FreshNetworks Blog

I know that polls can be inaccurate – they are biased towards people with a fixed-line telephone (rather than just a mobile phone or no phone at all), they suffer from people projecting the response they think the interviewer wants to hear (they may not admit that they wouldn’t vote for a black man), and we know that how you ask the question can vary the response you get. However, most polls seem to agree about the outcome of today’s US Presidential Election. From CNN to Bebo and even a poll of Americans in the office at FreshNetworks all suggest one outcome – an Obama victory. Okay the Bebo poll did see Paris Hilton take second place above McCain, and there are only two Americans in my office – but the argument holds!

We’ve posted in the past about the 2008 US Presidential Campaign. Be it Obama’s lead in the web campaign during the Primaries, his team posting Democrat strategy discussion online, things we can learn from Obama’s use of online communities or what UK politicians can learn about social media from this US campaign. What’s evident is that this campaign has been one that has really embraced social media and online communities both as a way to campaign and as a way to engage people on the issues. Both main candidates have embraced social networks and online communities, although nobody probably doubts that it is Obama who has shown real innovation. Using strong calls to action on his site, building and engaging with the community both on his site and where they are, and involving people in the process he has shown a real example of how engagement should work.

My question now is how this might carry on into a potential Obama-Biden administration. How would they use social media and online communities to continue to engage with people when they are in power. Social media can really help engage people when it provides away for them to have a real exchange about things that matter to them, where they can find out information on things they are interested in, share ideas and thoughts with peers and with politicians, report things to them and feel that they continue to be part of a campaign. Whatever happens tonight and whoever wins the election, it is likely that it will be a difficult few years; involving and engaging those who have been such strong supporters to now will continue to be a priority.

Whatever happens, our advice to Obama would be to keep it simple and focus on what has worked so far. Find a way to inspire and involve those who have been passionate about your campaign so far, keeping their enthusiasm and advocacy on side. But move beyond this and think about the ways in which social media can actually help to make your life easier. Whether that’s automating and bringing online petitions and discussions on issues, allowing review and comments on policy ideas online and in communities or using social media as a way of getting your message directly to people you are trying to engage and in a medium that really engages them.

Our work with clients at FreshNetworks shows that using social media successfully can really make things easier for them. We’ve seen this in the campaign – in terms of reach, letting advocates do your campaigning for you or raising money from a broad body of donors. I hope that when in the White House, Obama’s team use social media to make it easier for them to meet the new challenges and issues they will have to face in this role. That kind of engagement can only be good for citizens, and it can be powerful for the administration too.

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Some more reading

• United States Election Day 2008 Coverage Online
• US election: Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago confident in his chances
• Using Social Media & Charisma To Brand
• US elections: the best of the rest on the web
• 2008 Presidential Race Tops $1B
• Top 10 election 2008 moments
• US Election 2008: Coming to a computer near you, live, tonight
• Can’t Miss This!: Election Day 2008
• Track the 2008 Presidental Election from your mobile phone

Earlier this week, the UK Prime Minister’s main website (www.Number10.gov.uk) was relaunched. We’ve seen recently that that Number 10 has been experimenting with the use of Twitter to send updates (follow them here) and the use of YouTube to answer questions from the public (see the YouTube channel here). The new website places social media at its core and is again an example of how the UK Government is trying new things in social media before many corporates.

The website is built on WordPress, and that should be the first indication of its mission and aim. News items look like blog posts and the feel of the site is much more social than the previous version (which felt like a traditional corporate site). When we talk about online communities at FreshNetworks, we talk about issue-centred navigation with calls to action. This kind of layout is typical of social sites, and even though the new Number10 site isn’t a community in the way that we would understand it, it does use this issue-based, call-to-action approach. The options you have are a mix of editorial content (News and History) with more social content (communicate, Meet the PM and Number 10 TV). For the user there is no distinction between the two types of content – they are presented equally and side-by-side.

This is also seen in the way the site pulls in feeds from Flickr, and Twitter on the homepage. This has the dual benefit of bringing a constantly changing source of media for the site and meaning that all the previous social media activities are being brought together.

So, do these changes mean that the site is a success? The answer is obviously not clear-cut. The building-blocks are now in place for a great, social portal into the Prime Minister’s office. The mix of editorial and social content and the use of media and feeds means that people will feel more like insiders. The website is less a place people go to to find out information and more one where they go to interact. This development is to be encouraged. The real sign of success will be how the site is managed, whether content is actively and continually created, whether the Flickr albums will update frequently and, ultimately the levels of user-interaction that are allowed. Giving people that feeling of being an insider is great; they will now want to talk to you directly.

