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.

Social Networking in the Classroom

There is a lot of debate right now within academic circles about social networking. In the K-12 world it's about allowing access and in the higher education world it's about the legal ramifications of the things that students will put up.

In my world, there's more.

I teach a course in Social Networking here at Champlain College and my challenge is, within this world of fast moving change, how do I keep up and continue to show students how Social Networking is changing how we will do business.

The first challenge, of course, is that students believe they already know everything there is to know about Social Networking. They have MySpace and Facebook. What more is there to know? A lot, actually. Consider the following sites that are changing the way we do business and connect:

• LinkedIn: You can see my LinkedIn profile here on this Blog. LinkedIn is social networking in the business world and it is having a big impact on how I connect with experts in the field, stay connected with businesspeople I know and garner internships for students!
• SixDegrees.org: This new website created by Kevin Bacon (ever played the game, sixdegrees of Bacon? I'm one degree removed because I know Kathryn Blume who met and worked with Kevin Bacon on her Lysistrata Project several years ago!) and it's goal is to use SOCIAL NETWORKING to fundraise for causes.
• MySpace.com: Yeah, I know. We all know about MySpace. But...what about the fact that they are working with eBay to create an opportunity for individuals on MySpace to sell stuff to their friends using the eBay auction engine? They are calling it PEER COMMERCE! The WSJ had an article in the paper on Thursday, Feb. 8th that addressed this along with challenges they are facing with Google and Advertising.
• YouTube: The non-profit group, Public Citizen is highlighting the dangers of new birth control pills -- using YouTube to get the word out. They are bypassing the traditional e-alerts and PSA's on TV to reach their audience. This is a new way for advocates ... and it's social networking! They've created website as well: notmypill.org.

There's more. But isn't this enough? Advocacy comes to social networking. PEER Commerce comes to social networking. Mobile is moving fast. Social networking isn't just about seeing what your friends did at their party last night. There's a lot more to it.

Well...I've got to get to class.

GooTube and Social Media Optimization

So Google has purchased YouTube. It's the next in a string of interesting acquisitions that include Rubert Murdock purchasing MySpace and Yahoo! buying up Facebook. Of course what makes it even more interesting is the way that all of these sites are linked together! Check out this article from Media Bulletin where they discuss the "talks" that are now going on between MySpace and Google around the use of YouTube. With all the linking from MySpace to YouTube there's a lot of traffic at stake.

They reference the battle for the youth market. Hmmm...anyone looking at the recent stats on MySpace's demographic? According to eMarketer, MySpace is going GREY!! Ok..I must take offense to that one, given the fact that I am 39 and the numbers show that MySpace is appealing to more 35 year-olds. Gee whiz folks...when did that become GREY?? Over 51% of MySpace visitors were 35 and older in August. Teens dropped from 24% to 11%! Well I do have my own theory on this one. I think it's all the parents checking up on their kids MySpace pages! FINALLY!! They do note that it's not quanity...but quality of the visit that should count and in that the kids are making up for their lower numbers in a lot more time spent! So where are the kids going now? It seems that Xanga.com is reaching that market...Xanga is a blogging space and a networking space and a...dessert topping...a floor wax....

On to other things...very quickly as the time is running out before I turn into a pumpkin. So I'm teaching this Online Visibility Class and already my title is out of date! Although the topic is right on the money it would seem. A look around the web at a series of blogs brought up one that I'll be reading often Influential Internet Marketing. In the blog, Rohit Bhargava, an internet marketing professional with Olgivy PR highlights some of the most cutting edge and exciting innovations in online PR. What I'm calling Online Visibilty he's now calling SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION. Actually makes sense. Wikipedia has a definition. There's even a voting option for it at CHANGE THIS!

Do I buy it? Yep I do. The more I look at how the web is creating a set of networks that allow us to go beyond the typical media channel and actually allow our customers to enage with the brand, how it enables tighter niche marketing and how technology is creating opportunities that we never saw before (check out the whole Second Life thing on Bhargava's blog this week!), the more I'm convinced that the power of PR and Marketing is expanding in ways that many aren't even thinking of.

Now just try being a professor and keeping up with all of that!

Hmmm...Shakespeare is looking very very good to me.