Facebook Lessons from the Obama08 Facebook Marketing Campaign - Action Plan for Small Businesses

The Obama08 campaign realized early that Web 2.0 and social networks could be leveraged to engage and organize supporters. They dove into all that Internet marketing, Web 2.0, social networks, and Facebook could potential provide.

Marketing on Facebook is one of the hottest trends among Internet marketers and entrepreneurs today. It’s popularity has fueled its staggering growth.

Facebook

Facebook’s growth from obscurity to the largest social networking site on the Internet has been amazing. In 2008 they leaped over MySpace as the number one social networking destination.

Their application based platform and mass adoption has been the catalysts for Facebook’s rapid growth. Facebook has a diverse demographic and over 161 million unique visitors per month that the Obama08 campaign tapped into.

Facebook members used its applications to engage and converse with one another and the Obama campaign. With 61 billion page views per month, Facebook has a very active community.

Customized Engagement

Having access to a tool and knowing how to use it are two different stories. The Obama campaign realized early on that Facebook offered unique delivery methods that, if properly implemented, could help them succeed online.

The Facebook application platform offers flexibility and customization in how you engage others. With Facebook’s applications you have the tools to effectively deliver your message in a variety of ways including:

• Notes
• Photos
• News Feed
• Posted Items
• Video
• Messages
• Comments
• Tags
• Fans
• Wall Posts
• Event Invites
• Groups
• Friend Requests
• Search
• Profile
• Pages
• Applications

With Facebook, you can create a community around your brand by conversing and engaging with your customers on a personal level.

Facebook is a phenomenal opportunity to market and promote your business, products, and services for free. You can gain a competitive advantage over competitors by properly executing a Facebook marketing strategy.

Numbers Tell the Truth

The Obama08 campaign embraced social media and Facebook. Their participation and activity on Facebook can be measured by their Facebook statistcis. On Election Day, November 4, 2008, Barack Obama had the following Facebook Page stats.

• 12 Favorite Pages that targeted his niche markets
• 39 YouTube videos with hundreds of comments
• 1669 Notes with thousands of comments
• 15 Photo Albums which contain hundreds of photos with comments
• 21 Posted Items
• 2,443,658 Supporters
• 494,998 Wall Posts
• 5 Mini-Feed stories with 2 items on that day
• 1 fully completed Information profile

These numbers prove that the Obama08 campaign and its community was very active in engaging each other.

Obama08 Facebook Action Guide

There are numerous ways to build your presence on Facebook. Here’s a strategy based on Obama’s Facebook marketing strategy to build your presence on Facebook while driving traffic to your website.

Complete Profile

• Fully complete the requested profile information
• Upload videos and photos to your Video and Photo applications
• Upload you blog or site’s feed to your Notes
• Add links that point to pages or posts on your website

Add Friends

• Find and add friends in your niche or targeted audience (pay attention to alerts)

Create Facebook Pages

• Create Facebook Pages for your business, brands, and offers
• Upload relevant content to your Facebook Pages

Join Groups

• Join and participate in relevant Groups

Engage and Converse

• Add Status Updates to your profile
• Send messages to your friends and fans

These aren't all of the ways to converse and engage with your audience on Facebook. There are more ways for small businesses to leverage Facebook. But this action plan is a good place to start.

Barack Obama’s Facebook Page Helped Him Win the Election 2.0 Battle

Barack Obama’s embracing of Facebook and Web 2.0 has been unprecedented. They encouraged their supporters to interact with the Obama08 campaign through Facebook and other Web 2.0 sites.

Facebook, in conjunction with their my.barackobama.com website, was leveraged to galvanize, organize, and mobilize their supporters. Obama08 created a Facebook Page to engage their supporters and to drive traffic to their website.

FaceBook Pages
Facebook Pages are a great way for your customers and prospects to connect with your brand. The content on these Pages can be customized and targeted to your niche.

There are many Facebook Page features that the Obama 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign implemented on their road to victory. These features and applications can be used by entrepreneurs and Internet marketers to build there presence on Facebook.

Favorite Pages
If you view an interesting and relevant Facebook Page, you can add that Page to your Favorite Pages application or module. You can create Facebook Pages that are relevant to your niche and add them to this section of your Facebook Page.

Notes
Notes is the blogging feature of Facebook which allows you to create a mini-blog on your Facebook page. You can manually post messages or you can import posts from another blog feed.

Photos
The photos application allows you to add relevant images and photos to your Facebook Page. You can create photo albums and upload an unlimited number of images to Facebook.

