yes we can - barak obama and social media

barack obama + social media

learnings for volunteering organisationsTuesday, 16 June 2009

an unlikely story

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

he was a political unknown until 2004


he’d only been in the Senate for 4 years


he was

46


nobody was looking for obama


he’s black in a country which until recently practiced apartheid


his middle name

is Hussein


and his surname rhymes

with Osama


young people don’t care and don’t win elections, right?


13 million email subscribers 3 million profiles created

3.9 million donations 93% less than $100

200,000 offline events planned35,000 groups created

3.2 million Facebook friends$640million raised

5 million volunteers3,600 volunteers in 1 State

gave 6 weeks of unpaid work


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK7pWOgRqYM




so how did Obama use social media to mobilise

volunteers?


he spent time where the young people are

16Official Social Spaces


Facebook (official)1,110

MyBarackObama930

Facebook(“1M Strong”)

587

Black Planet490

MySpace415

YouTube

62

MiGente

54

Twitter46

Glee2

75% of the

community exists

“out there” he was part of their

communities


he used their media and their language


he made it about ‘you’

your choices

your responsibility

your benefits


he gave volunteers their own identity

volunteers have personalised profilesTuesday, 16 June 2009

everything they do is recorded

and displayed on a public

dashboard


volunteers set their own targets

a thermometer shows their progress

the difference they made is plain to seeTuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteers motivated by competition

they get points for achievements

their ranking increases as they do moreTuesday, 16 June 2009

volunteering is on their doorstep


volunteers recruit their own friends

peers recruit peers


volunteers are given a voice via the blogging

platform

they talk about what

they have done

it gets published on the main site


“...In our own campaign, polling was just one way we viewed how we were doing in a state in the general election. We had a lot of voter identification work. We had a lot of field data. We don't have to wait for a state to report in how they did that night; we can look at it, down to the volunteer level, because we trusted our volunteers. We gave them the voter file, we said here are the people on your block, you go talk to 'em, you record the result of the conversation. And we in Chicago could look at that in real-time and help us plan our resource” David Plouffe, Obama Campaign Director

volunteers were given responsibility. they became a trusted data source.they were part of the infrastructure. Tuesday, 16 June 2009

they give their time in fun, creative

ways

songs, photos, diaries,

designs,

he harnessed their urge

for creativityTuesday, 16 June 2009

he gave them the tools to take action in their own time in easy ways

in innovative ways Tuesday, 16 June 2009

“At least 60,000 people have applied to be volunteers during the days of activities surrounding the inauguration of U.S...People want to get involved. People want to be a part of this thing ... a part of history.“ Transition committee spokesman Kevin Griffis

he made volunteers feel part of something

bigger


thanked. in real time.

directly. Tuesday, 16 June 2009

new methods enhanced the

campaign but did not replace traditional

methods


nice rewards


"Volunteer citizens were involved at every level and no one was rejected. Everyone had a role: harnessing the power of the web, making phone calls, transporting electors, reaching the uninvolved” Hans Riemer, national youth vote director for the Obama campaign

tailored tasks


"It's not rocket science," he says. "What we have to do is give them the tools to create a plan and just keep in touch with them as they create their plan and execute it. Winning an election is just a matter of breaking it down into manageable pieces, so we show them what those pieces are, and then turn them loose. As long as we can do that, there's no problem. They can make it happen." Hans Riemer, national youth vote director for the Obama campaign

bite-size tasks


"We had a volunteer headquarters that we all pretty much lived in," says Liz Lempert, who co-chaired an Obama group in Princeton, N.J., that will meet next week. "Moving out of that office is really hard. People just want to keep those ties together."

focused on the human

focused on the emotional


key learnings

leverage young people’s urge for competition and sociability

give young people the tools and the responsibility to use them

use digital to communicate, to feedback, to thank, in real time

go to where young people are, instead of expecting them to come to us

use social media to enhance but not replace traditional methods

make young people feel part of something bigger


3 things you can do tomorrow

create a twitter feed as a record of activity

record and display everything they do

create a youtube channel for video volunteer diaries


thank you*

sidekickstudios.net

*especially to all those people I got images and charts from but haven’t credited


yes we can - barak obama and social media

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barack obama

young people dont care

obama group inprinceton

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