Social Media Analysis: The blogs of two would be "top dogs"

In honor of Blog World Expo...which I am NOT attending (follow the Tweet Stream here) I thought it would be fun to add another in my series on Social Media and the Presidential Campaign and how they are using their "official" blogs to communicate with you and I -- the people of this great nation.

First and foremost let's get really clear on what a BLOG is.

According to Knol (Googles response to the academic backlash against Wikipedia) poster Duncan Riley,

A Blog is a website that consists of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically and underpinned with a content delivery system which provides the ability to deliver content frequently and with little skill. Blogs have a strong focus on building meaningful social connections or virtual communities on any and all subject matters.

This works pretty well for my purpose today, which is to examine the blogs of Barack Obama and John McCain. That last sentence, in particular about "building meaningful social connections" is pretty key.

How are the campaigns using their blogs? How are they using technology to "build meaningful social connections"? Well in past posts I've highlighted how both campaigns are tossing out the MySpace and Facebook links and creating social spaces within their own sites. I've show how the campaigns are fumbling (like the text message VP announcement of Obama) and how they've nailed it such as McCain's site redesign or Obama's fun ring tones. It leaves the sense that the campaigns are innovative and are using technology to leverage their messages in new and engaging ways.

Or not.

First of all staffers are doing the blogging. Ok. I get it. Barack and John are busy guys. They have TV appearances and the same speech to deliver in every "battleground" city all over the country (well, not here in Vermont). They have snarky ads to approve (snarky, my new word of the day...had to work it in here), and fingers to point (ok, now that's me being snarky). There's no time to draft a blog post that personally reaches out to your constituents and the voting public. Those ads are just plain good enough. Um. Yeah.

I've been subscribed to the Obama Twitter for some time and I get a tweet every time there's a speech in some town (usually in Michigan) directing me to their site to watch the live speech. Ohhh Ahhh.

So why am I being so cranky about this? It's because it drives me crazy that they aren't using their blogs in a way that bypasses all the traditional political idiocy. Want some examples? Of course you do!

Obama

1. Voices for Change: Teresa in Michigan. A political sob-story about a troubled American. Nice touch at the end of the post -- a big red DONATE button.
2. Barack Obama on the Terrorist Attack in Pakistan. Copy of their official statement. Same thing I'll hear on the news channels and at those speeches.
3. Democratic Radio Address: Senator Obama on the Current Financial Crisis with a link to the radio address (wonder why this one didn't come through on my Twitter!).

McCain

1. Weekly Radio Address with link to the audio file.
2. Report on a McCain-Palin Event in Minnesota. Yeah. Picture of a big crowd. Update urges me to go to the action center to "take action".
3. Report from a McCain-Palin Event in Iowa. No pictures of this one.

Not one of these things brings me closer to understanding either candidate. I'm being refed and recycled the same stuff I can get anywhere else.

So what SHOULD they do?

Leverage the technology of course. Write something PERSONAL and PERSONABLE and not handled. For example wouldn't it be nice to go to the blog and see that Barack has written something like this:

Between speech stops and trying to figure out how to best address the folks in *insert struggling town here* as we watch the financial crisis unfold. This isn't about fluff like "from wallstreet to mainstreet". This is a financial crisis unlike any we've seen and it will be my job to take the reigns and make a difference. How will I do that? We need to protect the taxpayer and the homeowner. We need to make sure retirement plans are strong. I plan to examine.....insert actual stuff here... Well...times up. The bus has just pulled in to *insert town here*.

So that just took me about 2 minutes.

Imagine going to the McCain blog and reading something like this:

And you folks don't think I know how to use a computer! I'm very troubled by the economic issues we are facing. Just a few days ago, I said the fundamentals of our economy were strong. And then overnight we face perhaps the biggest financial crisis of our country. Like you I am saddened and more than a little frustrated. I believe in free markets and do not like to have too much regulation, and yet, there are times when we have to step in and now is clearly one of those times. In my speech in *insert town here* in the next hour, I'll be outlining what I think should be done. Yes there will need to be regulation and yes there will need to oversight but at the same time it is vital we strike a balance.