Some more reading

• Brown’s website is Web2.0tastic
• Prime Minister, meet Flickr and Twitter
• New 10 Downing Street website launched
• Number10.gov.uk Launches
• New 10 Downing Street site runs WordPress

Today’s Libération, in Paris, reports on the rise of “le Twitter” (or gazouillis as it could be in French) and in particular its use in politics. Citing a French researcher the article says that:

Politicians, already under pressures, like to think that with these new means of communication they will escape the yoke of journalism and instead establish a direct link with the public

Twitter is still in it’s infancy in France. It has only 6,000 users, as opposed to the two million French people on Facebook. But even though the take-up is small (although growing rapidly) it’s development is being accelarated by learning from how it is being used in the US.

The French researcher quoted in the article no doubt has Barack Obama and his more than 50,000 followers in his mind. But what is interesting is to compare how he is using Twitter and how it is being used by French politicians.

Obama has a large following and is using Twitter as a means of pushing out messages and feeds. Contrast this with Benoît Hamon, a French Member of the European Parliament. He is using Twitter to give updates on what he is doing, such as

I don’t understand why riot police has cordoned off the European Parliament for Sarkozy’s arrival. The strikers have always been peaceful until now.

This contrast is interesting and shows, again, how the same social media site can be used by different people for different things. Obama is using it to issue notices and updates, Hamon to give his followers a real insight into his life and observations.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is that even though Twitter is in its infancy in France it is being used in a very mature way by its politicians. This shows that being a first mover can often mean a slower adoption curve. The US took to Twitter a lot quicker but the growth of corporate, political and organisational use of the medium to engage the public has developed quite slowly. France can start higher up this curve. It can start much sooner to use social media to have a direct link with the public.

Some more reading

• Can Barack Obama Fix Twitter?
• Twitter, la nouvelle arme des politiques
• McCain Lags Behind Obama in Online Fundraising, Social Networking Popularity

A lot has been written about the online strategies of Barack Obama’s campaign team, in particular in their ability to drive grassroots support and donations from thousands of supporters. (See our  own posts here and here).

One of the latest outputs from the team is an open briefing to supporters by David Plouffe, Campaign Manager. He’s recorded a short video of himself and some powerpoint slides that detail the upcoming campaign strategy and what’s required if they are to beat John McCain.

I think the video is worthy of a mention as it’s a great example of an organisation moving from polished advertising messages to raw, uncut conversations aimed at driving community engagement.

For fifty years presidential candidates have carefully crafted their messages and tried to give a sense of Teflon-coated invulnerability. Yet here is the campaign manager having a quick chat into the camera. He’s filmed in poor light, from his office chair, in casual clothes.

Now I am not saying this message hasn’t been carefully crafted, I am sure it has. In fact they probably tested different versions with a private online research community to get feedback before sending it out to everyone. But it’s the fact they have chosen to go with an unpolished, real-world feel that I find most interesting and that makes the video engaging.

Also worthy of note is that despite this being a two-horse race, despite the fact that McCain’s people will be keen to pour over the strategies mentioned here, they have still published it for all to see. They know the impact on their own advocates will outweigh the benefit to McCain’s troops. That’s a pretty bold move, but it’s what his campaign has been about all along.

This video is a great example of someone who has embraced the open, straight talking nature of the web to create real engagement and dialogue.

An article in this morning’s FT reported that the UK government intends to ban product placement, and suggests that digital media would need to be considered on the same level as traditional broadcast media.

Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary,  responding to the new EU directive that requires member states to declare publicly if they will permit product placement, said:

“There is a risk that product placement exacerbates this decline in trust and contaminates our programmes,” he said. “There is a risk that, at the very moment when television needs to do all it can to show it can be trusted, we elide the distinction between programmes and adverts.”

But perhaps of greater concern to those of us working in the digital industry was Burnham’s suggestion that the government should ensure that the same standards they expect from broadcast media are also upheld by digital media.

“If a clip on YouTube gets a million hits, it is akin to broadcasting and it doesn’t seem to me to be too difficult to have an alert on that clip, an alert for language, or violence or sex,”

The problem with this comparison is that broadcast media and digital media are simply not the same. Burnham was clear that advertising should come between editorial content on TV – so it’s okay to advertise before or at an interval of a programme, but not during it. But online these firm distinctions are not clear. In the world of social medi, video and photo merge with content and adverts. The medium is much more dynamic than TV broadcasting, and a more dynamic approach would be needed by the government if it were to intervene here. A simple ‘complain’ button would not suffice.

I suspect that this debate is only just beginning.