Web 2.o developments have significantly changed the way political campaigns are executed. The Obama campaign championed some of these technologies with a team of over 90 people working on just their internet presence. While virility is much easier to attain with a presidential candidate, it did plow a path for for more local political campaigns to follow in how social media can make a difference on election day.
First of all, not only did Obama have a Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and every other social network page, he also created his whole own social network Mybarackobama.com, which had millions of registered users. While this is a good start, it was only the beginning. Obama kept a blog, a text message list, email list with 13 million names, and more. What this signifies is not just a move of campaigning to the internet, but utilizing the less formal aspects of online marketing. Getting a text message from Obama is much more humanizing than seeing him on CNN addressing a crowd.
This feeds into consumer psychology. If politics is a business, representation is the product. People want to believe they have access to their politicians, and that their voice is truly heard. Utilizing these technologies, Obama was able to address many more nuanced concerns of his constituacy. Following in suite, many other politicians began using Twitter to Having new ways to both reach out to your audience and have them feel as if they are reaching you, this has greatly changed the way campaigns will be done.
