Still smoldering after Mitt Romney’s defeat to Barack Obama, a defeat that was in no small part down to Obama’s superior digital campaigning strategy, the GOP are looking to ramp up their own digital presence.
They are taking inspiration though from an unlikely source in the emerging digital media giant Buzzfeed, which recently launched here in the UK.
Obama’s digital agency Blue State Digital has hired 16 digital strategists and technologists from the Obama 2012 election campaign team.
Most senior among the hires is Joe Rospars, chief digital strategist for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, who will take on the newly created role of chief executive for the WPP-owned digital agency Blue State Digital, which has played a central role in both Obama’s presidential victories. Read More
With the focus on content ever increasing the resurgence in blogs and blogging continues apace. There are new players entering all the time as read recently with news that Quora plans to get into the blogging business and that Ning is to relaunch again as a personal blogging platform.
One of the big beneficiaries of the rise of blogging and reblogging has been Tumblr and it recently hit a landmark number as it passed the 100 million blog mark. Read More
The Republican National Committee is scouring Silicon Valley in an attempt to find top talent to hire as its new Chief Technology Officer, in a clear attempt to challenge the digital supremacy of President Obama and the Democrat Party.
The GOP’s effort to use digital technology to propel Mitt Romney to the White House failed in 2012, with their voter data system ORCA crashing on polling day.
Twitter has announced changes to Twitter Search that could have a major impact on breaking news and how we find it. We all know that we go to Twitter when news breaks and either scan our timeline or do a quick search. A search can throw up a myriad of results not all of which will be relevant as it’s impossible for a computer to understand context. For instance how would it know that a search for “big bird” was referring to politics and not Sesame Street? Or that people searching for “horses and bayonets” are interested in the Presidential debates?
After a rocky 2012 for technology companies coming to the market, which left Groupon, Zynga and Facebook bruised, no one wants to rush towards an IPO in 2013 and particularly not Twitter, which finished the year strong after its role in the US presidential election.
When it does make the leap it could well be, as some have put it, the IPO of the decade. It is currently valued between $8bn and $11bn and could easily accelerate beyond that figure if 2013 continues in the same vein as 2012 and it continues to follow the revenue trail and build its social advertising business on the web and crucially in the mobile space. Read More
Tim Berners Lee once said – “It’s difficult to imagine the power that you’re going to have when so many different sorts of data are available”. Well there aren’t many people that are more powerful than the President of the United States of America…and as Obama settles into the first month of his second term, it’s time to reflect on one of the most sophisticated, data-driven campaigns in political history and take a look at what his impressive team of digital and analytical experts are up to now. Are they keeping up the momentum? Read More
A live event is no longer just about being in the room or at the venue. With social media you can be part of an event taking place on the other side of the world. Below we take a look at how all kinds of events are being enhanced by social media, and the different platforms being used to boost engagement. Read More
One of the most interesting things about the US election campaign was the breadth of digital use and how the use of social media by the two parties evolved. Few stones were left unturned as the Obama and Romney campaigns progressed and even now that the election is over the Obama team continues to evolve its use of social and digital media with, for instance, its launch onto Pinterest earlier this week.
There is little the Obama team have not tried or experimented with from Tumblr, to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, blogs and Foursquare.
Then take a look back at what is happening in the UK with Labour and it seems that social and digital media campaigning appears to be going backwards. I’ve noticed a few things recently that have left me scratching my head. I saw another one yesterday and have rounded up a few things in this post. Read More
The 2012 Presidential election campaign is over, but Barack Obama’s team is continuing to expand what it does on social media and The White House has this week joined Pinterest. Of all the social networks Pinterest didn’t play much of a role in the campaign itself. It was relegated somewhat and became, however briefly, the realm of the candidates’ wives. Michelle Obama and Ann Romney both took to Pinterest to play their part as their husbands slugged it out.
The White House says it will use its official presence on Pinterest to share pins and boards that range from inspiring images and quotes to infographics that help explain key issues to details about the life inside the White House. Read More
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