Ben spoke to a packed cafe about how the Obama campaign team used a variety of online media platforms for its grassroots fundraising efforts. The Obama campaign used various online platforms to reach, engage and raise donations from millions of Americans. Ben explained how the campaign ran more than 1800 YouTube videos, which were viewed more than 50 million times. It used email highly effectively. It created a social network site, My Barack Obama, an online community with over a million members, where people could find local events and groups, contact undecided voters near them and share their personal stories on their blogs to encourage more Americans to become engaged in the campaign movement. The Obama team also used the internet to fight rumours, setting up a "Fight the Smears" site and running text ads that sent traffic to the website.
Australian Googlers had plenty of questions on all sorts of issues around the most successful online political campaign of all time, ranging from Americans' responses to different online media, to President Obama's position on important technology and internet policy issues, to the campaign's use of search marketing, to how the campaign used online feedback as a testing bed and adapted tactics on the fly.
It was a fantastic session and we're already looking forward to seeing how Australian parties translate the lessons of President Obama's campaign to our next election campaign. On that note, congratulations to Premier of Queensland Anna Bligh who has just launched her new interactive website and YouTube channel.
