Role of Social Media in Obama's Election : CHANGE HAS COME

"...If there's anybody out there who still questions ... the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer" : for sure, with this so exciting 2008 presidential campaign, Social Media have proved to be so powerful and I think, will shape the future of major campaigns forever.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace, YouTube, community blogs, Flickr, FriendFeed, etc. have been largely used in this 2008 election especially by Obama's team who hired the co-founder of Facebook.

I was so impressed when I discovered the voteforchange site : videos, widgets, events, planning, merchandising products, fundraising tools, volunteering,...It was an "OBAMA EVERYWHERE" social media campaign.

Good strategy if we see the record number of voters especially within young and first time voters- 2.2 million more young people voted on Tuesday than did in 2004, accounting for 18 percent of the electorate according to the Huffington Post-, who are big users of web 2.0 technology and social media. So the issue is: Did these voters been more involved in this election because of social media and the candidates use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube?

Well, the rally seem to have reached almost every corner of the world if we see the Obamania and surge of hysteria sweeping the 2008 presidential nomination.

How about the Numbers? The social media stats speak by themselves:

YouTube registered 19,369,254 viewers for the OBAMA's official site; 13,076,047 viewers for the Yes we Can music video by Will I Am.

In the YouChoose channel of You Tube reserved for presidential campaigning launched a while ago, Obama largely outpaced the other channels with 106,451,689 views on the Obama channel compared to 25,470,489 for John McCain.

On Facebook, Obama has 2,864,921 supporters not including all the specific groups like NY for Obama or Wall Street for Obama groups and all the other independent contents. About 5 million Facebook users have voted. Five days before the election all people who added the Donate their status to remind everyone to vote application, where asked to invite their network of friends; and a voters countdown was added to their profile to keep them updated. It was the largest online rally ever : In just under 5 days, 1,745,754 people sent out 4,919,071 status messages. the Vote for Barack Obama rally registered 1,190,903 participants and 70% of total users, John McCain rallied 370,802 participants with 21% of users.

On Twitter: Obama has 127,370 following and 123,439 followers, McCain only 4,956.

These numbers are simply staggering. So, Social medias and the web 2.0 are also the big winners of this campaign and even the other media like CNN with the iReport, a user-generated site; the Huffington Post, or BBC World News followed the trend using all kind of social media tools to connect voters and rally them to vote.

2.0 WORDS were also invented for this occasion like PEWS -for Post Election withdrawal Syndrom-; PEST -for Post Election Selection Trauma; Election Erection; or the Barack Obama urban dictionary definition as a "rising star" or "a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy fused into a single body"; etc.

You can also watch the Reuters Video : Social Media's big win on Reuters on the subject.

Flickr Election Night 11-04-08.

Tuesday's Second Biggest Winner: Democracy : Over 133 million people turned out to vote on Tuesday -- 11 million more than voted in 2004 - producing the highest turnout rate in 44 years with 62.5 percent.

Excellent post from the Harvard Business Review excellent post : Barack Obama's Edge-Based Organization posted by John Sviokla on November 11, 2008.

Under Obama, Web Would Be the Way, Washington Post

The White House Goes Web, IT World

The Tribalization of Business

A new survey sponsored by Deloitte examines how companies are sponsoring and interacting with on-line communities. The 2008 “Tribalization of Business” survey finds that corporations are now regularly sponsoring on-line communities, but that these on-line networks remain quite small. A majority of sponsored on-line communities have fewer than 500 active members. In keeping with the current focus on open or user-led innovation, companies cite “idea generation” and “product development” as the primary intended benefits of on-line communities. In practice, few on-line communities are achieving these goals. This poor performance results from the limited size of the average on-line networks and poor management of on-line community interactions.

Is it already too late for France to catch up?

Few words about how amazing some people behave when they have to deal in society.

I liked so much the Kafkaesque (ian) movie "The CUBE" by Vincenzo Natali and I was thinking that in this new 3.0 world, we have to find the right keys like the trapped rooms in the movie prime numbers to unlock what seem to be invisible.

Some are taking part of it, finding their way with Cartesian, pragmatic methods; others still rely on old conservative beliefs, where semantic (turpitude) is more important than ideas. A two speed world where people got a deal immediately, when others spend months trying to figure out how risky it could be for them to make a choice. The What's In It For Me (WIIFM) attitude is really killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

I am hearing so many people saying "I'll do only what I’ll be asked to!". Results are not important and people don’t realize there I a difference between "obligation de moyens et obligation de résultats".

Basically, goal oriented people appreciate challenges and they quickly reach a decision. Mean oriented people like non-threatening issues and are usually slow to reach a decision, if any.

So the real issue is: is it already too late to catch up?

May me I should review the Weber Thesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film)