Did Barack Obama’s Web 2.0 Campaign get him into the White House?

Regardless of political views, there’s no doubt that Barack Obama is one of the best examples of someone who made sure his personal brand was everywhere.  He has also received a lot of media attention for his smart way of utilizing web 2.0 during his campaign.

Obama is a campaign pioneer who took advantage of technology in order to create a viral message and reach individuals who may not have been reached through traditional media channels such as newspaper and radio.

On the morning of Election Day, I received a very personalized and thoughtful email from Barack “himself” asking for my vote.  I was stunned at how he got my work email address and sent it right at 8.30 am, but turns out I wasn’t alone!  The Obama campaign had a database (estimated to be over 10 million email addresses), which they used to send out emails at times they thought people would be most likely to open their emails.

Along with an application created for the iphone, Obama also took advantage of text messaging to spread the word.  He announced Joe Biden’s nomination to V.P. to 3 million people via text, and continued to send text messages and asked that people forward the messages on.  Very viral!

Barack also posted You Tube videos which followed his campaign, and made sure he was visible on several social networking sites.  He had over 130,000 followers on Twitter and followed about the same number of people and responded to their tweets.

With this type of online presence, I assume voters could feel a sort of “personal” relationship with him.  Barack’s online presence made him a real guy and someone you can put your confidence and trust too because you had fewer degrees of separation.  It could be said that this type of viral branding campaign subconsciously showed people that Barack cares about each individual American, and will continue that into his presidency.