Presidential Candidate Social Media Analysis #1: Joe Biden (D)

Social Media Analysis: Sen. Joe Biden (D)

Sen. Joe Biden has the following:

1. Website: Joebiden.com



2. YouTube: joebidendotcom



3. MySpace: myspace.com/bidenforpresident



4. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/p/Joe_Biden/621825112



5. FlickR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/70888802@N00/



6. Blog: http://blog.joebiden.com/

He also has an email newsletter you can sign up for on the website and an RSS feed.

Let's go a bit deeper, shall we?

Website: Pretty standard for the most part. There's the video plugs and the links to the social networking sites, with prime placement for recent YouTube videos. The RSS feed is right up front, which is cool. It's actually nicely laid out and easy to follow.

YouTube: Good list of videos and his main one that is up right now is linked from Website as well. Very YouTube-ish and not professional. This is a good thing. Just Joe, talking to the camera -- looks like a hotel in the background. What are the numbers? 1090 subscribers.

MySpace: For a MySpace site, it's clean and easy to follow -- what gives? (grin) He's got the video going...but no great theme song. Need to add in some music! Several nice applications -- the blog roll is sweet! Good level of overlap between information on his MySpace and his Website. The big question...how many friends? 13517!

FaceBook: Now remember, if you want to see the whole thing you have to be a member of Facebook. So very standard here. No use of applications at all. No listed on the NewsVine Election 08 Application. Could be much improved by addition of video applications and more. 3616 Supporters so far.

Flickr: Again standard. Lots of pictures.

Blog: So the blog isn't bad, although I'm not seeing any posts by Biden himself. Yes, I know, he's a busy guy...but if he has time to make a video...I wonder why the staff isn't incorporating his videos in as part of a vlog -- he could toss out a 30 second just for the blogroll, then hit the 1 - 2 minute for YouTube. Not too exciting overall.

Recommendations: So the Biden team has a lot of the different social sites covered, but what I don't see is a lot of action overall. I subscribed to the email newsletter and didn't get anythign in my email for several days. Haven't seen anything from him on Meet Up, and without creating a full group on Facebook, there's no way to message the members easily. The Facebook site could be juiced up quite a bit and really the goal is to have people recommend to their friends. Overall some good things going on, but not enough to really take advantage of the social media.

What does Biden have that is different?: Well, he started a book tour today! The book is called "Promises to Keep". It's touted on his website.

P.S. added 8/4/07: I realized as I read over this that I didn't get into search! Oops. So when you got to Google and search on "Biden" you see his Senate site at the top organic ranking (this is good!), then the Wikipedia entry (gotta love Wikipedia!), then Biden for Pres in the third ranking, and then news results and some other items, including, lower down his MySpace and his YouTube...actually not a bad showing. The sponsored ad is for "indecision2008.com". Yahoo! Search is similar with a great deal of different sponsored ads -- no of which are by the candidate himself. MSN Live, well, it doesn't show his campaign website until the sixth ranking, below his MySpace. His Senate site is ranked #1, which is good. However, since he can't link to his campaign website from there (I believe there is a regulation about that), and they aren't doing any sponsored ads, if people don't know he exists (yep, it's a possibilitiy given the poor overall media coverage) then he's going to be hard to find.