What Bloggers & Digital Marketers Need to Learn from Obama’s Victory

Nov. 18 Blogging 7 comments

So what can a blogger learn from Obama? You may be thinking nothing, since what’s a Presidential campaign have to do with blogging or digital marketing? At one level you certainly are right. You aren’t running for President of the U.S. though modelling what Obama did will take your blogging and digital marketing to an entirely new level of enjoyment and benefits that you receive.

In 2008 Obama effectively used social media to help him win the Presidency. In 2012 he used a deep understanding of his “customers” combined with mobile technology to enable him to win the election. The major difference in the 2012 election was that the Obama team had been working for years prior, figuring out how to understand everything they could about who their “customers” and constituency were and who they could be.

They then used this intelligence and understanding along with the Obama Mobile App to make the difference. Prior to election the Obama team used the app in various ways to stay in touch and communicate with their followers. On Election Day they activated part of the app that enabled them, among other things, to know where all their “followers” were, whether they had voted or not, and what issues were important to each one of them. They knew so much about each person’s core issues that during the day they reminded people, in real time, specifically why they were voting or should be voting. Romney had something similar though it didn’t function as planned.

What can you learn from this? The level of understanding that the Obama campaign developed about each “customer” is an amazing example of the difference that a deep understanding of followers can make in all aspects of our lives. So, if you want more from your blogging and digital marketing take the time and model what Obama did by doing the following:

Invest the energy to truly understand and appreciate the people that are currently part of your network and whom you’d like to be part of your network.
From there, actively reach out to them and discuss topics and items of interest to them. You do not need a fancy app to do this. Use current social networks, social media, email, and even your telephone.

What you’ll discover, like Obama knew, is that the more you understand and appreciate your followers, the closer your relationship will be, and when you reach out to them about what they care about they will be happy to support you in your blogging and digital marketing efforts.