Sunday, October 18, 2009

Facebook and the 2008 Election

The 2008 Presidential Election hit a bull's eye in the hearts of young America. It was an election showing the changes in our world and culture. Besides having two women and a Black man on the ballad, this election showed the latest technology techniques. Successfully it captured the attentions of the technologically savvy generation.

One of the most noticeable outreaches they used is with Facebook and some kindly dubbed the campaign the "Facebook election". Mitt Romney was actually the first potential Candidate to create a Facebook account, says CNN . On these accounts the candidates post speeches, personal information, and the newest things regarding their campaign trails. While all of them use Facebook now, Obama's campaign seemed to grasp the full concepts of the Facebook phenomenon. This can most evidently be seen in his statistics where according to US News , he received 70% of votes of the 25 years of age and under demographic. In fact, all of his statistics blow the other candidates out of the water. His biggest support group on Facebook was "One Millon Strong for Barack Obama", started by Farouk Olu Aregbe of University of Missouri. The Obama group outnumbered every other group with a final member count of 1,072, 071.

How did Obama come out on top of this "Facebook Election"? Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, actually helped the Obama campaign in his domination of the Internet. With Hughes on his side he virtually conquered every Internet outlet the public was popularly using.

Separate from the individual candidates, Facebook knew the power that it had in the election. They teamed up with ABC for debates and other public forums. This gave old and new media a bridge to each other. The deal entails using an application created by Facebook on the website, to show ABC campaign news, discussion forums, and ways to support the candidates.

Obviously, Facebook is a genius idea to launch campaign's on the public. Besides the aid they hire to set up and maintain the accounts, Facebook is a free social networking. The Facebook accounts must have taken little, if any money from the campaign funds. The Facebook concepts in general were widely accepted, as evidenced by the amount of members that joined each support group and "friended" the candidates. It allowed the modern generation to sign on and see a speech whenever they felt like it, posted by the candidate themselves. Their can be no perfect study to show the impact it had on the election, but with the turnout and voting statistics of the younger demographics, I think it can be inferred that the addition of Facebook on the campaigns was a huge success.












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4 comments:

  1. PaulJamesMahoneyOctober 19, 2009 at 6:39 PM

    Madison.. Definately I believe the Obama camp did take the social media market by storm. Obama when doing a "media blitz" with linkedin posed a question.. "how do i defeat HIllary?". Pretty powerful.. I have posted some information on my blog about that. Keep up the good work looks good!

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  2. Eric HarrisOctober 19, 2009 at 9:18 PM

    Madison, Obama and his camp were very smart by creating these media options for potential voters for a few reasons. First, it made the voters feel like he was in tune with what they were interested in. By creating blogs that were intended for feedback, it gave american voters the sense that he was asking for your opinion and that your thoughts on matters mattered (very smart). And thirdly, it gave his camp an idea of where his "numbers" were especially in the demographic of young America.

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  3. Regs0906October 20, 2009 at 9:14 AM

    What would the world be like without Facebook? With the increasing magnitude of its popularity, no wonder Obama and other candidates of the 2008 election decided to utilize this social platform. Like you said previously, Obama was able to reach potential voters of all ages especially those in their 20's. Times are changing and with the advance growth of technology, its imperative to create strategies that will enhance your popularity FAST and that is exactly what Obama did.

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  4. Madison EOctober 22, 2009 at 7:23 AM

    Thanks for all your comments! It is really helping me out.

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