The most socially networked election
I was reading Jeremiah Owyang’s blog on Snapshot of Presidential Candidate Social Networking Stats: Nov 3, 2008 and deeply impressed by the stats. Below is an abstraction from his blog post.
Internet Usage in United States
United States Population: 303,824,646
Internet Usage: 220,141,969
Penetration rate: 72.5%
Growth from 2000-2008: 130.9%
Stats from Internet WorldStats (Census, Nielson)
———————–
Obama: 2,379,102 supporters
McCain: 620,359 supportersObama has 380% more supporters than McCain
———————–MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161
McCain: Friends: 217,811Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain
———————–YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain
———————–
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers
McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4,603 followersObama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain
This caused me to wonder how did social networking played a part in his success or did it even play a part in his success?
Well, first of all, people would have heard of him or liked/supported him outside of social networking tools before they would go online, search for Obama and “befriend” him on Facebook, MySpace or following him on Twitter. If that’s the case, a general assumption can be made that many Americans that followed him were going to vote for him in the elections. I am sure there are some people that were undecided would follow both and see what each candidate can come up with. However, that’s just a fraction of his followers online. So how did social networking help?
Personally, without more indepth information and statistics, I can say much. My gut feel is that social networking displayed two things 1) Information for the undecided and 2) Information to strengthen the bond with voters which he had already “won”.
The first point is pretty straight forward. However, the second point has some implications. If the bond is strengthen, through the word of mouth, he would have increased the number of people at the grassroots preaching his campaign message at cafes, diners or the bowling alleys.
I can’t really say if social networking has helped his campaign or not. However, since this generation of voters is increasing web savvy with many Gen Ys and Gen Xs being able to vote, he has reached these people at a place they are most comfortable at – the web.
Add A Comment