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Social Networking
Strategies and Protection
The way that Barack Obama used the Internet and Web 2.0
will forever change politics. It echoed in how John F.
Kennedy used the power of television during his
presidential run.
Between 2004 and 2008 the internet experience changed
drastically with the addition of Web 2.0 tools. So what
exactly did these tools do for the Obama campaign? It allowed
him to use the Internet to organize thousands of
supporters. In the past, the same effort, would have
required an expensive army of volunteers and paid
organizers on the ground.
If you go to the presidents main page you'll notice a
satellite site MyBarackObama.com is advertised. This
site links users to an internal social networking tool
allowing people to:
- Access tools to
fundraise for Obama.
- Interact with each
other.
- Join local Obama
groups.
- Find an Obama event.
- Set up their own
community Blog for Obama.
- Join Obama friendly
external social networking groups.
During the campaign
MyBarackObama.com hosted the following:
- More then 9,500
local groups.
- More than 4,000
special interest groups, many with over ten thousand
members.
- Over 20,000
volunteering blog web pages.
For anyone that wanted to
use MyBarackObama.com they must first give their
personal contact information which is stored in a
database. This data can be used by the Obama team to
make wise decisions on where they have the most support
and who they must target for more support.
In addition to this the
Obama team can, at any time, call upon this list for
future action. It is widely suspected that his
supporting army of signups will receive regular emails
assisting his future directives.
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“Websites are important
vehicles to provide information to constituents and to boost
participation in the political process, In the wrong hands, a
web address can be used to mislead and misrepresent a public
official’s record. That is why I am extremely grateful that
Pool.com allowed me the opportunity to renew my domain and
ensure that the information on the page reflects my values and
beliefs.”
Barack Obama |
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Domain Management and Protection
In March 2005, at the beginning of Barack Obamas presidential
campaign, Obama made a fatal mistake that many companies fall
into. Obama failed to reregister the domain name BarackObama.com
which he used in his online political bid for senator.
Unfortunately staffers for freshman
Sen. Barack Obama inadvertently let the Illinois Democrat's
domain name expire. The campaign was lucky to recover the domain
name after a registrar known for snapping expired domain names
was nice enough to give it back to him. Had it fallen into the
wrong hands it could have destroyed his future political
endeavors and we would not be talking about him right now.
In an article in the Canadian
Corporate News Obama was quoted as saying the following.
“Websites are important vehicles to provide information to
constituents and to boost participation in the political
process, In the wrong hands, a web address can be used to
mislead and misrepresent a public official’s record. That is why
I am extremely grateful that Pool.com allowed me the opportunity
to renew my domain and ensure that the information on the page
reflects my values and beliefs.”
With these statements, it is
clear that Obama recognizes the importance of domain protection.
However after naming Joe Biden as his running mate the Obama
team once again fell into the same trap when the domain name
ObamaBiden.com and ObamaBiden.org being owned outside of the
team. It was
even reported that the ObamaBiden.org domain name was posted on
an auction for $100,000.00. The ObamaBiden.com domain
name was recovered and now points to the main BarackObama.com
website indicating that it was recovered by the Obama team.
Moving to another domain name, many people today visit the
website Obama.com, but very few realize that the the original
owner of the domain name wasn't the Obama team.
During his campaign the social
media tools created for the campaign had people recommending
others to mistakenly go to Obama.com instead of the real site
BarackObama.com. The real owner of Obama.com domain pointed it
to a Japanese landing page.
Statistics from sites that record
traffic levels of other sites have registered the
misguided traffic as high as 150,000 unique hits a month. This is
what is known in the SEM industry as a serious traffic leakage problem.
Today however, like ObamaBiden.com, it
points to the main website.
At the end of 2009 the Obama
staff changed to a more aggressive approach in an effort to expand domain coverage. In December 23, 2008 government watchdog JudicialWatch.org
claimed that the Obama team had been illegally granted use
of the domain name Change.gov.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2008/dec/obama-gov-website-illegally-approved
According to the site, Obamas team initially requested and was
not given use of the
domain name Change.gov, but the domain was later granted after
pressure from his staff.
Although the average person does not recognize the importance of having control
of a .gov domain name, most companies in the search engine
marking field know exactly why the Obama team would go out of
its way to get such a domain name. Domain names that end in .EDU
or .GOV are given automatic 'authority' status labels by many
search engines such as Google. Such a status gives a website an
advantage over other websites when it comes to where it ranks on
search engines.
In addition to this such a
website will also have the power to push the sites it links to,
to
higher levels on search engines since it has an incoming link
from an 'authority site'.
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Increase Visitor Conversion
Rate
WebTrafficConsultants.com has several tools it uses to
observe website visitor reactions in order to help our
clients web projects reach higher results. During the
election, over repeated
visits to Obamas main website you could see changes to
the site that suggested the same optimization tools were
being used to fine tune a higher donation conversion
rate.
Images were changed in sequence to see which picture
would engage users driving the highest results. Some
pictures tested were in black and white while others
were in colour. Observed changes included changing
photos between many Obama family pictures to testing
another with Obama grouped with Joe Biden.
Similarly, the donations
page was testing in the same manner. There were several
limited edition t-shirts designs offered as an incentive
to make a donation. Different coloured t-shirt with
minimum donation levels were tested to see the best
results to maximize donations.
With so much traffic coming to the site, testing
different variations would have shown dramatic
differences in end results. Eventually they settled with
a photo showing just Obama and Biden and to keep the blue
limited edition t-shirt, for a minimum thirty dollar
donation, to entice donations.
This resulted in over
$500,000 million from online donations which averaged
$80.00/person.
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Retain Visitor Loyalty
During Barack Obamas presidential campaign Obama made
the quote "This isn’t about me. This is about you."
