"The Internet community is wondering what its place in the world of politics is." Howard Dean, 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, Wired Magazine, January 2004

If the Internet community didn't know what its place in the world of politics was back in 2004, it most certainly does today.

Its "place" is to actively engage politicians and fellow citizens in conversations, promote candidates, help with campaign fundraising and educate other voters about particular candidates and issues—all through the use of new social-media tools that are vital to a candidate's overall marketing strategy.

Consider, for example, the most recent viral marketing sensation on the Web: an inspirational political music video titled "Yes We Can," starring presidential candidate Barack Obama and using lyrics base on a speech he delivered on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.

Its popularity (over 13 million views to date) is largely attributed to its authenticity. Acting without any involvement from the Obama campaign, a popular hip-hop artist created the video in an effort to influence voters to choose Obama in 2008, and he opted for the largest online video site, YouTube, as his distribution platform. While the Obama campaign was not involved in the making of the "Yes We Can" video, it actively encouraged Web users to spread it across the Net.

Such citizen participation through social media is playing an important role in the 2008 presidential race and is a markedly different campaign strategy than in 2000 and 2004. In past elections, campaigning on the Web consisted primarily of one-dimensional candidate Web sites featuring a combination of news, biographical information, and online donation functionality.

Today, by contrast, campaigns don't just have a Web presence—they have a Web 2.0 presence. Campaign managers are taking advantage of the Web's recent evolution to a more social and participatory medium (dubbed "Web 2.0") and leveraging new social-media tools such as social networks, blogs, social video sites, embeddable widgets, and more to reach millions of voters and engage them in the political process.

This shift in the political use of the Web from merely meeting voters' informational needs to providing them with community, connections, interactive and participatory features, and viral tools reflects current online marketing practices within the private sector. Consumer brand marketers have been actively experimenting with social-media marketing tactics and learning how they can be used to enhance the marketing communication process and, ultimately, influence consumers.

With the 2008 presidential race in full swing, brand marketers should start looking more closely at the political realm for creative uses and best practices of social-media marketing. Listed below are three key marketing opportunities for the use of new social media from a political vantage point.

1. Audience Reach

In December 2006, North Carolina Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for the US presidency, not on national television but on the social video-sharing site YouTube, which has over 50 million US visitors per month.

Other politicians have followed Edwards's example and are now using YouTube to distribute campaign videos in hopes of reaching large audiences and making an intimate connection with them.

As audiences become even more fragmented because of an ever-increasing number of media choices, it is crucial for political candidates and consumer brands to access platforms that reach large segments of a target population. Popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are prime examples of social-media destinations that allow politicians to reach millions of voters and connect with them in a forum of their choice.

A majority of the Democratic and Republican nominees have a presence on these social-networking sites, and their personal microsite pages take advantage of MySpace's and Facebook's ability to reach millions of voters and engage them through the sites' interactive features (see No. 3, below, for more details).

What is potentially even more intriguing for brand marketers are politicians' attempts to reach the electorate through a mobile access solution such as Twitter. This social networking and microblogging service allows users to receive short text updates via multiple sources, including mobile text messaging, from other Twitter users.

Barack Obama, for example, has a Twitter page that keeps fellow Twitter users updated on his campaign. Though he has fewer than 7,000 followers on Twitter, the service has the unique ability to bridge the communication gap between voters and candidates out on the campaign trail. From a consumer brand marketing perspective, Twitter represents a potentially powerful technology for marketers to reach consumers who have opted in to receiving marketing communications through their always-on mobile devices.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert F. Hogeboom is principal and owner of BBP Marketing Group. Reach him at Robert@BBP-Group.com.