Originally Published: October 2008

There has been a huge amount written about Barack Obama, some of this has come from marketing journals and magazines. These aren’t political commentary or details on media spend, but rather articles written about Obama’s marketing strategy. Obama has made himself a brand and embraced a political candidate’s worst nightmare – social media. However, this is not about ‘Brand Obama’ (there are plenty of articles about this) instead it questions the underlying premise of Obama’s strategy: Can social media mobilise?

It doesn’t make sense to run a political campaign with a huge online component unless there is a guarantee that these virtual participants will enroll and vote (hopefully for said candidate). As it stands this form of logic holds true as there is not a motivating or self-serving factor making people vote (as nice as it would be to think that politics interests all). For example, ‘Obamagirl’, who caused quite a stir on YouTube with her ‘crush’ video, failed to vote in February’s primary in her home state of New Jersey; showing that virtual participation is not always equal to real life action. This problem is something that political candidate Obama has been quick to catch on to and so too should companies that use social media in a similar way, with hopes of a similar outcome.

A motivating factor in social networks such as MySpace, Facebook or for this example Mybarackobama.com is peer pressure and subsequent social embarrassment. With this in mind, Obama (more likely his marketing people) has set about creating greater transparency on his home social network. As part of a profile on Mybarackobama.com supporters are given an ‘activity index’ which measures their recent active involvement in Barack’s campaign. The index is ranked numerically from 1 to 10 (1 lowest and 10 highest) and is visible to friends and other members. Supporters can increase their activity index by: registering to vote, calling voter lists, hosting events, raising funds etc. The ‘activity index’ works on a peer pressure principle. For example, if a group of friends or family are members of Mybarackobama.com and they see that a member of their circle is only indexing 1, it’s likely the will give that person a hard time about their lack of involvement. Peer pressure (with its high school negative connotations) is a motivating social phenomenon that Obama is using to mobilise his online supporters.

This learning is important to any company marketing their service or product through a social network. If your call-to-action involves the consumer moving from the virtual environment to in store, telephone or even voting poll then creating transparency in the user experience is important. Allowing friends to see their group’s involvement or activity in a given area means that there will be a natural form of peer pressure – even if it is only a comment on their profile. Basically, social media mobilises only when it takes on characteristics and motivations inherent in the ‘real world’ such as peer pressure.