For any frequent user of the Internet it was clear enough that Senator’s Obama online campaing has been by far more succussful in reaching end users than his opponent’s, Senator McCain. There are numerous reports availbale on the outstanding internet performance of Barack Obama, the winner of the elections compared to the second runner-up.
However, here’s some indications on the candidates’s performance in online life:
- Google Search – Obama: 206M references, McCain: 145M references
- Facebook – Obama: 2,498,415 supporters, McCain: 625,711 supporters
- Youtube – Obama: 121,186 subscribers, McCain: 29,308 subscribers
- Twitter – Obama: 117,496 Followers, McCain: 4,961 followers
According to Business Week’s “It takes tech to elect a president” Obama used social networks to ask his supporters to spread his word i.e. to digg an article favouring him or critiscising his opponent, prepare a local event etc. Obama’s own social network enabled him to further mobilize local communities and get the most out of his supporters’ participation.
By many mobile operators, SMS also gave an edge to the winner. Mobile campaigning is credited with being a more cost-effective alternative to traditional campaigning methods, such as door-to-door canvassing which costs around US$20-$30 per voter, compared to $1.26 per SMS. Additionally Barack Obama’s Twitter page enabled him to get his message out to almost 121,000 followers. The night of the Elections, Twitter was used to get timely access to the election results, often moments before traditional news outlets.
Judging from the results, it seems that obama’s online strategy succeeded and the creatively destructive nature of technology has been proved once more. In any case, I will look forward to an analysis that pinpoints the impact of online activities to each candidate’s campaign.
“Tech-Savvy Presidential Candidates” is a presentation in Business Week that refers to previous electorate campaings that technology also made a big difference.
And speaking of technology, look what CNN came up with for the elections night:
A techie friend told me that this wasn’t actually real in the studio, it was rather synthesized for the broadcast feed. Nevertheless, it was really cool!
UPDATE: Business Week’s “The Vote: A Victory for Social Media, Too” just came in my feed reader.
