Assignment 3 Make-up: Obama Campaign

Barack Obama’s use of social media as a tool of his election campaign is well noted to date. But let’s recap. He used a combination of blogging, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and communal Wiki (a private website that all members of a group can edit). The team used Wiki’s to organize volunteers and update each other on new happenings. A combination of the rest were used to keep supporters actively updated and mobile. Though Obama has admitted post-election that he’s never personally Twittered, on the day of the election the Obama Twitter account had 118,107 followers compared to McCain’s paltry 4942 followers. And by election day, Obama had 844,927 MySpace friends compared to McCain's 219,404. And really, I think these numbers are indicative of youth. The demographics of social media users back then tended to fall in line more closely with those of the Democratic voters. His most active supporters were among the heaviest users of the medium. These users were also huge generators of branding for Obama. They created iconic images and held events and spread it all around.

This whole campaign also illustrates an important lesson brought to us by Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message. During the campaign, social media was still just starting to boom, and mostly it was used by younger people. Since Obama used social media almost exclusively, he became known as a more youthful and energetic candidate, one who was on the cutting edge. It also helped that he was a bit of a blank slate.

An Ottawa brand that’s been using social media really well is the Ottawa Fringe festival. They use a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, and YouTube. And it makes a lot of sense for a theatre festival. Facebook’s used by the festival and the artists to create groups and communicate show times. Twitter’s used by everyone to update when a show has sold out or a line up is getting long. Flikr is used to show pics of the people having fun at the Fringe tent. And YouTube is used as a publicity page where artists can upload promotional videos and create buzz.