Obama’s win illustrates many fundamentals of good communication
It has been an amazing week for the US and, no matter which side of the political spectrum you favor, the discipline and effectiveness of the Obama campaign is worth admiring. With such a decisive win from such an unlikely candidate, there’s a lot of talk about how Obama pulled off such a near-flawless campaign. The huge advantage with the use of social media and online fundraising, the grass-roots volunteer organizing, the on-message advertising. I would agree that it wasn’t any one component, but an almost perfectly executed integrated communication approach with, of course, many external factors in play.
This New York Times article says it well: “They used the newest technology and old-fashioned organizing skills to harness the grass-roots enthusiasm his candidacy generated to help raise record sums of money and build a volunteer army to turn out the vote.”
The success of the Obama campaign illustrates a lot of communication fundamentals. The fact that they did ALL of them so well and so strategically is what is truly impressive. Here are just a few:
Integrate across all available media. Social media is one of many tools that the campaign used so well. But, they also integrated and created remarkable consistency across all forms of media, including in-person conversations. The visual branding on pretty much everything was perfect. Every single email from the campaign was well written and on point.
It’s not about you—it’s about your audience. You reach people and they take action when they see what’s in it for themselves. Obama was masterful at connecting with people and helping them see their individual role in change. And, he repeated that throughout the campaign—making his win about his supporters and not him. This email went out before the acceptance speech at Grant Park:
I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.
We just made history.
And I don’t want you to forget how we did it.
You made history every single day during this campaign—every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it’s time for change.
I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.
We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.
But I want to be very clear about one thing…
All of this happened because of you.
Thank you,
Barack
Power of peer-to-peer and in-person communication. The campaign really did build a volunteer army, who made phone calls and knocked on doors and raised money. The power of that peer-to-peer communication can’t be matched. One of the emails from Joe Biden said it well: “But just one phone call from you is enough to counteract dozens of these dishonest ‘robocalls.’”
Don’t just say it once, say it again and again until people do something. When you’re asking people to take action—whether it’s voting, volunteering or making an appointment for an annual physical—you need to plan on repeating yourself over and over and over until you get results. The campaign did this in a way that was convincing and still authentic—the perfect combination when asking for something.
I’m very eager to see how Obama’s administration integrates this ethic of communication and community into our government. They are off to a good start with Change.gov, the official transition website. “Throughout the Presidential Transition Project, this website will be your source for the latest news, events, and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama Administration. And just as this historic campaign was, from the beginning, about you—the transition process will offer you opportunities to participate in redefining our government.”
And, if you just can’t get enough of Obama and social media, check out these behind the scenes pictures on Flickr.
