Obama for Social Media! err.. President!

During his campaign for Presidential Election, Barack Obama launched his very own facebook fan page (among other social media tools) with hopes of reaching out to a broader demographic. Not only was Obama on Facebook, however, but was everywhere else in social media, too! As one of the first Presidential hopefuls to fully embrace the internet and all it has to offer, Obama saw great benefits and success from doing so. Additionally, nearly 8 million facebook fans and three and a half million twitter followers, the Obama campaign was able to shed the costs that other hopefuls such as Hillary Clinton experienced¹.

But not everyone succeeds in their attempts to leverage social networking sites; John McCain has a facebook site, but has nowhere near the same following as Obama (only 500,000 fans).

So, how did Obama's campaign succeed? It was innovative, simple, and is constantly updated with valuable information. Further, social networks like his twitter account enables engaging and building relationships with the public. His postings are in first person, seeming sincere and personal. Not only that, but he listens to his fans and the public- a very important tool in social media. In fact, before he went and gave his victory speech, he sent a personalized note to his Facebook fans that read:

“I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign. We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next. But I want to be very clear about one thing... All of this happened because of you.”²

What's more is that he remains engaged and active even now after he won the Presidential Election. It takes time and effort to connect with your fans, but Obama has definitely pulled it off.


Sources:
¹http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article3997523.ece
²http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/view/how-social-media-won-obama-the-us-election-865

Because when we roll, we roll big...

Agency.com, who "specialize[s] in creating unforgettable, exceptionally effective interactive experiences"¹ , was bidding for created a pitch to nab Subway's interactive account in 2006. If you haven't ever seen it, feel free to watch below.



Instead of providing a five minute video on its executive team, Agency.com made a ten minute video of themselves learning about Subway's business and uploaded it to YouTube without Subway's consent. Strike one.

For a company who "specializes" in creating unforgettable experiences, they certainly achieved it with this video- Although, probably not in the way they wanted. I certainly did not buy into the video as being authentic, or even very clever for that matter and neither did most of the public. Shortly after the video was released, they received a significant amount of backlash for it from many critics and bloggers, such as adrants.com.

I'm not entirely sure what their vision was, but whatever it was... it just didn't work. The video reminded me of a bunch of grown adults trying too hard to make the video funny by trying to act young and cool. Too many "fist bumps" and too many uses of the word "dude". Strike two.

This post provides yet another prime example of how to succeed in making your video go viral. Yes, Agency.com did achieve "viral" status, but not in a positive manner. Further, they narrowly escaped three strikes in my book... just narrowly.

So, if you're taking anything from this post, be sure to use this campaign as a rule of what not to do.


Sources:

¹ www.agency.com/facts