But I don't think I will ever see any of this.

Why?

Because they are afraid. All of them -- you know the them I reference. The handlers and advisers and dare I say PR and Marketing folks (shame on you!) who want to control everything. Script it all. Avoid room for mistakes.

Blogs are there to build connection and what these campaigns are doing is just using a space on their website to allow a group of people to write stuff that is all about give me money and here's my new attack ad and here's this sob story so you should vote for us...

Sigh.

No innovation here.

Of course, perhaps there's nothing wrong with this at all and I'm just a naive, out of touch academic who has no real understanding of the political process.

A timeline of a VP Announcement that was "supposed" to use social media

Updated as of 11:30 a.m. : I finally received my e-mail from the campaign at 10:19 a.m. while I was eating breakfast at Maxi's (a wonderful local restaurant in Waterbury, VT) and watching CNN Headline News talk about it. Local blogger and newsperson Cathy Resmer has also commented on the a.m. wake-up call from the Obama Campaign over at Blurt, as has my sister in the comments below.

If the goal of the Obama campaign was to whip people into a frenzy via social media, (and in the process get way more email addresses and txt contact to mine for money) they did that. If the goal of the Obama campaign was to actually reach out to people directly to inform them of the VP choice, well in "professorial talk", they failed. They failed big time.

As we all know the frenzy has been building. About two weeks ago, the campaign announced that they would alert people through email and txt messaging so they would be "the first to know" who the VP was. Yesterday speculation was rampant. Traditional media outlets, especially CNN, were conducting interviews and stalking potentials. Everything they reported was echoed in the Twitter-verse where individuals were tweeting all day about waiting for their cell phones to go off.

Anticipation was high.

And then...

Well, here is how it went for me, an individual who signed up for the email, the text and the twitter.

12:55 a.m.: Breaking alert from CNN: CNN confirms Sen. Barack Obama has chosen Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice-presidential running mate.

3:27 a.m.: Text Alert from Obama 62262: Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 p.m. ET on http://www.barackobaman.com/. Spread the word!

5:25 a.m.: Twitter Alert from BarackObama: Announcing Senator Joe Biden as our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 p.m. ET on http://barackobaman.com/

I never received an email.

So, after all the hype and all the hoopla, at the end of the day CNN was the winner. The campaign did not reach me first. Media did. The conversation over at the twitter-verse, is as always diverse, interesting, silly and downright um...whatever. Check that out here: http://tinyurl.com/5ucaot.

What was the point anyway? An Agence France-Presse article headline reads: Obama's VP alerts trumped by media leaks. Others are writing about the frenzy and how it captured many news cycles. Regardless I have to admit to being disappointed. While a realist I do still have pockets of idealism hidden away and this one got me. We all know I dig the social media. I really see it as a sea change for how we get our information. So when a presidential candidate "looks" like they are going to side step the mainstream and go directly to the people, I get very excited. Even though, in the back of my marketing mind, I know, deep down inside it's all about hype. It's about data mining. And well, it's politics and the Obama Campaign is clearly a political machine.

The campaign website is updated with a new big donate splash page -- very inspiring picture of Obama and Biden together (got to LOVE Photoshop):

Bypassing the splash screen we now see on the website this banner first (don't they know that red is subconsciously a "stop" color ... a warning...a don't go there. They should pick a different color for their buttons. Seriously ... like green which is go):

However, the Obama store isn't ready yet (smile). No Obama-Biden merchandise...as of the writing of this post.

My final question is with all the hype about change and doing things differently, the only different thing that was done here was the campaign expertly manipulated the media AND the people who "wanted to know first" so they got the maximum news coverage. How is that change? Seems like the same old thing to me.

Politicians experimenting with online media

WCAX ran their story tonight about the local politicians including Gov. Jim Douglas and Gaye Symington using web ads in their campaigns.

It was a good piece (of course, I should remind you that I'm in it ... so of course it's good!) that showed several of the different attack ads that the campaigns are using. The focus of the story was really on the attach ads and I'm glad that reporter Kristin Carlson moved it to my point that they need to move beyond using attack ads online and focus on engaging with their constituents.