Is not the internet all about us and the interaction we
send through forums and blogs. Looking at the BarackObama.com
web project, the same could be said about the careful way it
allows a user to interact and feel like they have control in
the direction of the campaign. This all leads to higher
visitor loyalty and retaining visitors interest.Even Obama himself actively
engages in social networking when he recently solicited opinions
on business social network LinkIn.com asking how the president
could help small businesses and entrepreneurs thrive. Kay Luo,
LinkedIn's director of corporate communications reported that
there were 1,500 responses in a week. More importantly there was
a sense, by people, that they were involved in two way
communication directly with the president.
In some of the mass emails sent
out by the Obama team there was direct messages to the recipient
to take specific actions. Many of these emails where simply
signed by "Barack," implying intimacy and allowing a greater
connection between the user and the president.
The Web 2.0 social networking tools,
as discussed above, allows individuals to spread their view on
different events. One person will leave a comment on a forum
triggering an email to the rest of the group which will draw
them back into the site and conversation. Website features, user
control and human curiosity keeps people engaged on the site.
This direction taken by the Obama
team is much different than tradition political websites.
Traditional political websites used the notion to have
information sent one way, from the political team to the users.
Rarely do they invite interaction within the site. Part of the
reason for this may be due to the fact that the
power given by these tools were not discovered until
the explosion of MySpace and Facebook.
This contrasts drastically with
the approach search engine marking analysts, on the Obama team,
took. It was seen as an opportunity to jump on a Facebook like
technology allowing a user rich experience revolutionized the
online political landscape.
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Link Management
If you clicked on the graphic to the right, before
reading this section, it shows you the power that
YouTube.com now has over people and how people often
prefer to receive their message.
Created in February 2005,
YouTube.com was bought up by Google in 2003 when it
became apparent that it was going to be the predominant
way people shared uploaded videos. As a new medium to
advertise to the masses, the Obama team took full
advantage of this tool promoting the parties
message.
The viral way in which
the videos, on YouTube.com, can be shared is what makes
this unique from conventional media. Obama videos were viewed
for over 15 million hours which would have had an
equivalent dollar
figure of over 40 million dollars, if advertised on regular
broadcast TV.
In addition to this the
Obama campaign also used this new tool to counter
negative feedback from distractions. An example is the
negative feedback from Obamas former relationship with
Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s. During this period the
memorable
speech on race in America, posted on YouTube.com,
received close to 6 million views. With media being such
a powerful force, this video evened the the playing
field for the Obama group countering false perceived
information.
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Mail List Management
Web content on the main party websites, social networks and You
Tube attracted large crowds and promoted positive information in
regards to Obamas campaign message. The Obama team recognized
these areas as important battle grounds in which they could
collect user data. This was done by strategically enticing users
to submit their contact information rewarding them with regular
Obama news updates otherwise known as creating a mail list.
In the early part of the campaign
they used the email and text list sparingly sending out, at
most, a few emails a week. This is often done to keep interest
in the mailings and to prevent unsubscribers. Near the end of
the campaign it was noticed that there were emails and text
messages sent daily in an effort to constantly remind voters to
vote with a friend, participate in phone drives, and volunteer
at campaign events near their homes.
The Obama campaign were smart in the way they divided the method
of communication. Younger voters got text messages while older
voters got short concise email messages.
By election time the Obama team had
grown this subscriber list to enormous proportions. Figures had shown that the mail list had grown to an amazing 11
percent of the 64 million votes Obama ended up receiving.
During post
election, this mail list continues its rapid growth, multiplying
the pool of people the Obama team can have direct communication
with. The beauty of this accomplishment is that the team have a
direct way to contact subscribers. With this they can
responsibly drive traffic back and forth to the sites mentioned,
using timely mail blasts.
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| Web Analytics Analysis and
Reporting Web analytics and
data collected from the Obama websites can provide a
clear picture comparing the results of campaigning
efforts. With this data the Obama team was able to make
accurate reinvests into campaigning efforts that
produced the same successful results.
The strategic way in
which the Obama team collect email addresses, telephone
numbers, MyBarackObama.com profile information and blog
comments gave the Obama team a database full of voter
profiles. These profiles where used strategically to
target segmented voters using customized emails that
would drive the best results.
For example if the team
knew that there was a campaign going on in a specific
area, they could use the database to provide a list of
people that would best suite the specific tasks required
to make the movement a success.
By simply using the
postal code of where the event was taking place, the
team could search the database for voters that have a
postal code in the same area. A further search break
down could include only the voters that are of a
particular age and donated money to the campaign.
With this segment of
dedicated supporters the Obama team could then craft
customized emails designed to target this particular
group, asking them at the right time, to participate in
these local events.
It is clear that the
Obama team used web analytics to make decisive decisions
to steer the right people in the right direction,
further assisting in all campaigning efforts.
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Increase Visitor Conversion Rate
A conversion on a site can be defined as when a visitor
takes an action on a website. Examples could include signing up
for a mail list or purchasing a product.
The Obama web projects where created with many conversion goals in mind.
One of the main goals was to create
a mailing list by having visitors to the site volunteer their
personal information in a sign up process. This information
included their name, address, email address and sometimes
telephone number.
As a reward, people who signed up
where given access to the social networking tools offered by the
Obama websites which included regular email and text messages
associated to the campaign.
Another goal of the Obama
websites was to generate donations. There were several
strategies that were used to increase user conversion. The main
one was to offer limited edition t-shirts for specified donation
amounts. Near the end of the campaign there was a contest in
which last minute donors could be selected to attend Obama's
election-night party.
All of these strategist where
fine tuned over time to drive the highest conversion rate
leading to a much more successful search engine marketing
campaign.
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