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.

Final Biden and Dodd

So it's been a few days since the Iowa Caucus and the announcement from both the Biden and Dodd campaigns that they were ending their bids for the Presidency.

Biden: No change to the home page, but the blog has the following entry as of today:

Jan. 5 - Final entry, and thank you ALL for your courageous support of Senator Biden’s presidential candidacy. If only the Iowa Caucusgoers had heard Sen. Biden’s speech delivered in March, 2007 on the Senate floor:

“It’s about time we have the courage to stand up and say to the president ‘Mr. President, you have not only put us in harm’s way you have harmed us. I’m so tired of hearing on this floor about courage. Have the courage to tell the Administration, ’stop this ridiculous policy you have.’”

“So as long as the president keeps us on this ridiculous path, taking us off a cliff — I ask my colleagues, does anybody think they’re going to be able to sustain keeping American forces in Iraq, at 160,000, for another year and a half? How many times are we going to ask those 175,000 to rotate, three, four, five, six, seven times?”

“Mr. President, you’re leading us off a cliff. Stop!”

For updates on Senator Biden’s Senate legislation, please visit his Web site at:
http://biden.senate.gov/. Bye for now!

Over at the Facebook site there is no mention from the campaign or anyone that the campaign has ended. Comments on the wall from supporters show support for the candidate and are wondering if he'll be Sec. of State, and who he will endorse. But no message from the candidate or campaign. 9,207 supporters left.

Over at MySpace it's a similar situation -- only the blog import with the above message indicates that he has dropped out and supporters are posting their thoughts and well wishes. 15,253 left.

Dodd: No change here either -- the message that was posted right after the announcement is still on the home page, but the "live update" ticker is still running -- hmmmm...not sure how "live" it is anymore though. At the blog page there's no reference at all to the end of the campaign save for the "Post Caucus" speech ported in from YouTube. No text at all.

Facebook has no reference save for the supporters who are thanking the candidate. 2,414 supporters left.

Myspace similar results. Supporters want to know who he will endorse and are hoping that he will be Sen. Majority Leader. 9,095 friends left.

Final thoughts on Biden/Dodd

The question for the supporters/friends left behind is "what now?" and for the campaigns -- what do we do with all of our social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube plus the blog and the website? I imagine that there is a lot that happens when a campaign folds -- but the online legacy is lurking there in a way that we have never had before. Folding a campaign is tough. However, in this day of social media, walking away from the many sites you have launched without posting notifications on every one is like being the star of the party and leaving without saying goodbye and hoping that everyone in the ballroom will find out about it some how.

Lessons learned for second-tier candidates -- capitalize on the social media, but have a strategy to fold them if you don't succeed. Actually that should be a lesson for all the candidates. If we aren't careful the information superhighway is going to be full of political litter at the end of the campaign season.

Biden and Dodd...C'ya!

A quick check of the news the morning reveals that Biden and Dodd have announced they are withdrawing from the presidential race.

For Biden there is a video on the home page that says Thank You...but...no text...so in order to know if that is a "Thank you, but I'm leaving" speach or a "Thank you to his supporters in Iowa" speech you have to listen...(takes too long).

The Dodd Campaign has it right -- right on the home page a Thank you that says, "Thank You....unfortunately I'm withdrawing from the campaign tonight".

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.