What it missed was not showing how other candidates like Anthony Pollina and Sam Young are using the web as well -- which is a shame because there is a lot of good work going on locally.

Overall though it's still a time of experimentation.

Take our national politicians for example.

Obama has announced that he'll be alerting the public to his Vice Presidential choice via email and his website provides you the place to do it. Hmmm...interesting that this gets such a news push. Not too long ago a gentleman by the name of Fred Thompson was running for the Presidential Nomination on the Republican side. Well, as we know, things didn't work out for him. How did I find out? Via my Twitter. He alerted his Twitter followers at the same time as the national media and I got my Twitter from him before I got my alert from CNN. Now that's using social media.

Why else would I sign up for Twitter or SMS to begin with? I want to know something before everyone else.

So they are trying something "new" -- going direct to voters through other means that don't include the mainstream media gatekeepers. Except for the fact that all the media have signed up for it by now too (grin). Although I just tried signing up for the Text Alert on my phone -- haven't gotten any notification. I wonder if they are including Twitter in their info...I'm already following him there.

Social Media and the Presidency: Site evolution, playing games and contrasting messages

Sen. McCain's site has gone through another evolution. It's tighter, even easier to navigate, less cluttered and right to the point. A little "straight talk design" maybe? Notice the emphasis on energy policy?


My earlier post on this shows some of the evolution as the campaign moved from dark to light and made things easier to find. At the same time, they continue to focus on trying to maintain control -- there's the McCain Space (vs. MySpace) and that nifty push to get people to post on blogs and how to do it (I like this). Hard to find the social networks and as I wrote in the earlier post they are still focusing on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.

I like the evolution. The site packs more power. They've done an excellent job using design, images and text to make their point without making people wade through so much information they don't know where to go.

But...what's really fun is the new game that has been posted on his site. It's called "Pork Invaders". To be honest I'm not sure if McCain is the first to do this (probably not) but what I like here is not just the fact that the game is on the site, but you can grab the code and put it on your site AND you can add it to your Facebook. So now they begin to see how to create synergy between the main site and the social media sites.

Wanna play? (notice how you can "join the team" with one click)






It's like the McCain Campaign has a sense of humor or something. Hmmm....

By the way it was a big fundraising deadline last night (June 30th) and you would certainly know it this morning (July 1) by looking at both candidates blogs:

Obama: Deadline Closing In
by Amanda Scott Monday, June 30, 2008 at 11:43 PM
Remember, the deadline for June fundraising is midnight local time. Help the campaign build our 50 State strategy and bring change to Washington. Every donation counts!

McCain: Posted at 9:43 AM on 6/30/2008 by matt_lira
Travel with John McCain Every person who makes a contribution, of any amount, by midnight tonight will be entered in a drawing to join John McCain on the Straight Talk Express for a day. Click here to participate.

Um...it is the July 1st now folks. Where's the update? Do I ask for too much? It's almost 9:00 a.m. EST Time. Both of these blogs should provide some info. Anyway, just by this much of a posting can you see the contrast in the two campaigns? McCain will let you win a ride with him on his straight talk bus if you contribut...Obama is earnest and wants us to help him bring change to Washington (think intrinsic reward).

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't provide equal time and one thing I don't think I've talked about at the Obama site yet is the Mobile Text with really cool ring tones -- in a mix of musical genres. Wish I had any sense of musical ability so I could list them, but I distinctly got hip-hop, techno, country and I think marching band (grin).

Not sure how I feel about the whole ring tone thing -- and yet, it is a great and subtle way to get people to spread the word for sure. I wonder how this one is doing for the campaign.

Next post will be a blog analysis. Why? Because I'm noticing that the blogs are becoming less and less about information and more and more about showing off a video or begging for money. What is the roll of a blog in a political campaign when you have a website to provide information on issues? Um...commentary maybe?

