barack obama + social media
learnings for volunteering organisations
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

an unlikely story
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he was a political unknown until 2004
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he’d only been in the
Senate for 4 years
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he was
46
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

nobody was looking for obama
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he’s black in a country which
until recently practiced apartheid
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

his
middle name
is Hussein
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

and his
surname rhymes
with
Osama
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

young people don’t care and
don’t win elections, right?
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

13 million email subscribers
3 million profiles created
3.9 million donations
93% less than $100
200,000 offline events planned
35,000 groups created
3.2 million Facebook friends
$640million raised
5 million volunteers
3,600 volunteers in 1 State
gave 6 weeks of unpaid work
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK7pWOgRqYM
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

so how did
Obama use social
media to mobilise
volunteers?
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he spent time where the
young people are
16
Official Social Spaces
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

75% of
the
Facebook community
(official)
1,110 exists
Facebook
“out there”
Glee (“1M Strong”)
2 587 he was
Twitter
46
MyBarackObama
930 part of their
Mi
Gente Black Planet
communities
54 490
You
Tube
62 MySpace
415
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he used their media and
their language
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he made
it about ‘you’
your
choices
your
responsibility
your
benefits
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he gave volunteers their own identity
volunteers have personalised profiles
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

everything they
do is recorded
and displayed on
a public
dashboard
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteers set their own targets
a thermometer shows their progress
the difference they made is plain to see
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteers motivated by competition
they get points for achievements
their ranking increases as they do more
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteering is on their doorstep
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteers recruit their own friends
peers recruit peers
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteers are given a
voice via the blogging
platform
they talk
about what
they have
done
it gets published on the
main site
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

“...In our own campaign, polling was just one way we
viewed how we were doing in a state in the general
election. We had a lot of voter identification work. We
had a lot of field data. We don't have to wait for a state to
report in how they did that night; we can look at it, down
to the volunteer level, because we trusted our
volunteers. We gave them the voter file, we said here are
the people on your block, you go talk to 'em, you record
the result of the conversation. And we in Chicago could
look at that in real-time and help us plan our resource”
David Plouffe, Obama Campaign Director
volunteers were given responsibility.
they became a trusted data source.
they were part of the infrastructure.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

they give songs, he
their time in photos, harnessed
fun, creative diaries, their urge
ways designs, for creativity
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he gave them the tools to take action
in their own time in easy ways
in innovative ways
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he made volunteers
feel part of something
bigger
“At least 60,000 people have applied to be
volunteers during the days of activities
surrounding the inauguration of
U.S...People want to get involved. People
want to be a part of this thing ... a part of
history.“ Transition committee spokesman Kevin Griffis
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

thanked.
in real time.
directly.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

new methods
enhanced the
campaign but did not
replace traditional
methods
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

nice rewards
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

tailored tasks
"Volunteer citizens were involved at every
level and no one was rejected. Everyone
had a role: harnessing the power of the
web, making phone calls, transporting
electors, reaching the uninvolved” Hans
Riemer, national youth vote director for the Obama campaign
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

bite-size tasks
"It's not rocket science," he says. "What we have
to do is give them the tools to create a plan and
just keep in touch with them as they create their
plan and execute it. Winning an election is just a
matter of breaking it down into manageable
pieces, so we show them what those pieces are,
and then turn them loose. As long as we can do
that, there's no problem. They can make it
happen." Hans Riemer, national youth vote director for the
Obama campaign
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

focused on the human
"We had a volunteer headquarters that we
all pretty much lived in," says Liz Lempert,
who co-chaired an Obama group in
Princeton, N.J., that will meet next week.
"Moving out of that office is really hard.
People just want to keep those ties
together."
focused on the emotional
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

key learnings
go to where young people are, instead of expecting them to come to us
give young people the tools and the responsibility to use them
make young people feel part of something bigger
leverage young people’s urge for competition and sociability
use digital to communicate, to feedback, to thank, in real time
use social media to enhance but not replace traditional methods
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

3 things you can do tomorrow
create a twitter feed
as a record of activity
record and display
everything they do
create a youtube
channel for video
volunteer diaries
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

thank you*
sidekickstudios.net
*especially to all those people I got images and charts from but haven’t credited
Tuesday, 16 June 2009