Back in August 2008 I wrote a post about Obama vs. McCain and the war to win your vote online on my former employers' site The SEM Blog*. In that post I broke down, in a totally non-partisan way, what each campaign was doing and who was doing it better. Later that November Obama was elected due in part to a record number of younger voters and they have their content marketing team to thank for that, particularly Joe Rospars. Obama's team of experienced marketers were able to harness technology and a young voter base to launch him into the Oval office like no president before him. In short, he won the content marketing and strategy war. http://www.ymkmagency.com/blog/

1. Who Is Winning The Content
Marketing & Strategy War
This Election?
Over the next little while I'm going to discuss the current presidential
election and who is winning the content war.
Back in August 2008 I wrote a post about Obama vs. McCain and the
war to win your vote online on my former employers' site The SEM
Blog*. In that post I broke down, in a totally non-partisan way, what each
campaign was doing and who was doing it better. Later that November
Obama was elected due in part to a record number of younger voters
and they have their content marketing team to thank for that, particularly
Joe Rospars. Obama's team of experienced marketers were able to
harness technology and a young voter base to launch him into the Oval office like no president before
him. In short, he won the content marketing and strategy war.
How Obama Won The Content Marketing And Strategy War
Before I get into get into the content marketing war of 2008 I thought I'd show you what both sites
looked like back then using the Wayback Machine**. As seen in the screenshots below the Obama
site was leaps and bounds ahead of McCain in terms of understanding up-to-date web technologies and
design. No offense to Senator McCain but when stacked up against Obama's site on measurement of
design and usability his site doesn't hold a candle to the burning touch of the soon to be president.
As you see on McCain's site it follows a grid pattern that just kind of sits there. It uses strong colors
and doesn't your eye flow around around the page. It's also very, very short on content but of the content
it has it's making you work to try and figure what to do. It's a very confusing design and quite frankly
was indicative of the campaigns' lack of web knowledge and new technologies. In 2008 terms it was
archaic in it's design and structure. This would have been a great site in the 2000 election but not one in
2008.
McCain's Site
In contrast, Obama's site became the new standard in political sites. It's creators not only understood
correct design they also harnessed the newest technology to help them share their content. His site
was rich on content and it is displayed in an easy to understand design. The main content section to
the left side was the informative area. Here are the blog posts, news, events, map and store. How to get
involved occupied the right side; make a donation, volunteer, MyObama.com signup, videos, action
center, mobile signup and social media links to all of their content online. McCain's design had some of
those but they were represented as small icons in one section. In design alone there's no comparison.
In terms of making it easy for people to share content with other people Obama won that war easily. His
supporters were able to view and share content on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, and
LinkedIn to name a few.
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2. Back in 2008 social media was still very much a new term for the most part and content marketing
wasn't really on a lot of people's radars. Obama's use of this technology coupled with a great design
gave people the feeling of unprecedented access to a future president. You felt you could have the
POTUS hopeful respond to your tweet or comment on your Facebook status. With McCain it seemed
he didn't understand new technology and was out of step with the youth. I believe this is where the
election was won.
Obama's site
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3. (Obama Vs McCain) Vs (Obama Vs Romney) - Have Things Changed?
Most definitely. It seems the GOP has studied what went wrong and has created a site that shows they
understand the web today. Obama's site has also changed. It has gone for more a blog type layout with
posts stretching down the home page. I've truncated it in the screenshot below but you can check it
out here. They've also shortened up their right sidebar and placed a lot of links in the top navigation.
This type of design wasn't really available 4 years ago and they've recognized that. Their SEO
optimization leaves a lot to be desired but I will tackle that in a later post.
Obama's Site
Romney's site is worlds apart from McCain's site. The design is a lot cleaner and follows current design
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4. standards. There's still some rough edges here and there(not a fan of the blue background for the
navigation) but in regards to 4 years ago this is a giant leap. Their team paid close attention to current
trends in design and it shows. It is easy to navigate, it moves the eye around and doesn't confuse you.
Romney's Site
Content Marketing Continued...
In the next post I will go over the numbers of each site and how they compare to 4 years ago. I'll also
break down some more aspects of the content war, how to monitor it and see what people are saying on
social media sites.
* I apologize if you click the link and see some images are missing, I don't have control over the site so
I can't fix them.
**McCain's site does not hold up well in the Wayback Machine so I've had to chop off the header and
navigation but if you want to see those sections you can see them here.
About Jason McElweenie
Jason is responsible for helping clients achieve top rankings using proven white hat Search
Engine Marketing techniques. Contact Jason today!
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