Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The social media battle

Something that McCain has been slow to engage in and hence he is the loser. Jeremiah Owyang has completed an analysis of the results of the social media campaign by both the major candidates and the following headlines emerge:
Facebook
Obama: 2,379,102 supporters
McCain: 620,359 supporters
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain
MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161
McCain: Friends: 217,811
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain
YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993
Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain
Twitter
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers
McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4,603 followers
Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain
The key question is will this matter at all. There is no geographic boundary on social media engagement so these online supporters may not even be in the US never mind the all important swing states and bellweather states. But is he does win then it may well be the case that social media may have be seen as a significant and central tool for future campaigns.

1 comment:

Matt Hurst said...

It seemed to be getting a mention over and over again last night but the exit polls on demographic will tell us who voted in general.

Regardless he's done well for a Democrat, hopefully turning the tide of Goldwater republicanism but we'll see.