Tracking Obama’s, McCain’s Use of Social Media

An new study, conducted by Elaine J. Young, associate professor of marketing and e-business management at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt, is revealing how both Barack Obama and John McCain are tapping an ever increasing share of social media to engage and connect with potential voters.

An expert in web visibility and optimization, Young maintains that Action Centers, Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Eons, YouTube and Web Advertising are becoming an inherent part of political campaigning. The Obama Mobile text messaging initiative has already won a number of awards and now the Illinois Senator is taking his message to LinkedIn, a worldwide internet network of more than 20 million experienced professionals.

The new world of politics-gone-tech is also streamlining campaign analytics. Research that once required a set of proprietary quantitative tools can now be done by tracking Facebook 'friend' requests and network affiliations. "How many of these are friends in multiple networks?" asks Young. "I continue to believe that what we are seeing this year is but a glimpse of what is to come in the future. As marketers and politicians work with these tools, they will get more sophisticated and more trackable."

Of course the 'power to the people' ethos of social media, coupled with widespread availability of cheap video editing software, can also poison an otherwise equitable political debate. For examples of falsehoods and myths on both ends of the political spectrum look no further than the "Obama is Muslim" crusade and Robert Greenwald's McCain-Rev. Parsley connection - both receiving millions of unique views on Youtube.

For more on the way the internet is shaping the political landscape visit Pof. Elaine Young's blog.