I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

Do you remember the story of “The Little Engine That Could”? The train had a resounding mantra in it “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!” This book is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work.

We are living in a very exciting time, if a relatively unknown, young, single term black senator with funny ears and a funnier name can become president of the United States, I can become a successful author and blogger. I plan to use the same paradigm shifting techniques that the President of the United States used to conquer his first rival the Goliath that was the better funded, better known Hilary Clinton political machine… to successfully promote myself and my ideas online.

Regardless of your political views, you must appreciate the marketing principles used by Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign. He was a brilliant example of how to use the power of the social-media and Web 2.0, to beat bigger, better funded rivals.

Because he had less funding initially, Barak could not compete with Hillary on the same playing field, because the field would have been slanted her way. Instead of playing by the old rules, he made different rules all together. Many of these rule changes revolved around viral marketing, or inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is having your client find you instead of you finding the client. “The Aim of our online campaign”, says Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and Obama’s internet strategist, “was to help individuals understand the values of Barak Obama and of our Campaign and then to make it easy as possible for them to actively engage with the campaign’s work. We tried to open as many direct channels of communication as possible – using email, text messages, online networks – and then equip them with the tools to spread the campaigns message using networking technology such as My.BarackObama.com and Facebook”.

The strategy worked. Amercians where able to connect with Barack via his blog, Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. The rest they say is history.

I know just because I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account does not mean I will be successful at promoting myself, my ideas or be considered a valued contributor to the conversation.

Jon Clements blog post “A Frenchman at the #fodm” (#FODM = Future of Digital Marketing conference) compiled comments from Eric Frenchman, John McCain’s online consultant and Chief Internet Strategist for the online political agency Conell Donatelli Inc. He quotes Eric as saying “one place where you can compete or even beat your competition with less money”. Jon goes on to say in his post:

But some online tactics can backfire. So popular was the click through rate on a “hippy Hilary Clinton” ad used by the Republican campaign, it had to be switched off for being too successful.
As for Obama, he had 90 staff working on his digital strategy – according to Frenchman – and managed to tap into Facebook and online video in a way the Republicans failed to. Creating useful tools, such as “register to vote” widgets on Facebook helped Obama to reach 3.1m followers against McCain’s 610,000. And the Yes We Can video clocked up 18.2m views, alongside the millions of views for “home made” Obama films – equating to an alleged $40m equivalent of TV advertising spend.

Eric also made a point that you must also use the media in the way it was meant to be used, not necessarily the way you feel most comfortable. John used Twitter as a “one-way communication vehicle”. In other words he was not listening to his audience; he was talking “at” them.

The moral of Barak’s campaign story is this: Personal Branding online when done right, is a very effective way to reach a perspective audience. How to promote myself, my ideas and properly engage in the ‘conversation’ that is Web 2.0 is what I plan to learn, perfect and discuss in upcoming post.

I think I can I think I can I think I will make a difference!
–
photo credit: jetheriot