Comments on: Obama’s Win a Victory for Social Media?

By: Cool Insider

Cool Insider — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:08:00 +0000

dorothy,

Hey thanks for the link. It would be cool if Lawrence Lessig makes the grade as Chief Technical Officer in Obama's administration!

By: Cool Insider

Cool Insider — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:04:00 +0000

weekee,

I think that the websites of CNN, NY Post, CNA, Asiaone and the rest can be considered social media if they exhibit elements of interactivity. If they are purely functioning as information sites, they are considered news portals or websites. I am not too familiar with the technical term for this though it is all just a question of semantics to me.

By: Cool Insider

Cool Insider — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:02:00 +0000

oldskoolmark,

Wow, that’s a cool statistic! What it shows is that even though McCain paid for all the right keywords for sponsored search, he still got roasted by Obama in free searches. I guess it shows that money isn’t the solution all of the time. Which makes me wonder where the bulk of Obama’s massive funds raised go to – certainly a lot of it in traditional media.

By: Cool Insider

Cool Insider — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Thanks David. I like your proposed term of vindication of social media. It is pretty accurate as a way of saying that social media isn’t everything but ignore it at your peril!

By: Cool Insider

Cool Insider — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:59:00 +0000

Thanks Charlie for the comments! Agree with you on this.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:27:00 +0000

Hi Walter,

I definitely agree that Obama used a lot of Social Media tools during his entire campaign process – thanks for summing it all up nicely. He’s not just a champion for social media, but I believe, technology in general. Would just like to share this article that you might find interesting. The article is touting him as first “Tech” president.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/technology/story.html?id=ef6494a5-7079-4c3b-99da-2b501b76a900

By: weekee

weekee — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:04:00 +0000

With a diversify mix of voters, I think it is the comprehensive communication strategy that helps. Social media is likely to be only one of the many tools employed and I personally don't think it is a significant contributor compared to the rest.

Online sites like CNN has great content and very fast update which i think helps for spectators like me.

Btw are such sites like CNN considered as social media? I think they are pretty cool to be considered as traditional media. :)

By: oldskoolmark

oldskoolmark — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:52:00 +0000

Hi Walter,

Really enjoyed your talk at Podcamp last Saturday.

I thought you might be interested in this digital marketing study done comparing McCain and Obama’s Internet marketing Ad spent and its results achieved.

http://www.subliminalpixels.com/2008/11/03/barack-obama-john-mccain-2008-presidential-election-search-social-marketing-analysis/

By: David

David — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:24:00 +0000

Nice article, Walter. My sense is that traditional media played a more major role. Some 28 million Americans watched his 30-min television ad spot alone. That’s something like seven Singapore, all watching at the same time. Social media has waves, traditional media can bring a tsunami. But social media I think did garner and sustain a lot of online buzz for Obama, and his efforts were helped by 3rd-party advocates who freely kept the needle moving for him online. Perhaps not a “win” (implying a war), but a “vindication” of the worth of social media?

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:52:00 +0000

Yes, exactly the point I made during the SMU podcamp v2.

That traditional and new media are symbiotic, feeding off one another, with trad media providing an additional layer of authority and credibility that the great majority of bloggers, twitterers etc simply do not have.

The king is dead, long live the king...