Visit any of Obama’s networking tools and you’ll find a donation widget. He’s engaging target audiences on their own turf and using these tools and platforms to motivate others to donate and help drive others back to his website. All these tools are serving as key extensions of interaction and user involvement but centered around a clear call to action. It really is brilliant. You see a great video on YouTube that inspires you to participate, whamo, the donate button is a simple click away.
One could definitely argue that Obama is just trying to see what sticks, but let’s remember, this is the presidential election. Technically, his audience is everyone. The Washington Post has even gone so far as to title Obama as the “King of Social Networking.”
Social Media 302: Barack Obama’s Social Media Strategy
In Social Media 301, we examined the McCain campaign’s use of the Web, and invited an associate professor to provide a similar analysis for the Obama campaign. Scott Meis, a SMUGgle from Chicago, has risen to the challenge with Analyzing Barack Obama’s Social Media Strategy. Here’s an excerpt:
Check out the rest of Scott’s analysis on his Social Media Snippets blog.