The presidential election was a tour de force of the power of social media applied in promotion and marketing. The following is an excerpt from the Newsweek articles on the behind-the-scenes story of the presidential campaign:

 

To the casual visitor, the New Media department at Obama headquarters seemed at once ultrahip and painfully earnest, a touchy-feely, emo sort of place where people talk about saving their souls and use lefty academic jargon like “agency.” One reporter described the sentiment toward the candidate as a sort of “Lincoln 2.0.” The frat brothers over in Communications liked to joke about whether the geeks in New Media were still virgins.

When it came to what they actually did, however, the nerds of New Media were cold realists. “We never do something just because it’s cool,” the campaign’s official blogger, Sam Graham-Felsen, told a NEWSWEEK reporter. “We’re always nerdily getting something out of it.” He showed off the Obama ‘08 iPhone application. With its deep Obama blues, correct fonts and glassy graphics, it looked like an electronic bauble for the well-heeled voter. Closer inspection revealed a sophisticated data-mining operation. Tap the top button, “call friends,” and the software would take a peek at your phonebook and rearrange it in the order that the campaign was targeting states, so that friends who had, say, Colorado or Virginia area codes would appear at the top. With another tap, the Obama supporter could report back essential data for a voter canvass (”left message,” “not interested,” “already voted,” etc.). It all went into a giant database for Election Day.

Early that summer, the campaign made the unorthodox decision to announce its vice presidential pick via text messages sent directly to supporters. It wasn’t just a trick to do something flashy with technology and attract media attention. The point was to collect voters’ cell-phone numbers for later contact during voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts. Thanks to the promotion, the campaign’s list of cell-phone numbers increased several-fold to more than 1 million. (Among the registrees: one Beau Biden, son of Joe.)

“I don’t care about online energy and enthusiasm just for the sake of online energy and enthusiasm,” said Chris Hughes, head of New Media’s social networking. “It’s about making money, making phone calls, embedding video or having video forwarded to friends.” There was nothing starry-eyed about Hughes, who had been the Harvard roommate and later partner of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and made his first millions before he was 24. His goal was to make old techniques—like call centers and getting polling information to voters—more efficient. “When computer applications really take off, they take something people have always done and just make it easier for them to do it,” he said. “And maybe bigger.”

For taking a brand and message to a broad audience, the advertising sector has been using the traffic+interruption model. With social media, that is changing to the network+engagement model. Digital interactive strategy has been working towards this, but still relies on a primary piece of content to generate interest rather than directly embedding into a community or building a following.

The next combination to spark marketing revolution is traditional network marketing meeting social media tools. Brand evangelists, conversation hubs, niche thought leaders, and community building (not “management”) will be the keywords of Web 2.0 (or 3.0?) marketing campaigns.

The best way to illustrate this is grassroots campaigning versus media messaging. Grassroots campaigns for fundraising can be incredibly profitable. Because they’re resourceful. Incentive management similar to affiliate marketing, evangelists who care about what they’re selling - be it a cause, candidate, or complaint - and a web of hubs that direct action. This is the model that social media emulates. In the blink of an eye.

Social Marketing Direct is a brave new frontier in social media, network marketing, advertising, branding, and results-driven community engagement. The web is a big place only if you don’t know where to look.

There have been some amazing studies published this year about the explosion of social media. There are deep implications for the way businesses adapt to technology and sink or swim based on their ability to keep up. Here are some highlights, comments from the blogs, and links to learn more.

Before you hire those Social Media Services…

Make sure the vendor walks the talk:

1) Check online to see how they are using social media. Is it authentic, are they part of the conversation? are there trackbacks indicating they are conversing with others?
2) Get referenced from their clients, since many of these programs are public, you can easily find out who’s involved, either with or without the vendor.
3) Ask the social media vendor to clearly state their expertise, and demonstrate a strategy plan, ask for examples and details.
4) Ask them to answer the tough questions, the ones you’ll have to answer to your COO and CFO.
5) Get more than one proposal for work, aside from traditional marketing services, also get a proposal from specific social media agencies.
6) Get recommendations for vendors from social media platform vendors, find third party reports, and join user groups with your peers to get objective opinions.

By Jeremiah Owyang

Social Media and Business Familiarity (US)

For the first time, growth in familiarity, adoption and importance to mission has been documented in a statistically significant, longitudinal study. If the Inc. 500 is embracing social media at this record pace, can the rest of corporate America be far behind?

From familiarity to usage to importance, social media is expanding rapidly within the Inc. 500.

The bottom line is that the Inc. 500 continues to learn about social media at a very quick pace.

Search is Changing. Are you?

“The biggest boom on the Internet is still going on as the other 70%- 80% of businesses (mostly local gigs) begin to create their first websites. It’s simply too important to ignore anymore.  Any serious SEO firm would do well to keep up with Local if they service any Small/Medium sized businesses.

~Adam”

http://mashable.com/author/aaron-uhrmacher/

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Placing ads on craiglist for Social Media Marketing connections has gotten us a great response so far. We are currently working on creating documents for marketing packages as well as strategy plans, and soon the list of products and prices. If you are interested in helping to develop a consultation package or a short e-book based on your specialty or niche community, contact us!

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