On a final note, some recent buzz on the social media series here at my blog:

1. Tracking Obama's, McCain's Use of Social Media at AppScout (from PCMagazine)
2. Aggregate blog Social GaGA links to the AppScout Story

Social Media Analysis of the Presidential Campaign: Obama asks your opinion on LinkedIn

Have you logged into your LinkedIn Account today?

Pay attention because Candidate for President Barack Obama wants to know: How do we keep America Competitive in the Years Ahead?

Perhaps more interesting are the answers.

Education, Taxes, Infrastructure...lot's of great options.

I wonder if he will listen. More importantly is the use of LinkedIn by a candidate to ask these kinds of questions -- much different audience than the wide open web and I bet if they did this same question on MySpace of Facebook they'd get radically different answers! Don't believe me? Check out dana boyd's work on social networks!

Go the the Obama site, though and you won't know he's asking the question. Interesting.

Social Media and the 2008 Presidential Campaign: Obama vs. McCain (and a little bit of Hillary and those left behind)

What better way to kick off my blog after a wee bit of vacation then with coming back to the Social Media Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Campaign? Now that the primaries are officially over (thank goodness!), we are down to two candidates: Obama and McCain.

So let's see how their websites and social media approaches have changed...

McCain (http://www.johnmccain.com/) (note, don't just type in "mccain.com" as you'll get a food company)

BEFORE

TODAY

So Wow.

No more black and grey, stark and serious for Mr. mcCain. It's blue and stars and light blue and green (note that "make a contribution" button in green -- on the right hand side -- yep they want your money for sure! Prime realestate in the "GO" color). Much more cheery!

Also see that "Get Involved" section. Quite nice.

However what I really like is the first time you come to the site you are given an option. You get to choose your edition -- the "supporter", "undecided" or "unregistered voter". This is sweet.

The above screen shot is for the "undecided". So I expected a very different message for each...however...um...well. No. I guess not. A side-by-side comparison of the supporter vs. the undecided reveals no difference that I can see.

When you dig deeper there's another nice thing going on here. The web team is clearly pushing the focus of this campaign on spreading the word beyond the "conservative base". Once you click on "spread the word" from the home page you get the option to look at blogs from the conservative or the liberal side and they give you suggested talking points! Hmmm...wonder where they got that idea from (hint: initials RP -- see my earlier post of the grassroots winner himself!).

There's also a several blogs and the one that is the most interesting, of course is the "Blog you can Believe In" called The McCain Report. Seems similar to the Hillary site that was out there to provide the real facts -- HillaryHub it was called. So this one is to highlight the flaws in Obama's campaign, or news stories or almost anything I guess.

McCain is focusing now on three social networks: Myspace (54, 705 friends, up from 10/2007 when it was 39,159) Facebook (144,343 supporters up from 11,576 in October) and YouTube (5, 614 subscribers, up from 10/2007 when it was 1,644). You don't find these on his home page though. And it took some digging for me to find them. The links are at the bottom of the "Action" page.

So the site has changed, the social networks are more focused and growing, he's got two blogs, and there is a greater emphasis on the overall brand image and appeal to a wider voting public. Quite a change from October of last year (see my original post).

Overall, I'd say a much better improvement! Although I can't help being a bit snarky on this one (pictures say 1,000 words) -- check this one out from his Facebook page (oh, and did you notice the similar picture on the home page of his website?):

OBAMA (http://www.barackobama.com/)

BEFORE

TODAY

Not much difference at all in the Obama website. The main change is that there is no longer the primary states listed on the right side, all the states are now listed under the "state" tab.

Another interesting difference is in an an area that I've commented on before (see my original posting on this) on the focus of this campaign on specific demographic segments of the population. It's a "google-esque" type of play with the Obama Logo. Check it out and see if you can identify these "special interest groups" by the logo:
I'm torn with this approach, although I really like the use of the logo. WAY better than what they were doing before. This is major segmentation and I guess when reading the information that comes with it, it makes a great deal of sense -- each section is specific to that group and highlights information from Obama speeches and from supporters who identify with those specific groups. It's true inclusion which is very cool. However, the risk is that it misses other groups. Men for one. There isn't one for Native Americans either. I'm sure there are others. So by listing out all of these different groups, does it really help them? I wonder.

