whoever still wants to vote for Hillary after watching that horrid Hillary4U&Me video should not be allowed to vote. not saying i love any of them, but jesus christ, that one is f'ing awful. someone hammer nails into my eyes and ears please.

So, if you were counseling a presidential campaign, how would you tell them to manage nontraditional/online/social media?

written by Mary, February 19, 2008 04:56 PM

So, if you were counseling a presidential campaign, how would you tell them to manage nontraditional/online/social media?

I think Hilary's misstep was treating the medium like television. She made a watered-down, safe-for-everyone video that was nothing more than a bad, extended campaign commercial. There was no-pass-along value, other than maybe "this is terrible, and perhaps the most Caucasian thing I’ve ever seen. Check it out." There was no invitation to believe in something bigger...to take ownership of the message or to participate in spreading the word.

The piece of advice I would offer would be to give “nodes” of the network a reason to pass your message along. Invite them to believe in something bigger and be part of it – even if that message is something as simple as “change.”

Good question, Mary. It's difficult because everyone wants to be an expert on social media, yet there's much disagreement on what constitutes success, what is right, what is wrong, etc. Is Hillary's video worse than the YouTube videos that poke fun at John McCain? Worse than the fact that McCain is virtually non-existent in the virtual world?

I love the "Yes We Can" example because, while Obama had nothing to do with the production of it, his campaign immediately embraced it as their own. Finally, someone smart enough to encourage social use of content rather than discourage it through misuse of copyright law.

Exactly, bluedress, don't create a video for the sake of creating a video. Make sure there is a message that people will want to pass along.

To me, it's all about the UGC. As Michele pointed out, the Obama video was embraced and promoted, not made by his campaign, which will always be something vanilla. I'm sure there are Hillary videos out there made by her supporters that are much, much better.

Are there better videos made by Hillary supporters? If so, why haven't we seen them?

Production value seems to play an important role in whether these new media offerings are "successful." From one Obama supporter's 1984 parody to this truly beautiful music video, the quality of the pieces enhances rather than distracts from the message. They feel like honest expressions of his supporters’ passion, and they must have taken an incredible amount of time to produce.

By comparison, Clinton’s 4U vid and Caucusing is Easy! ad (both from the campaign, not her supporters) are so poorly produced that the message and candidate are tainted. Clinton appears corny because the ad is corny, and her campaign comes off as dowdy and old guard because the video feels like a bad wedding rendition of the Macarena.

Huckabee's Chuck Norris ad benefited by solid production value. I LOVED that ad, and (to an extent) think fondly of Huckabee as a result, even though his politics scare the hell out of me.

I hear people arguing that Obama's mastery of new media shouldn't qualify him as the best candidate, but that’s nothing new. Bill Clinton benefited by his comfort and charisma on the late shows (cue the sax), and other politicians are going on Oprah and Dr. Phil, attempting to demonstrate they are “of the people.” The music video and youtube video are the newest additions, and it’s no surprise that the candidate who appears most comfortable will seem most authentic, regardless of their qualifications.

The 4U&Me video actually wasn't from the campaign.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2008/02/video_supporting_clinton_leads.html

This is pretty amazing and takes the Yes We Can video one step further...http://www.hopeactchange.com/