The 2008 Obama Presidential campaign made history. Not only was Obama the first African American to be elected president, but he was also the first presidential candidate to effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. It’s easy to forget, given how ubiquitous social media is today, that in 2008 sending out voting reminders on Twitter and interacting with people on Facebook was a big deal.
Obama gained such a huge influence among the younger generations of Americans voters through social media. Even if it seem like its not a big deal, but young voters are the hardest to vote as they are known for not even caring enough to vote.Social media creates a new political dialogue. Therefore Social media is a normal and central form of communications with distinctly different properties than traditional mass media approaches. Obama has set the bar for future campaigns but social media and network structures should be given serious attention in the media strategy, whether it’s for politicians, organizations, brands or public service initiatives.
I think that as these social media has become more commonplace, it has become a bit more fractured and less effective. Unlike in 2008, a lot of the novelty is lost, there are more options than just Twitter and Facebook so networking has to been done over multiple platforms and ends up with duplicates. For example, Bernie Sanders seemed to struggle with broad appeal outside of a social media "bubble," giving Hillary Clinton the primary win despite a lack of support from the youth (i.e. most connected) segment of the voting population.
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