Obama is still appealing to "everyone" on the social media side.

So how do the numbers compare from before (October 2007)?

Facebook: 979, 253 supporters (153,998 in October)
Myspace: 396,729 friends (182,096 in October)
YouTube: 55,914 subscribers (11,507 in October)
FlickR: 4,940 contacts (n/a in October)
Digg: 18, 707 fans (n/a in October)
Twitter: 38,615 followers (5, 332 in October)
Eventful: 93,979 demands (36,858 in October)
LinkedIn: 500+ connections (can't really see how many others) (n/a in October)
BlackPlanet: 487,910 friends (188,872 in October)
Faithbase: 2,953 friends (145 in October -- note that at that time his profile stated he was "nondenominational". Today it says nothing about his religious affiliation at all. Interesting.
Eons: 295 friends (147 in October)
Glee: 2,053 friends (1,099 in October)
Migente: 49,612 friends (20,244 in October)
MyBatanga: 163 friends (5 friends in October)
AsiaAve: 2, 746 friends (1,209 in October)
DNCPartybuilder: 2,307 friends (754 in October)

So a good bit of growth since I checked back in October of 07. What I have noticed is that the campaign has also gotten better at posting some different information on the different sites -- still not truely segmented the way their website is, and by the way, how come the fancy segemented logos aren't on the different appropriate sites? Small detail, but surprising that it hasn't happened.

Obama now has a fact center -- similar to the Hillary Hub and the McCain Report. Seems the candidates now get the fact that they can actually control the message they put out on their website and provide point/counterpoint info. He'll need it I'm sure.

Ending with this update is this little oops that I'm really surprised the web folks have let slip -- it's on the action center page -- can you find it?

Social Media Stats for the Presidential Candidates

Over at the Personal Democracy Forum techPresident you can find some great stats on the use of social media by the presidential candidates.

You can get a look at stats on:

• MySpace -- Total Friends Count
• Facebook -- Total Supporters Count
• YouTube -- Total Views Per Day Count (nice!)
• Technorati -- Total blog mentions per candidate name per day
• Eventful -- Total number of "demands"
• Meetup -- Total meet up members
• Hitwise -- Traffic to each candidate website

From the looks of these stats, the big winners are Obama and Paul. Since Ron Paul is next on my list for analysis, it will be interesting to see what is happening there. Many are talking/blogging about Paul's use of the web -- and how might that translate into votes.

Actually, that's the big question for everyone isn't it? At the end of the day, total friends, supporters, views per day, blog mentions, demands, site visits or total members won't matter if the people involved don't VOTE.

Several reporters have asked me how effective all of this. If I was working for a campaign I'd say VERY! But, I'm not. The reality is ... who knows? This hasn't really been done before (remember, Ho-Ho? he opened up the web to the political world, but at the time he had a website, and blog and was using this new thing called "meetup" to generate buzz...the tools the candidates are using now weren't around when he was running) so how do you measure effectiveness? You can't. Not right now. After the primaries we will know a lot more.

Presidential Candidate Social Media Analysis #12: Sen. Barack Obama (D)

Social Media Analysis: Sen. Barack Obama (D)

Sen. Barack Obama has the following:

1. Website: http://www.barackobama.com/


2. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BarackObamadotcom


3. MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/barackobama


4. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/person.php?id=2355496748


5. Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/


6. Digg: http://digg.com/users/obamaforamerica


7. Eventful: http://eventful.com/performers/barack-obama/2008-democratic-presidential-candidate-senator-democrat-illinois-/P0-001-000000162-8


