IDEA No 94
THE INTERNET ELECTION
On 20 January 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. It was one of the biggest days in internet history, but not quite the biggest. That honour goes to the previous November’s election night, the climax of Obama’s brilliantly executed digital campaign.
Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama speaking at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on 29 October 2008.
The Democratic Party declared Barack Obama its nominee on 27 August 2008. His campaign raised over $650 million, totally transforming expectations for future presidential elections. Whilst that enormous pot of money played a significant role, it was Obama’s mobilization of young people via the social web that ultimately made him President of the United States.
Spearheaded by 24-year-old Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook, Obama’s election campaign centred on my.barackobama.com, a social network for Democrat supporters. The campaign engaged young people by tackling the issues that were important to them, harnessing their mastery of the social web. The site provided a forum to discuss policy, but it also encouraged its 2 million members to become active campaigners. As a result, millions of calls were made on behalf of the Obama campaign via the Neighbor-to-Neighbor online phone tool, and more than 200,000 events were organized. Game mechanics encouraged greater participation, recording people’s activity level on their profile. Supporters who did not want to post pamphlets or make calls were gently nudged to share content, download apps and forward text messages.
In an age when we are bombarded with messages from every direction, Obama’s upfront, personable style broke through. Obama built relationships with his supporters through forums and social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Digg. Facebook accounts were created for specific groups, such as Veterans for Obama, Women for Obama and African Americans for Obama. The Obama profile on BlackPlanet generated more than 450,000 friends, and Obama also engaged Asian, Hispanic, Jewish and LGBT sites. By reaching out to people in the channels they already inhabited in a way that encouraged conversation, he created a community of supporters rallying to a cause they felt part of.
An incredible 14.5 million hours of official footage was viewed on the Barack Obama YouTube channel, but it was the unofficial content that really took off. Will.i.am’s ‘Yes We Can’ video and Obama Girl’s ‘I Got a Crush on Obama’ were both viral sensations. Social media means a loss of control, but Obama understood that the resulting authenticity was worth the risk.
In the same way that John F. Kennedy instinctively understood and mastered television, Barack Obama is perfectly at home on the Web. His campaign did not invent anything new, but by creating a joined-up digital campaign, he demonstrated the astonishing power of the Web to organize, motivate, raise money, fight smear campaigns, get out the vote and ultimately win an election. Politics will never be the same again.■
‘As Kennedy instinctively understood television, so Obama is perfectly at home on the Web. ’
Barack Obama’s tweet after his re-election as US president on 7 November 2012. With 788,668 shares, at the time it was the most popular Tweet ever.