Politics & Personal Branding

How the public receives information is constantly changing from generation to generation thanks to advances in technology.  John F. Kennedy gained popularity with the new medium, television.  The same strategy was applied in the 2008 election. Thanks to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and various social media outlets Obama rose from an unknown candidate to a household name.

The Chapter pointed out that the Obama campaign used social media to target a large audience at a low to no cost. Obama was able to help fund the campaign using donations received from his social media followers. Because his competitors were well known and would dominate the other forms of media, the Obama campaigned decided to utilize social media, and this caused him to capitalize on his opponents’ weakness.  The statistics showed in this chapter the wide spread between the amounts of views, likes, followers Obama had compared to McCain various social media outlets. Using social media is at little to no cost for the users. 

When some Obama supporters also took it upon themselves to endorse the candidate, this too was at no cost to the Obama campaign. Obama did not endorse these advertisements financially however he did not have them pulled either.  With social media as the new medium the message spread fast and to a large audience. The following tongue in cheek ads even became a part of pop culture. 

Remember this Amber Lee Ettinger, (aka “Obama Girl”)?

Or maybe you remember the “Wassup Change” video from the creator of the Budweiser “Wassup” commercials?

Hip-hop artist Ludacris came out with a song in which the lyrics were controversial and extremely offensive.  This left Obama at a crossroads.  Ludacris took control of the Obama brand by promoting the candidate in his lyrics while verbally attacking Obama’s opponents, in very poor taste. If Obama didn’t speak out against the lyrics his silence could be seen that he was condoning this message.  On the other hand Obama wanted the support of the hip-hop community.

By not speaking out a wrong message could be sent to the public. Even though Obama didn’t endorse the lyrics and give permission for the use of his name in the lyrics he needed to take back control of his personal brand.    Obama came out with a statement calling the lyrics “outrageously offensive”.

Social media can be used to promote a product as well as personal branding.  But as we discussed in chapter three what happens when supporters take control of your own brand and brag about or bash your own product?  As the Obama campaign later found out, when supporters that take ownership of your brand and promote it too aggressively the situation can become a double-edged sword.

Taking the cue from politics.

Chapter 4 of Socialnomics brings up some great thinking points.  How can businesses learn from political social media trends and use data crawling to zero in on the target audience? 

One of the single most important take-always from Qualman is the importance of branding.  In order to have any sense of fidelity with all of the data on the internet is to start with a truly unique product name.  For business, tons of time and resources are expended in attempting to come up with a product name that is unique and applicable.    When you look at the branding of President Barak Obama during his first presidential campaign data miners looked for what trended best based on public search data.  Obama is typically not associated with any other person that I can think of other than the president.  Sure, there are others out there, but most people’s first association with Obama is the president himself.  Obviously, a person’s name isn’t really from a brand awareness perspective (actors, authors and musicians are the exception). 

Today’s modern advertising campaigns need to be forward looking.  How does one develop a unique product and name, then how is that leveraged in social media?

Online Voting….Umm Yes Please!

In the economic state we live in, how can most Americans afford to take off work early, go in late, or take a long unpaid lunch break to go cast their vote? Yes voting is critical, however having the ability to feed your family jumps line in front of voting for most families. According to chapter 4 in Socialnomics, $6.7 billion is potentially lost in productivity if everyone of voting age takes the hour or two to go cast their vote. Having the ability to cast your vote online would allow those that want to vote but otherwise can’t afford to take time off work the ability to do so. Yes, there are security questions, but the possibility to cast fraudulent votes by voting online are much the same as those that are we already see in the traditional voting methods. I know as a full time parent that it would be much easier and I would be more likely to cast my vote if I had the opportunity to do so from the comfort of my own home. It would also prove beneficial to the elderly, disabled, and other that are sick or home bound that cannot physically get out to let their voices be heard.

References:

Qualman,E. (2012). Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business.(2nd ed.). Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons.

Image:

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Ap4gn0HyJhONnMgpAGhKKQWbvZx4?p=voting+images&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-900-1

Tweeting the Punchline

            Professional comedian turns professional boxer after being criticized on twitter. In an article I read on Mashable.com a comedian, Dan Nainan, got into a physical altercation at a comedy club with reporter Josh Rogin. Rogin, who didn’t enjoy the comics brand of humor appealing, decided to take his opinion to twitter and social blast Nainan’s humorless act to the masses. Displeased with the reporter’s take, Nainan decided to take action into his own hands, by assaulting the reporter at his next show.  In the end, Nainan was charged with a simple assault and the reporter was left with a bruised face and who knows maybe a bruised ego. The thing I find interesting in this topic is that instead of responding on twitter, like most would do, the comedian took the violent path and simple tweets turned into to a physical altercation. 

       The question that I can’t seem to answer is, is this type of behavior normal? Are differences held between people on twitter, facebook, instagram or any other type of social media being played out offline? Nainan is a comedian, it only makes sense in my head that he would tweet Rogin back with some funny material discrediting his statements. When all is said and done the moral of the story here is watch what you tweet someone might not think it’s funny.  

http://mashable.com/2013/09/26/dan-nainan-arrested-twitter/

http://www.troll.me/images/brick-tamland/you-think-youre-funny-but-youre-not.jpg

Should you be allowing your employees to spend time on Facebook?

A recent article I read from Mashable.com brought up some interesting facts on just how much Facebook can affect your employees and it makes you ask yourself should you be blocking social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr from your employees while they are on the job? Before you decide what you to do you not only need to look at the five major problems that arise from using Facebook while at work, but you also need to look at if you use Facebook or other social media sites as business tools. The first problem that arises from Facebook at work is it lowers productivity, people focus their attention on Facebook and Twitter to see what all of their friends are up to at this very moment in time, making them spend less time on things that need their attention, such as their big project they have due in two days. The second problem that arises is it encourages unfair comparisons, it makes your employees look at what they don’t have and what other people they’re friends with have accomplished instead of seeing the great things they have done in their life. The next two problems that arrive kind of go hand in hand, it is difficult to measure success and there is no direct link to sales. This basically means that you have no idea just how valuable or invaluable your Facebook page for your business actually is, it could boost your client list exponentially or it really could not be doing anything at all for your client list but just be sitting there.  And the last and final problem that arises from Facebook at work is there is no human connection in “the cloud”. The cloud is basically a term used for everything that is on the internet, and while there is a vast amount of information out there that you can get to learn new things you have absolutely no human interaction when you get those things. If you spend eight hours a day on social media sites those are just eight less hours that you spend getting to actually know certain clients or learning how you need to interact with your clients.  All in all Facebook and other social media websites are both a blessing and a curse when it comes to businesses, they allow you to get your business’s name out there but if you allow your employees to spend too much time on those sites daily you end up losing productivity. I think it is necessary for businesses to not only monitor their employees social media activities while they’re at work (i.e how long they spend on the sites for personal use) but they also need to limit how much time they can spend on those websites while at the work place.

 The above is a chart which asks employees "How often do you check the following inboxes?" 

(http://www.fastcompany.com/1701850/how-social-media-has-changed-workplace-study)

http://mashable.com/2013/09/30/facebook-small-business/