8. Twitter: http://twitter.com/BarackObama


9. Mobile: text GO to OBAMA (62262).


10. PartyBuilder (The DNC site): http://www.democrats.org/page/dashboard/public/gFdZp


11. BlackPlanet: http://www.blackplanet.com/barack_obama/


12. Faithbase: http://www.faithbase.com/barack_obama/


13. Glee: http://www.glee.com/barack_obama/


14. AsianAve: http://www.asianave.com/barack_obama/


15. MiGente: http://www.migente.com/barack_obama/


16. MyBatanga: http://my.batanga.com/profileFamily.php?familyname=batanga&id=batanga/barackobama


17. Eons: http://community.eons.com/members/profile/BarackObama


18. LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/barackobama


19. Blog: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/group/ObamaHQ/

Website: There is a lot going on at the Obama website. It is very modular and very segmented. I’m not sure personally how this resonates with me, honestly, I find it a bit overwhelming and too blocky with so many icons and things happening at once – however, at the same time, I can see why this can work pretty well in segmenting the market. Many social networking sites are listed along the bottom. News items are clearly available and there is an RSS feed for them as well. There is a blog, an action center, and videos (BarackTV – some of which are YouTube and others are not) and upcoming events. All of what is clearly becoming the standard fair. However…there are some very interesting differences on this site compared to the rest of the field I’ve reviewed so far.

It is easy to navigate the site for sure, and unless you are a white male you feel pretty included. As you can see from the picture – the “People” tab at the site includes many options – but if you are a white male, um…well…not sure you belong (smile). Anyway, that segmentation is very interesting here as each group highlighted has a slightly different look and feel and its own “banner” to put on your own social networking site. For example, the students for Obama section emphasizes the Facebook application, taking action and setting up a student group on campus. The African American section directs people to BlackPlanet.com, and highlights more of the candidate’s issues that might be direct concerns for that specific population. The same is true of all of the segmentations. Obama is not the only one to add groups of people to a list – many are doing it for states – and some campaigns are targeting young voters, or women or early primary states – but this one is probably the most aggressive I’ve seen so far. I understand the concept, however I’m not sure if I like it or not. It definitely is more obvious than others. It will be very interesting to see if this works really well for the campaign – too bad I can’t get a look at their analytics and do a real compare. Marketing theory would tell me that it should work well because I can go to the section of the site that appeals to me (as a woman, for example) and see information from other women, which may get me to engage more. However, the “Women for Obama” logo was annoying frankly as it was very stylized and well…um…womanish. Basically I felt a little stereotyped by the font choice. Yeah…I know…get over it. At least it wasn’t PINK!

Another feature on this site that is very interesting is the “My Policy” section. It’s hard to find – not on the home page at all, which I think is too bad, because this feature I really like. Under the Issue tab you’ll find it – it’s a feature that allows you to put in your ideas of how things should be improved. A place for you to give advice on specific areas such as foreign policy, faith, immigration, etc. The campaign claims they will take that information and utilize it in their policy development. I like this a lot. A great way to get involved and get information on what people really care about. This should be highlighted more…it should be on the social networks too. Nice application.

There is also a great page that is all about buddy icons, widgets and other gadgets to put on your profiles. I’m surprised I didn’t see more links to these options on the other social networking sites – such as “get great stuff for your site! check out url”.

Overall, the site is a bit blocky but provides a lot of good information, video and news items. The segmentation is aggressive and may broaden appeal – although I’m still not sure on that one, and it is very easy to navigate the site and get involved. There’s an action center called “My.BarackObama” which allows people to set up their groups and do their blogging thing – again, seem to be the item du jour on the campaign sites. A good site with good content and some intriguing approaches.

YouTube: The YouTube site is fairly current – video loaded within the past several days – the main one is from Iowa on the 12th. Fairly typical though – running speeches and TV ads and News spots. We already know that I’m biased towards seeing the more direct communication from the candidate – the blurry-eyed campaign trail, impassioned 2 minute vlog style. Oh well. 11,507 Subscribers.

MySpace: Fairly standard MySpace page, although there are links to many of the different social networking sites – graphic links which draw attention. There’s eventful, My.BarackObama action center link, YouTube, Facebook, partybuilder, linkedin, gather…great way to pull them all in and show where to connect. Those same links aren’t available at the YouTube site (hmmmm). There some video and a TWITTER application (which hasn’t been updated in 7 days!). 182096 Friends.

