Will Obama’s campaign get more people into social media?

—From Melanie

Obviously the world has been buzzing about President-elect Obama’s victory a couple days ago (being American, I actually took yesterday off to recooperate). A big part of that buzz from both inside and outside the industry, however, was the use of social media by the Obama campaign.

What I’ve started to realise over the last few months is just how much the Obama Internet campaign has brought together people online who may not, unlike myself, have such a vested interest in that sort of communication.

First there was the Causes Facebook campaign where over 4.9 million people donated their status to remind people to vote on Tuesday. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would reckon about 70-75 per cent of my Facebook friends participated.

I also started seeing more and more stories about the impact of Twitter and YouTube on the campaign in the run-up to the election.  This article from the Dallas Morning News, for example, outlined all the different ways election coverage would be delivered online.

Then there was YouTube.  According to Information Week, YouTube users spent over 14.5 million hours watching official Obama campaign videos.

My hunch is that the Obama campaign has truly thrust the power of social media into the mainstream and as a result, we will see more ‘ordinary’ people joining in the conversation.

Photo via Marc Baumann