I am really into Obama´s social media strategy lately. I have just read one book about it, and I am now busy with the second. So far it has been the best case study on the use and effectiveness of social media. Obama´s campaign was energizing, innovative and highly engaging, mainly thanks to the new technologies. Brands have a lot to learn from it.
The first book I read, “Barack,-Inc.: Winning Business Lessons Of The Obama Campaign“, by Barry Libert and Rick Fault gives a general introduction of how Obama´s election team used social media like blogs, Facebook, Youtube and of course their own site my.barackobama.com to build community and raise funds.
This book doesn´t go so far as to give detailed best practices of how they actually did it. It stays a bit on the surface, but as an introduction it does a nice job on outlining the role of new technologies in the US election and in describing the social and political context in which that took place.
A couple of days a go I got started with “Yes We Did”, by Rahaf Harfoush, who worked closely with Obama´s social media campaign team for three months in Chicago. This book goes much further than the first one and explains in detail how and which instruments where used by Obama´s team to mobilize thousands of agents of change throughout America.
Rahaf writes with energy and enthusiasm about how the Obama Team organized and applied Social Media tools to engage millions to participate in the democratic process.
She gives first hand testimonials about how the team engaged in a conversation with the public and persuaded them to join forces by donating cash, recruiting volunteers, persuading other people to vote or just spreading the word.
The book also describes how this campaign challenged the status quo of established politics and old ways to run a campaign like this, which is very similar to the old interruption marketing model.
The campaign that elected the first digital president is an exciting and inspiring case on the use of social media that could help brands better understand and define their social media strategies.
0 Responses to “Obama´s Social Media Lessons”