MyBatanga: (this one isn’t linked directly from the home page of the site, but rather is buried in the text of a blog post in the African Americans for Obama section of the site) The Hispanic equivalent of MySpace. Interesting set up – although it is important to note that I do not read Spanish! However, there is enough English here for me to tell that this isn’t a very active website. While someone from the campaign did log in today, there are only 5 friends and one comment. Not sure if that is because this is brand new…or if it is because there just isn’t any traffic to the site. Same standard profile information here as the others.

Facebook: So the direct link to Facebook actually worked here! Nice! Some good things going on here – links to YouTube, MySpace, the main site and Digg! (didn’t see that one at the website!). Also the Obama Application is running and ready for people to add! Nice little app, but could do more I think. I don’t think it is enough to just have a video or two show up, I think there should be something more focused on the action oriented piece – or even take advantage of the major segmentation that is going on and allow people to add specialized applications. They also have a direct link to a Facebook Group! You already know how much I think that is underutilized by campaigns. 9684 members of the group! Its focus is students – but that is ok. It’s GREAT to see it! Overall 153,998 Supporters.

FlickR: Lots of activity here – with pictures posted from today from all over the place – you almost want to see a map representing where these are all from AND then click on them – the collections link helps with this so you can see things broken down by state. Still nothing outstanding here though – some great fun to be had, but nothing really meaningful around issues. The profile is the same profile I’ve seen at all the sites. I suppose consistency is good. yawn.

Digg: Interesting site – they’ve posted some different news items, but nothing this month. And um…not many Diggs either. Perhaps they aren’t posting the right types of news items! Digg as part of a campaign has some great potential – but only if you get people to go there and “Digg” your stories. So here’s that action item. Digg isn’t listed from the website and I only found it at Facebook. There is no action that says “Go Digg your Favorite Story about Barack” to drive supporters there to generate some good content. Too bad. The candidate certainly has the ability to pull that off – especially in the segmented areas they are in.

Eventful: They’ve done a great job with the profile and information at this site. Finally a DIFFERENT profile and more information – something that I have become desperate for by now (grin). You get the sense that there is a lot of activity here with 36,858 people “demanding” an event with the Candidate. Nice touch with the Fred Thompson Banner Ad on the side though (yep, I’m being sarcastic!). This is linked to from the website and from the MySpace. Pretty cool.

Twitter: I’ve signed up to “follow” Barack who hasn’t updated his Twitter in seven days. Hmmm…wonder what he is doing RIGHT NOW? (grin). Love that Twitter! Find it at the mobile section on his website. 5,332 Followers

Mobile: So this section of the main site is good – mobile wallpaper, mobile alerts by topic area and even RINGTONES! Big winner here for best mobile experience…if you want an Obama speech on your phone…

DNC partybuilder: Here’s another candidate using this site – but is so slow to load and so uninspiring…why bother? 754 friends.

Search Results: Excellent results for “Obama” in the Google search. News items, then the campaign site, the blog, wikipedia, the senate site, MySpace, youtube and even cafepress – all relevant and all in a row. It’s like a search jackpot! And of the campaign is NOT messing around – the sponsored ad is right at the top. Nice! Sponsored ads on the side, however are interesting. One is a general youtube push, but the other is an ad for an organization decidedly opposed to the candidate. Interesting that no opponents are purchasing ads like we’ve seen in the past on some of the other searches. Hmmmm…. Over at Yahoo! it’s a mixed picture. The candidate’s site is right at the top and they have the top ad spot as well (I wonder if they’ve done the research on those ad placements? More expensive to get the top spot…but can often get more clicks at the third or fourth spot…). Anyway, here we find the candidate site, senate site, wikiepedia, news items, flickr, with MySpace at #9. They also have the sponsored ad at the bottom. Clearly a lot of action on “Obama” as the sponsored ads here at Yahoo! are numerous – including the same anti-Obama one from Google. There’s a different story, however, over at Live. The senate site comes up first and then the wikipedia entry. The campaign site comes up third and after that a host of news sites – nothing else specifically run by the campaign. The sponsored ads, however are the real treat! The top listed one is for “Barack Obama Dinner for 5” and it’s a promo to get people to donate and maybe win dinner with the candidate. It’s a direct link to the candidate’s site. The problem? Well…you have to do it by JULY 31st! Last time I looked, um…it’s October! Nice job paying for that ad. It’s really the things like this that surprise me. You would think they would know that it’s past the date and to update their AD CAMPAIGN! Oops! Overall though, great Google results, but not great results across the board. Nice to see the CPC consistency – but bad news on the Live CPC – they better get that one fixed.

