Barack Obama Tag

Social Media Offers Politicians a New Means to Reach Constituencies

Politicians have been devising ways to communicate with the public and reach out to their constituencies since the inception of the democratic system. And while each form of new media has given legislators more opportunities to communicate their manifold messages, the communiqué has often been filtered through reporters and the discourse has been decidedly one-sided. Social media, unlike any previous innovation, has fundamentally changed the way voters glean information about public officials. Not only do candidates now have unbridled access to the electorate, but social media also offers voters a way to voice their opinions in an open forum.

Traditionally, a candidate needed to take out ad space in order to deliver a message that wasn’t filtered through a journalist, and aside from an op-ed piece, there was little opportunity for conversation or to gauge the public response. With social media, however, there is no intermediary or barriers of communication. Politicians now have the capacity to justify why they voted for a piece of legislation, elected a certain cabinet member or any other decision in their own words—and voters have the chance to respond. (more…)

Google and Yahoo’s Search Terms of 2009

It’s hard to believe that today we entered the last month of the year.  This is the time of year where it seems Barbara Walters reviews just about anything and everything from the year.  From news events to the people that made headlines, and I’m sure In the weeks ahead, we will be seeing an abundance of reports and reviews from the past year.  We’ve already started with them.  Just last week, CNN showcased their Heroes of the Year show, while NBC aired ‘People of the Year.’

While the year were filled with high and lows, both Google & Yahoo have released the top search terms for 2009.  (more…)

A Giant Leap for Blogging Kind

When Barack Obama promised the American people change, not that many imagined he meant change within and through media channels. But on February 9, 2009, Obama held his first press conference, and there were definitely hints of change in the proceedings.

Taking questions started out in the most traditional way possible. Obama called on 88-year-old dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas. A prominent and longstanding figure in the media world, Obama became the tenth U.S. president to field her questions. Obama quipped, “All right, Helen, this is my inaugural moment here,” thus acknowledging the very tradition which he was furthering. All business, Thomas asked a traditionally pointed question about Afghan safe havens for potential terrorists and the existence or nonexistence of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Still keeping within political tradition, Obama spoke without truly answering the question.

He didn’t break tradition until the next question, which was taken from Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, a news-centered blog and self-proclaimed internet newspaper. Stein asked a similarly pointed question regarding the potential prosecution of officials within the Bush administration, which Obama pointedly and elegantly sidestepped.
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If You Want to be as Successful as Obama

With the world watching Obama on inauguration day, it was inevitable that people would carefully analyze his speech from a variety of different angles. But I’m sure not even his young, hotshot speechwriter Jon Favreau (sorry, not Mikey of Swingers fame) foresaw that Obama’s speech would offer some helpful insight into all of our future online content.

With it well known that politicians are the kings and queens of rhetoric, what techniques of theirs can we implement into our own work?

The Hook

It’s no mystery that any good piece of writing has to hook the audience right away. For Obama, this meant utilizing language that kept us hanging on his every sentence. If-then clauses kept us asking a collective, “If what?” (See a shameless example in this article’s headline.)

In terms of online writing, pose a question in your headline. With all the numerous blog posts and articles out there, there has to be something to set your article apart. And if the headline can already get your audience thinking and asking questions, you have a significant leg up on your competition.
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Change Moves Viral

Running on a campaign of change, President-elect Barack Obama took the election in an electoral landslide. (Pause for cyber cheers and cyber boos…) And while people are generally used to politicians backtracking on their election platforms, Obama has already made good on his continued promise to enact change. And it came in the form of the newly launched website Change.gov.

The interactive website is just one more way Obama is harnessing the amazing power inherent in the internet. He used it to great success during his campaign, finishing the story of triumph that looked to be Howard Dean’s in 2004. That is, had he not done this.

Enacting a viral campaign, Obama won over the youth vote and organized masses of people in unprecedented numbers. He even hired Chris Hughes, better known as the co-founder of Facebook, to coordinate his social networking campaign. Under his direction, My.BarackObama.com served as the social networking hub where all the supporters could congregate online. This far exceeded any online efforts from the McCain camp.
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