Archive for June 4th, 2008

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

McCain’s Social Media Problem

So we have two nominees. And both have become Internet superstars over the course of the primary season.

Unfortunately for Republican nominee John McCain, his stardom comes at his peril, highlighting questionable incidents and statements (100 years? Sexism? Bombing Iran?). The readily available footage just adds fuel to the creative fire of McCain’s opponents, leading to parodies that are sometimes even more popular than the original gaffe (No You Can’t. Blame it on McCain. McCain 2013.)

Sure, Democratic nominee Barack Obama gets his share of dings on social media sites, often from his former church (Rev. Wright. Father Pfleger.)

The key difference is that Obama and his campaign have embraced social media — posting nearly 1,110 videos on his YouTube Channel, twittering regularly, sharing more than 18,000 photos on Flickr and blogging (hyper)actively. He’s approaching a million Facebook fans and has large followings on everything from MySpace to MiGente. Not to mention the whole my.BarackObama.com sub-site, which brings embracing social media to a whole other level.

His campaign is fast and consistently on-message throughout the social web. When the Jeremiah Wright controversy really gathered steam on YouTube, his staff was there to flood social media sites with embedded copies of his “A More Perfect Union” speech, which has been watched more than a million times.

McCain, meanwhile, adds a post to his blog every 2-3 days and maintains just token presences on social web sites. His campaign’s participation seems forced, and he clearly doesn’t see substantial value in social media. By not embracing the technology, the technology has come to be a growing headache for the senator.

There are numerous user-compiled reports of McCain flip-flopping, hiring lobbyists for his campaign staff, and the like. If you’re Obama, why hire an opposition research staff? He’s effectively crowd-sourced many of these efforts and doesn’t have to buy advertising time to distribute that material.

If the Republicans really want to have a chance in this election, they must embrace the good and the bad of social media, create their own content and highlight the best of user-generated media supporting their candidate.

Without that, we’ll all be singing along to a mash-up of “YouTube killed the political star” in November.

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