How Will You Connect to Candidates in 2008?

MySpace, YouTube, PartyBuilder, and the myriad of web sites enabling online social networking and mass communication play a vital role in the outreach strategies of the 2008 presidential campaigns. Our candidates are making themselves more accessible than ever before, and these outreach strategies are also allowing the general public to be more involved. We are no longer relegated to passively gazing at slick newspaper pictures taken by the traditional press, because Flickr allows any photographer to take pictures of candidates, post them online, and associate them with candidate-themed groups. We can also go to YouTube and not only watch our candidates speak to us directly – as it seems to have become the official site to announce one’s candidacy – but also comment upon them and debate with other YouTube members. Members will often also post their own video responses in support (or opposition) of candidate videos. And my personal favorite, Facebook, even makes an appearance on many of their front pages. We can "friend" our favorite candidates, join their groups, and stay updated on their campaign through the social network.

Essentially, there are three main online developments that are being taken advantage of by this election season's candidate field: social networking systems, online multimedia, and interactive web sites.

Social networking is the technology that has by far taken up the most media attention. Just about every in-the-loop technopundit has at some point asked: Who has the most friends on MySpace? According to TechPresident, current standings have Hillary as the front-runner with over 64,000 friends, with Obama trailing slightly behind with almost 60,000. John Edwards is in third place with right around 34,000 friends, and none of the others even approach anything close to his MySpace lunch table. On Facebook, candidates send out friend requests to members of the statewide and national College Democrats and Young Democrats groups. PartyBuilder, the DNC’s social networking system, doesn't even come close to matching the numbers generated by MySpace and Facebook, but with better built-in event management functions and fundraising features, it's no surprise that one can find every candidate represented there as well. Candidates have leveraged all of these sites to build lists of young voters and keep them involved and informed with the goings-on of their respective campaigns.

Multimedia web sites allow for candidates to put up video clips welcoming you to their site and photos of campaign rallies. YouTube is the king of all such systems; it is free and wildly popular – meaning that candidates don't have to work to build an audience. All of the 2008 candidates have video clips online about their candidacy or particular issues uploaded weekly to the site. Supporters also create their own videos about the candidates, in support or opposition of each presidential hopeful. They can also post pictures of a candidate appearance or a local rally on Flickr or Picasa; all of the above services give users an easy way to link to any of this multimedia content on their own personal web sites or social networking pages, so candidates end up getting earned media across a broad cross-section of the Internet from these efforts.

Candidates’ use of the Internet is constantly evolving. Personalized websites are the latest fad in political campaigns. It was just four years ago, in the 2004 election cycle, that Howard Dean revolutionized the concept of an online political presence with his Meetup page, enabling his supporters to connect to each other on a local level. Now, we see candidates turning their own websites into specialized social networks. No longer relegated to just being information feeds, these sites give supporters the ability to establish their own presence within a candidate website. They help their constituents to connect to the campaign by giving them a centralized means to plan events, find other supporters near them, and create their own blogs. They are making grassroots fundraising easier by giving their supporters a way to instantly create a goal-oriented fundraising “mini-site” by just signing up for an account.

These sophisticated web sites are, not surprisingly, most common among the more well-funded candidates that have the infrastructure and funds to have these developed for them. Hillary, for example, has a log-in system for supporters to RSVP to parties and events, creating a sort of event organization tool within her website. John Edwards has a calendar of his town hall meetings available for supporters to view, and prominent support for grassroots fundraising where supporters can create their own individualized site for the purpose. Obama goes with an all-out “My.BarackObama.Com” approach, where he basically integrates full-fledged social networking capabilities into his web site for his users to take advantage of. Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, however, do not have personalization options on their websites. They do allow for supporters to add friends to the candidates' mailing lists and watch videos; however, they do not have the sort of interactivity on their sites that the three frontrunners feature.

We are clearly no longer dealing with the same world of political communications that we'd seen in years past. This is the 2008 election. Your connection to your candidate of choice can now be characterized by highly personal interactions with their online presences as much or more than it can through any sort of traditional media. You can connect faster, more personally, more in-depth, and from the comfort of your own home. The move towards the individualized interaction that online communications efforts enable is one that is only bound to accelerate in the next few years.