Pres. Barack Obama will perhaps go down in history as the first “social media candidate” (my phrase) for his innovative use of social media to gain support and raise funds during the 2008 campaign. But don’t expect a repeat in 2012.
The president kicked off his re-election bid earlier this month with an announcement via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter, and hosted a Facebook Town Hall (above) on Wednesday. The focus of the 2012 campaign, however, looks to be squarely on more traditional TV ads.
“The 2012 re-election team will run through its war chest mostly by buying massive amounts of advertising on radio and TV,” Reuters reported, amid speculation that the Obama team would raise a record $1 billion on campaign spending.
Juxtaposed, those posts almost make the president’s social efforts seem like window dressings. And as Nancy Scola of TechPresident.com told AFP, “the Obama presidency has been one run without the sort of grassroots collaboration implied by the ’08 campaign.”
President Obama looking at an iPad. Photo from White House Flickr page
The variables this time are entirely different. For one thing, the “change” theme is completely reversed, since asking to be re-elected is literally the exact opposite of change. That’s somewhat problematic from a social media standpoint because it takes away a huge call to action. So the Obama campaign will have to craft a message that basically says “the same, but, you know, better” — not exactly jump-out-of-your-seat-and-Like-it.
For another, as Scola pointed out, the president has had more than two years to engage his crowdsourced/grassroots community, which is something he’s struggled with. The 2008 Obama campaign got that social media was important, but the Obama administration thus far has been somewhat confused over how to return the favor (unless you count various pieces of legislation that have been passed and an awesome Flickr account as returning the favor).
Granted, the 2008 campaign didn’t run entirely on social media, but Pres. Obama has always positioned himself as a man of the people and his social savvy in 2008 definitely helped cement that image. The decision to pump most of the 2012 campaign’s funds into TV ads isn’t entirely surprising, but it does raise the question of how Obama’s social media supporters will react and how many of those from 2008 will return.