Posted Items
You can upload and post profiles, photos, photo albums, notes, News Feed stories, and external content to your Facebook Page through the Posted Items application. This sharing application enables you to share relevant items you find on the Internet to your Facebook Page.Supporters/

Fans
This is the section of your Facebook Page that lists all of you fans, followers, and supporters. You can interact with fans directly by sending updates and messages to your fans. Information
Additional information can also be added to your Facebook Page. The Information application includes info about your website addresses, company overview, mission, and products.

Mini-Feed
The Mini-Feed includes daily information concerning your Facebook activity. It displays a variety of information including profile changes, events, comments, and birthdays.

The Wall
Fans can post messages to your Facebook Page in The Wall. The Wall is a section of your Page that allows you and your fans to post messages for others to view.

YouTube Box
YouTube Box is a third-party application that allows you to add videos to your Page that others and view. You can add individual videos or a YouTube channel to your YouTube Box section.

Profile Picture
A logo, photo, or other image of your choice will be prominently displayed at the top of your Facebook Page. A thumbnail version of your image is also used for your presence throughout Facebook.

Select Administrators
Facebook gives you the ability to select administrators from your Friends to help you edit and manage your Pages. This feature is great for busy entrepreneurs who don’t have the time to manage their own profiles.

View Insights
View Page statistics through the View Insights features. It’s not very robust, but you can analyze your Pages’ fans, page views, unique views, Wall posts, discussion topics, reviews, and photo views. You can also export your data for further analysis.

Facebook Pages are hard to find on Facebook. You can access Facebook Pages by clicking the advertising link from the bottom of the Home Page.

Obama08 Leveraged Twitter to Drive Traffic to Their Website and Help Win an Election Part 2 – Twitter Action Plan for Small Businesses

This is the second part of an article about how the Obama08 presidential campaign leveraged Twitter as a marketing tool. The first part was about how Barack Obama promoted his marketing message and built his brand awareness on Twitter.

Increase Their Number of Followers

By Election Day, Barack Obama had over 115,000 followers. That's the largest number of followers that anyone had on Twitter.

Barack Obama has excellent name recognition and is very popular. This was the primary driving force behind his 'super-sized' follower count. But Obama's activity on Twitter was another driving force behind the huge number of followers he has on Twitter.

The Obama08 campaign was very active in following other people on Twitter. Barack Obama followed over 119,000 people by Election Day. When you follow people on Twitter, you stand a better chance of being followed.

Drive Traffic to Their Website

The primary traffic driver from Twitter was the links in the status updates. Another traffic driver was the barackobama.com link in his Twitter profile. These links pointed to relevant and targeted pages on the barackobama.com web site.

Implementing the Obama08 Twitter Marketing Campaign

Most of us don't have the resources, time, or money to hire a dedicated social networking team to manage our Twitter accounts. Also, accruing over 115,000 Twitter followers isn't within most of our reach.

But the great thing about Twitter is that it's easily scalable to your objectives and resources. Entrepreneurs, home-based businesses, Internet marketers, affiliate marketers, and professionals can achieve their objectives on Twitter like Barack Obama.

It starts with establishing realistic Twitter expectations and objectives. Your objectives should revolve around adding followers and sending status updates to drive traffic to your web site.

Obama08 Twitter Action Plan

1. Open a Twitter Account with your real name as the username

2. Create a profile

• Add your targeted keywords in the bio section
• Upload a logo or photo
• Add your real name
• Add your website
• Enter your location

3. Customize Your Background

• Add a background image to your profile
• Change the theme and background color

4. Start following people and people will begin to follow you

• Search for profiles and messages with your keywords with Twitter Search
• Follow the followers of the people you are following

5. Status Updates

• Send out one status update every other day
• Make sure the updates provide value to your followers
• Add a link to all updates to relevant and targeted web pages on your website
• Use a URL shortening service to add links to your status updates

Obama08 Leveraged Twitter to Drive Traffic to Their Website and Help Win an Election Part 1 – Obama08 Twitter Marketing Strategy

Twitter is a microblog that allows you to send short messages to your followers. The Obama08 campaign successfully used Twitter to build a network of followers. He delivered his message to his Twitter followers and drove them to his site to sell paraphernalia, solicit donations, and further sell his candidacy.

Barack Obama joined Twitter in March 2007 and set out to increase his presence on Twitter. By Election Day, in only 19 months, he rose from no followers to the most followed person on Twitter.

The Obama 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign didn't start out on top of Twitter. They created a plan and implemented a successful Internet marketing strategy to grow their number of followers and drive traffic to their site from Twitter.

Their Twitter strategy was simple, well executed, and consistent with their overall Internet Marketing Strategy.

