Mail & Guardian Online’s Thought Leader:

If you don’t entice (social media users) by making them WANT to interact with your brand, you run the risk of being treated like a mop salesman knocking on someone’s front door.

Obama’s campaign sure got it right through social media. As Obama adviser Scott Goodstein said: “Some people only go to MySpace. It’s where they’re on all day. Some only go to LinkedIn. Our goal is to make sure that each supporter online, regardless of where they are, has a connection with Obama.” Obama had profiles on more than 15 social networks, including Facebook and MySpace. The count for this success: 3 million online donors, 5 million “friends” across 15 social network platforms (3 million on Facebook alone), nearly 2 000 official YouTube videos watched more than 80 million times, with 135 000 subscribers and 442 000 user-generated videos on YouTube. The list goes on.

Probably the most important thing to remember in a social media environment: people, want to connect with people … to tap into this extended, unpaid sales force … simply communicate, don’t sell.

INSEAD:

Underlying Obama’s success in generating tremendous grassroots support is his understanding of the need for an evolving communications strategy and a willingness to experiment with new communications tools. Goodstein pointed out that President John F Kennedy made the jump to television, while President Ronald Reagan was feted as the “great communicator”, in part for harnessing the power of television to communicate his messages.

This was why Obama began using YouTube for daily broadcasts, while his media aides sought to ‘evolve’ the campaign’s website.

“Why were people coming to our website? What information did they want? How could we be more consumer-friendly? All these questions we needed to answer,” says Goodstein.

“How do we make sure that when we set up a social network, that it is truly an embassy of our actual campaign?”

Goodstein also says the campaign managers realised that their social networks on platforms such as MySpace and Facebook should be able to provide information and respond to their supporters who wanted their queries answered, “as if they were sitting down and writing an old-fashioned snail mail letter to the campaign.”

Wall Street Journal:

During a panel on mobile politicking later in the afternoon, CREDO Mobile’s political director, Becky Bond, said using mobile devices was simply common sense in an age where people are constantly using their phones and are connected to their social networks by their phones.

Mass texting, for example, can be useful for community organizers trying to rally people to take action, whether that be voting, donating to a cause or assembling for an event. CREDO Mobile helped people assemble for protests against Proposition 8 in California: People texted a shortcode with their zip code and received a message in return about the nearest rally in their area.

Although it’s still more popular outside the United States in political campaigns, said Scott Goodstein, who launched Obama’s mobile strategy, politicking techniques involving text messaging and smartphone apps are growing stateside.

Network World:

Social media may be the flavor of the moment for corporate marketers but these tools won’t work for everyone, according to the man who led the social media component of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, saying it was Obama’s message — and not the medium — that carried the 2008 election.

“Message and messenger are key. This isn’t going to work for every organization or every start-up business if the message that you are selling isn’t resonating,” said Scott Goodstein, the CEO of Revolution Messaging and formerly the external online director at Obama for America, during a speech at the Ad:Tech Singapore conference on Wednesday.

Pop!Tech:

Ever since Barack Obama’s strategic use of social media in the last election, people have begun to realize the Internet is reshaping politics—but it’s not just about bringing more young people out to the polls. A panel of thought leaders on social media and politics I convened and moderated at the recent Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles agreed that social media and the self-organized groups they are spawning have already begun to destabilize the political system, itself.