What Old Media Can Learn From Barack Obama

ReputationDefender Blog reader Simon wrote in after reading this ReputationDefender Blog Post about Barack Obama purchasing ads in video games. Simon points us to a PBS piece by Chris O’Brien that looks at how the newspaper industry can transition into the digital space by studying Obama’s online and interactive communication strategy.

Of course, a lot has already been written about how Obama’s campaign has utilized social networking and micro-financing to turn his campaign into a broad-based movement. The record $150 million he raised in September is testament to that strategy. He’s mastered the viral nature of the Internet to tap into a swell of grassroots support that will likely be hard to stop next month.

But what struck me, in the case of the videogame ads, was how his campaign had employed a strategy that reached far beyond the Internet to communicate. No platform is too big, or too small. If they think there is a significant community to be reached, they’ve gone after them wherever they are.

And they’re not just re-purposing messages. Instead, they’re creating messages tailored to each specific platform. Beyond the videogames, here are just three more that come to mind:

• Twitter: This is the best known, perhaps. Obama’s Twitter account now has 102,247 followers, one of the largest on Twitter. Obama’s campaign primarily uses the account to put out links to videos, short campaign announcements, and brief messages.

• iPhone application: This nifty little application can be downloaded from the iTunes store to your iPhone where it searches your contact list for phone numbers of people in battleground states. When it finds relevant numbers, it alerts you and suggests you call that person. It also pulls in news and video updates.

• Text messages: The plan to announce the selection of his running mate via text messages was a dud. But in the process, he got thousands to volunteer their mobile phone number which has allowed the campaign to continue blasting out updates wherever someone is.

The article is exceedingly well written and well worth reading. Special thanks to alert reader Simon, too, for participating in the meaningful conversations we try to engender on ReputationDefender Blog. As media continues to diversify, managing personal and corporate reputations becomes more important and more complex. ReputationDefender remains the market leader for personal brand management and Online Identity Management.

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