• Deliver their message
• Build their brand awareness
• Increase their number of followers
• Drive traffic to their website

Deliver Their Message to Twitter Followers

To help deliver their message of 'Hope and Change' they used the Status Updates feature of Twitter. Status Updates allows messages, with a 140 character text limit, to be sent to their Twitter followers.

Obama08 status updates on Twitter all had a message and a link to their website. They kept followers updated on what Barack Obama was doing and provided a link to specific pages on the barackobama.com website for further information.

With 262 status updates by Election Day, the Obama08 campaign averaged around 3.5 status updates per week. That's 1 update every other day. This is a good number because too much or too little might have been perceived as not engaging in a real conversation. This would have 'turned off' their Twitter followers.

Build Their Brand Awareness on Twitter

The Twitter profile, theme, and background image is how the Obama08 campaign redesigned their Twitter site to better reflect their brand. They added a headshot of Barack Obama to the upper left corner of the page and change the background color to match their website.

The Obama08 campaign also added a Barack Obama photo, real name, location, and website address to his Twitter profile. They further used Barack Obama's real name as the username for his Twitter account.

This is the first part of an article about how the Obama08 presidential campaign leveraged Twitter as a marketing tool. The second part of the article is about Barack Obama's Twitter followers and how he drove traffic to his web site.

As a bonus, a Twitter Action Guide is included, in the second part, to help small businesses implement the Obama08 Twitter marketing strategy.

How the Obama 08 Campaign Embraced Internet Marketing and Web 2.0 to Win the 2008 US Presidential Elections

Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama for winning the 2008 U.S. Presidential elections. As an Internet marketer I was fascinated by how the Obama08 campaign embraced the Internet and Web 2.0. They implemented some basic Internet marketing strategies to gain a competitive advantage over John McCain on the Internet.

The Obama 08 campaign used the Internet to build their brand, deliver their message, solicit donations, sell paraphernalia, build relationships, and drive traffic to their site. Although they weren’t the first campaign to use the Internet, they were the first to fully and truly embrace Internet marketing.

Barack Obama built an experienced and innovative marketing team that built and grew his Internet presence. From Facebook’s co-founder, Chris Hughes, to passionate college students, Barack Obama surrounded himself with creative and forward thinking marketing talent.

Obama’s Internet marketing strategy revolved around the message, the brand, the medium, and the offer. The Obama08 campaign used all four of these components to launch and execute a successful Internet marketing campaign.

The Message
Obama used a message of ‘Hope and Change’ as the core of his marketing campaign. He placed this message everywhere: in speeches, on paraphernalia, in ads, and on web sites. Wherever he had an Internet presence, his marketing message was prominently displayed.

He also had a message which resonated within voters for this particular election. His message of hope and change touched the emotions and minds of Americans.

Obama’s message was also very timely. With the economy in a free fall, foreclosures rising, and unemployment rates up, people have lost faith in the government. Barack Obama’s message of hope and change was the right message for the right time.

The Brand
Obama’s name and brand was consistent regardless of where he advertised. The Obama08 logo was everywhere and all of his web sites and marketing collateral had one consistent look and feel.

Not only did Obama have a message of hope and change, he positioned himself as the one to provide hope and deliver change. He branded himself as the agent for change and his message supported his brand.

The Medium
As I said earlier, Obama embraced the Internet and the power of Web 2.0. His Internet marketing strategy heavily leaned on engaging in a conversation with people on social networks.

He had a presence on all of the top social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Eventful, and YouTube. They were also on some niche social networking sites like BlackPlanet, Faithbase, MiGente, AsianAve, and MyBatanga. Obama also created his own social networking site to converse with and empower supporters.

He just didn’t have a presence on these social networking sites, he actively participated in these online communities. He accepted friends, befriended others, added favorites, uploaded videos, and posted messages.

The Obama campaign also posted ads on Facebook, uploaded PDFs to Scribd, and shared photos on Flickr. They embraced all that Web 2.0 could offer their campaign.

The Offer
Barack Obama’s primary offering was his service as President of the United States. This is what he was selling to Americans and the World.

To help him operate and fund the campaign, he was also selling Obama08 paraphernalia and soliciting donations.

All three of his offerings were displayed throughout his Internet presence. Wherever you saw his brand and message, links to his offerings were also displayed.

The Obama08 US Presidential Campaign leveraged the Internet, Web 2.0, and social networks to deliver their message, expose their brand, and drive traffic to their offers. This is the basic strategy behind successful Internet marketing campaigns.

Entrepreneurs and Internet marketers can learn some practical Internet marketing lessons from the Obama08 U.S. Presidential Campaign. The Obama 2.0 Marketing strategy can easily be scaled and implemented by savvy entrepreneurs and Internet marketers.