This is a guest post from Thomas Gensemer, Managing Partner of Blue State Digital, the strategy and software company that spearheaded the Obama campaign’s web operation.
He has chosen PRMediaBlog to exclusively reveal his thoughts on how the PR industry can learn the lessons of Barack’s online success.
What can communication professionals learn from the Obama campaign?
The network is better than you are.
Obama for America changed the economics of campaigns. Instead of seeing supporters as passive recipients of message, they were seen as an integral part of the team that would propel Obama to the Whitehouse.
And it had a simple strategy behind it all – find your support, recruit them, give them something to do and then say thank you. And by repeating these steps, changing the calls to action, and monitoring how each user responds, the campaign quickly built an organization of unpredicted scale and commitment to Barack Obama.
While much of Obama’s success came from his capacity to promote a message that authentically resonated with the American people, this connection was dramatically amplified by supporters willing to adopt his messages and then share this endorsement within their own peer groups.
By focusing the campaign on this process, Obama’s message was strengthened through independent third party support – and then shared with an audience that Obama could never have reached without his networks support.
They embraced the idea that in a world of communication divergence you can’t afford to be a single message campaign in a multi-message world – and accordingly provided groups and networks for traditional and non-traditional support alike. So what happens when other groups – firms, charities, unions – start talking directly to communities?
Imagine neighbours, friends, and family members, colleagues uniting for a shared love or cause. And then imagine what’d happen if you asked for their help.
The key concept of Obama’s campaign still applies; whose advocacy are you most likely to respond to – your best friend or a monolithic organisation’s centralized message? Digital strategists often become blinded by technology. But the Obama campaign wasn’t about cheap gimmicks, short term tactical wins.
It was about people – and the awe-inspiring capacity of a huge number of individuals to take small actions which in turn generate a huge communal effect. $500 million dollars, 1.2 billion emails, 10 million phone calls, and 300,000 grassroots events later, Barack Obama won the Presidency. And it all started with a “do this now” call to action.
The Internet did not win the election – it simply provided the capacity to release and develop the communities potential, and in a far more efficient and analytical manner then ever before.
Source: http://pr-media-blog.co.uk/obamas-web-strategist-what-pr-people-can-learn-from-the-campaign/
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