Highly specialized Social Networks through CommunityConnect.com:

1. Faithbase.com: It is what it says it is…well sort of. Actually it’s a CHRISTIAN social network. Interesting that in the candidates profile he is “nondenominational” and doesn’t mention faith in his profile. Odd. Currently 145 friends.
2. Glee.com: A Gay and Lesbian social network site. The link from the Candidate’s site takes you to the generic space – not to a member page, but if you scroll down you can find a link to his profile. 1,099 friends.
3. AsianAve.com: An Asian Social Network. Interesting that his profile is the SAME as the ones on Faithbase and Glee. Actually, not so surprising as all three are built by the same company. Some different informational, video etc. Here the candidate has 1,209 friends.
4. BlackPlanet.com: An African American Social Network, also owned and operated by the same company as all of the above. Same profile again, but some different video and news items. 188,872 friends.
5. MiGente.com: The Hispanic version of all of the above. Same profile information, similar video to the others, some small news item differences. 20,244 friends

Eons: Pretty good profile here – a new one – not the one used on most of the social networking sites thankfully! Photos and video are posted, and the new “LifePath” feature is quite neat. They should show this on their website – found it only in passing. 147 friends.

LinkedIn: Turns out I’m only THREE TIMES REMOVED from Barack Obama! How cool is that! And there is a Barack Obama LinkedIn Group! This is pretty cool – except for the part where there isn’t much there and it is a rehash of the really bad profile stuff from the other sites. Ho hum.

Blog: The blog is wrapped up on the Obama site within the “MyObama” section. This is the “Action Network” where individuals can create their groups and do the blog thing. The main group is what is linked to within the site. The blog is up to date and easy to follow, with cross linked posts between groups – for example the top post is about an woman supporter and why she is supporting the candidate, and that is cross listed in the women’s section as well (there’s that segmentation). It’s an active area – with many different posts from many different people. Most of the posts are news items, there are videos and pictures. But um…where is the candidate? Still wanting to see the personal touch that is happening in some of the campaigns.

Recommendations: Wow! A lot of things going on throughout the social media web the Obama campaign has created. The site as a starting point is good. A lot of recycled content within the blogs with the same information posted in many different places, which ensures visibility but also runs the risk of being too redundant. Overall I think this campaign is utilizing a lot of social media and segmenting their audience aggressively. The mix of the two can work really well if there are enough social networks to support the segmentation – and a strategy to keep them linked, driving content between the two and ensuring that you give people actions to take. This is what I am not seeing the campaign doing. They also run the risk of trying to do too many things and be on too many sites. The campaign will need to be careful here – they’ve got some good numbers and good things happening and yet there are cracks – no update to Twitter in 7 days, not keeping content current on the smaller niche sites, and not differentiating the profile information enough between the sites to better speak to their audience. This may explain why the FaithBased social network is so much smaller than some of the others. Also more clear linking between all of the social sites and the websites. I didn’t find all of them through the main site, but “discovered them” as I went along. While that can be fun – it certainly doesn’t fully leverage the power. The campaign is in a good position to really get people to take action – not just in blogging but in actually mobilizing on social networks to “Digg” a story, or write a letter to the editor or buy campaign things…all of these should be linked and the people running each social network should be encouraging more activity. Once again I miss the personal touch in the videos and the blogs. Talk to me and bypass all the spin and the speeches. Give me something new. Remember the upside to social networking is that I can see lots of stuff – but it is more obvious than ever when it is the same thing over and over – just in different “venues”. That’s the big challenge for this campaign.