external to the campaign. Should candidates put their head in the sand and act like the external work doesn't exist? Absolutely not. The simple reality is that by embracing social media, communities are going to play a significant role in the creation of the candidate. Like it or not, some of Obama's online identity is going to be created by the Facebook group, over which he has no control. The millions of users who embrace Obama in one way or another will get their messages from a number of different sources, so central control is effectively impossible.
This is not to say that centrally-managed efforts like Obama's social network are useless. Indeed, they're anything but. I believe that, properly managed, such communities could play an absolutely integral part of the 2008 cycles. However, to understand how to use these tools, candidates must look at how community marketing has changed in the advent of Web 2.0. Companies like Youtube and Myspace succeeded because they embraced openness (Youtube was largely unknown until it let people embed their videos in Myspace, for example). The candidate who embraces this mentality will make the most sense to the netvoter, as our sensibilities have changed significantly over the past few years.
To boil this concept down to its essence, candidates must remember that while they play an important part in their strategy, they are not the sole drivers. In the coming cycle, external individuals who get social media will harness lots of eyeballs on behalf of the candidate. This is going to happen - it is already happening. Candidates must embrace this and ally with these efforts, and they truly represent the expanse of the support provided to the candidate.
Candidates must also realize the role their technology plays, and the disadvantage they have when competing in the marketplace. As hard as they may try, a private-label social network is never going to compete with a site like Facebook. So don't even try. However, the private-label social network can be the nexus for important, useful information. Instead of trying to own a significant amount of the voter's online time, try and own 5 very useful minutes in which you provide them with good links to external resources, rich media. Make it a hub. Make it a something of a placeful RSS aggregator that is edited by someone on the campaign that truly gets social media. Hire someone that truly gets social media.
Individuals are going to come to candidates with a significant information need. They are going to look for community, and connections, and answers. In 2008, the network that represents a candidate is going to be spread across many services, it will be controlled by many players, and the marketplace of ideas will lift some of the best efforts to the top. The Web 2.0 candidate will harness the community's work, and create a place that solves the information need of the people interested in the candidate. Make no mistake, the candidate of 2008 is competing in the marketplace, so he or she must figure out what they can do, and do well, and concentrate on that. Obama's site, and the others that will come, have a good bit of work to do before they're truly useful to their audience. Lets hope they get the message that the web has changed significantly since 2004, and they adjust their strategies accordingly.
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3 Comments: (Post a Comment)
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At February 11, 2007 9:05 PM,
Resilient Hawk said...
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That Obama's site is, on the face of it all, inoffensive, must be expected. When you consider the heat John Edwards took in when two of his staff's personal blogs showed to be exceeedingly offensive to one faith-group, Obama is taking the the right path.
In many ways, he is the antiHillary, despite an essentially similar platform. No one sees him as particularly offensive, while Hillary has a few detractors.
"The candidate they support is a lifestyle brand."
Well-put. It is image... not just Obama, but any party, any candidate. The look, the feel, all of that is there. The suit and tie Democrats will feel kinship to the very sophisticated-appearing Harvard Law School grad. George Bush appealed to a different flavor, Hillary to another, and Rudy, Newt and John Kerry to others.
While Kerry and Howard Dean did well with capturing the blogger democraphic initially, they could not maintain their interest long enough to get them to actually vote - at least, not enough so.
Barack Obama has had the advantage of looking at how Hillary drew in supporters, and how Dean and Kerry lost them. From blogs to YouTube to Facebook, his online presence becomes 'cool' beyond a boring, innocuous website without a terrible lot of effort or funding on his part.
Hillary Clinton for President: A Free Speech Blog -
At February 17, 2007 2:46 AM,
annie said...
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Some of the external social network connecting you're hoping to see on Obama's site may be something along the lines of what John Edwards is doing...
http://www.johnedwards.com/action/networking/
Personally, I think listing every social network known to man is spreading yourself a little thin, but at least he is trying to make those connections. Hell, he's even in Second Life.
I just stumbled on techPresident.com earlier today and then saw that you joined their Facebook group :) It should be an interesting site to follow. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks this whole technology thing may be an important part of the campaign in 2008... -
At March 27, 2007 4:49 PM,
Dave said...
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The rise of social-networking sites is making the controlled, broadcast-style way of doling out political information totally obsolete. A wise man once said - “Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.” It looks like social networks are redefining the dexterity needed to use those objects.
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