Social Pulpit: Barack Obama's Social Media Toolkit

The Social Pulpit: Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit Monte Lutz

Election 2009: Snapshot
8.5 million more ballots cast; 200 more electoral votes than Senator McCain
Converted everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers
Social networks, e-mail advocacy, text messaging, online video
Obama loves technology. He is the first president to govern with BlackBerry in hand… and 13 million advocates at his fingertips

Obama’s Social Media Program – Wordle Version

Changing the Way Businesses Communicate
Revealed force multipliers
Already being adopted by advocacy groups
Ladder engagement among natural allies
Retool communication by leveraging social media
Social media lessons from the Obama campaign
Start early
Build the program to scale
Innovate when necessary
Enable content to be easy to find, forward and act
Pick where he wanted to play
Channel online enthusiasm into specific, targeted activities
Integrated online advocacy into every element of the campaign

Obama’s Social Media Success
Did everything incrementally better
Identified, prioritized and tracked voters all the way to the polls
Strategic decisions made at the granular level: every voter, e-mail, dollar and vote needed to win
Did the cool things well and the boring things really well

Formula for Electoral Victory Obama vs. McCain 2x 4x 5x 10x 365 electoral votes 66.8 million popular votes Web Traffic YouTube Viewers Facebook Friends Online Staff

By the Numbers Communication Strategy Result E-mail 13 million people on the e-mail list Received 7,000 variations of more than 1 billion e-mails Donors 3 million online donors Who contributed 6.5 million times Social networks 5 million "friends" on more than 15 social networking sites 3 million friends on Facebook alone Web site 3.5 million monthly visitors to MyBarackObama.com 2 million user profiles with 400,000 blog posts 35,000 volunteer groups that held 200,000 offline events 70,000 fundraising hubs that raised $30 million Video Nearly 2,000 official YouTube videos Watched more than 80 million times, with 135,000 subscribers 442,000 user-generated videos on YouTube Mobile 3 million people signed up for the text messaging program Received five to 20 messages per month Phone calls 3 million personal phone calls placed in the last 4 days of the campaign

Let’s Play Phone Tag Nokia 8860 BlackBerry 850 iPhone 3G Motorola Brick McCain Bush Dean Obama

Public Engagement Model: Spheres of Cross-Influence

Driving Media, Politics and Consumers 92% of journalists research online while writing a story (Vocus) 90% of Congressional offices use blogs to help determine constituent opinion (National Journal) 60% of consumers have changed their opinion of a brand based on what they read online (Pew)

The President’s Social Pulpit
Social media is an indicator of how the administration will operate
More than two million people visited Change.gov in the first month
5,000 people commented on a Change.gov video featuring Tom Daschle
Thousands of house parties
Exhibits how new administration can give people the opportunity to demonstrate their support for its policies

Organizing for America
Jan. 17 launch
“ Continue to fight for change in your communities”
Operated within the DNC
Led by David Plouffe
Economic debate
More house parties

Are You Ready to House Party?

Lessons from Obama’s Social Media Campaign
Laddering support through tiers of engagement
Empowering super users
Providing materials for user generated content
Going where the people are
Using tools people are familiar with
Ensuring people can find your content
Mobilizing supporters through text messaging
Harnessing analytics to improve engagement
Building the operation to scale
Choosing the right team

Lesson One: Laddering Support Through Tiers of Engagement Provide a way for people to get involved based on their level of engagement Advocate Social Personal Recruit others to donate Create a group Host an event Post pictures/videos Write a blog post Join a group Create a profile Post a comment Make a donation Sign up for e-mail/SMS Friend on social networks

Lesson Two: Empowering Super Users
Additional, personalized support to the most active MyBarackObama.com community members
Tracking and measurement to identify and understand their online activism; content developed to meet those needs
Super users were given something “more” than the average user
Identify the connectors early and give them the tools to activate others

You may not have a rock star at the top of the ticket, but you have an Army of Davids looking to you for leadership. What is your political footprint? Lesson Two Corollary: Know Your Political Footprint

Lesson Three: Providing Source Materials for User-generated Content
Supporters could discuss and advocate in the first-person
MyBarackObama.com: encouraged UGC with raw materials for speeches, videos, photos, how-to guides
More than 400,000 videos created and shared on YouTube and 400,000-plus blog posts on MyBarackObama.com
Edelman Trust Barometer 2008: people trust “a person like me” online

Edelman Trust Barometer: Who Do You Trust?

Lesson Four: Going Where People Are To reach an audience, know where they are and connect with them there

Lesson Five: Use Tools People Are Familiar With
Obama had more than 3 million Facebook friends in total; supporters used Facebook tools to spread the message
More than 900,000 people joined the One Million Strong for Obama Facebook group
Facebook groups for almost every college in America
Participation reinforces messages across platforms and creates as many touch points as possible

Lesson Five Corollary: Don’t Do It Yourself You Can’t Out-Google Google Sully Me

Lesson Six: Ensuring People Can Find Content
90% of people click on page one search results
Campaign created Web sites with the URLs of popular search terms to increase findabilty
IsBarackObamaAMuslim.com
Campaign understood “related videos” on YouTube and mimicked tags
One-third of people do not distinguish between organic and paid results
Be found on page one of any search – or not at all

Lesson Seven: Mobilizing Supporters Through Mobile
90% of Americans are within 3 feet of their cell phones 24 hours a day
5 to 20 targeted messages each month
SMS announcement of Biden as running mate was the largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date
More than 30,000 people signed-up while waiting to hear Obama’s nomination acceptance speech
iPhone application: up-to-date info and organized contacts for you
With text messaging and mobile web, reach supporters anywhere they are, any time at a lower cost

Lesson Eight: Harnessing Analytics to Improve Engagement
Tracked the success of every e-mail, text message and Web site visit
Multiple versions of every ad and e-mail were created to determine what worked
More than 7,000 customized e-mails tailored to individual prospects
Real-time improvements and daily adjustments
Test, measure and revise to improve conversion rates

Lesson Nine: Building the Online Operation to Scale Plan an online strategy before the intensity of a campaign kicks in

Lesson Ten: Choosing the Right Team
Core online team started with 11, grew to 30, more toward end of campaign
Dedicated Head of Social Media and Chief Technology Advisor roles; reported directly to the campaign manager
Facebook and Orbitz veterans
Advisors included Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Craig’s List founder Craig Newmark
Factor internet and mobile into every aspect of a campaign

What Does This Mean for Your Organization?
How will you adapt?
How are your competitors and your opposition already using this new public engagement model?
Do you have a social media strategy? How is it integrated with grassroots? Communications?
What can you do to optimize your existing grassroots program?

Details, Details, Details
White Paper: http://tinyurl.com/socialpulpit
Wordle: http://tinyurl.com/socialpulpitwordle
Op-ed: http://tinyurl.com/socialpulpitoped
@ montelutz
[email_address]
202.312.1086
www.edelman.com

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Social Pulpit: Barack Obama's Social Media Toolkit

by Monte Lutz on Feb 07, 2009

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Social Pulpit: Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit — Presentation Transcript