the social media use of obama and mccain

TheSocialMediaUseofObamaandMcCain

ThecorrelationbetweentheuseofsocialmediaWebsitesamong

differentagegroupsandtheinfluenceofsuchsitesonthe2008

presidentialelection.

by

DaveRigotti

AnadaptionofhisthesisaspartialfulfillmentoftherequirementsfortheBachelorofBusinessAdministrationDegreewithHonorsinMarketing

fromTheUniversityofToledo.

Rigotti,Dave|TheSocialMediaUseofObamaandMcCain

II

AbouttheAuthor

DaveRigottiisawriter,speaker,andInternet

marketer.He’swork(s/ed)withsomeofthemostwell‐

knownandinfluentialbrandsintheworld,conducting

searchengineoptimizationanddevelopingmarketing

communicationstrategies.InJuly,hewillbejoining

Microsoftasaconsumer‐focusedmarketeronBing

(formerlyLiveSearch),Microsoft’ssearchengine.

DaverecentlygraduatedfromTheUniversityofToledo(BBAwithHonors,magna

cumlaude,2009)aftermajoringinmarketingandentrepreneurship,familyandsmall

business.ThisPDFisanadaptationofhisthesis.

BesuretovisithisblogandfollowhimonTwitter.


III

Disclaimer/LegalInformation

AllcontentscopyrightC2008‐2009byDaveRigotti.Allrightsreserved.Nopart

ofthisdocumentortherelatedfilesmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyform,by

any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior

writtenpermissionofthepublisher.

Limit of Liability andDisclaimer ofWarranty: The publisher has used its best

effortsinpreparingthisbook,andtheinformationprovidedhereinisprovided"asis."

Dave Rigottimakes no representation orwarrantieswith respect to the accuracy or

completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaims any implied

warrantiesofmerchantabilityorfitnessforanyparticularpurposeandshallinnoevent

be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not

limitedtospecial,incidental,consequential,orotherdamages.

Trademarks: This book identifies product names and services known to be

trademarks,registeredtrademarks,orservicemarksof theirrespectiveholders.They

areusedthroughoutthisbookinaneditorialfashiononly.


IV

Abstract

Researchwasconductedtodeterminewhichmainpresidentialcandidateofthe

2008presidentialelection,BarackObamaorJohnMcCain,wasmoreeffectiveatusing

socialmediaandtheimpacttheseeffortshadonobtainingvotes,withabreakdownby

age.


V

Acknowledgements

Thisthesisisdedicatedtomyparents,DaveandConnieRigotti,whohavealways

supportedmynumerousendeavors.

I’d also like to thank Professor Carol Sullinger, Dr. Thomas W. Sharkey, Dr.

AinsworthA.Bailey,ShareThis,eMarketer,andeveryoneelsewhohelpedmeinwriting

thisthesis.


VI

TableofContents

AbouttheAuthor ...........................................................................................................................IIDisclaimer/LegalInformation .............................................................................................. III

Abstract............................................................................................................................................IVAcknowledgements....................................................................................................................... V

TableofContents ..........................................................................................................................VI

Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1Candidates’WebSites .................................................................................................................. 7

SocialNetworking........................................................................................................................10Facebook ....................................................................................................................................................................... 10Myspace ......................................................................................................................................................................... 13Digg.................................................................................................................................................................................. 14Twitter............................................................................................................................................................................ 15

Collaboration ................................................................................................................................18Meetup ........................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Media ...............................................................................................................................................20Flickr ............................................................................................................................................................................... 20YouTube......................................................................................................................................................................... 21

VotingResults ...............................................................................................................................25References......................................................................................................................................29


1

Introduction

The Internet has played an integral role over the past few years in public

elections.Infact,accordingtoresearchgatheredandreportedbyeMarketerInc.,64%

of U.S. adult Internet users agree that the Internet has become important for the

campaign process in 2008.i Additionally, 24% of U.S. adults learned about the

presidential campaigns through the Internet in 2008,ii making it the 5th most used

source.

Is online success enough to significantly influence a presidential election,

especiallysincepoliticsaresofragmented?A2007NewYorkTimesarticlewrote:

Someexperts…cautionedagainstoverstatingthepotentialramifications

oftheInternetdivide.Afterall,Mr.Dean’scandidacy,whichstalledafter

theIowacaucuses,showedthatrunawaysuccessonlineisnotenough.iii

So,wegettothequestion:Whatisthecorrelationbetweentheuseofsocial

mediaWebsitesamongdifferentagegroupsandtheinfluenceofsuchsitesonthe

2008presidentialelection?

However,beforeexplainingthisissue,itfirstneedstobenotedthat“influence”

is an arbitrary idea. Technically, a non‐voter could have influenced the results of the

election.Unfortunately,it’snotpossibletofilternon‐votersoutofsocialmediasites,so

they are counted in data collected. However, the exit poll numbers reflect only U.S.

citizensovertheageof18whovoted.


2

Another parameter to establish for the purposes of this thesis, is the sites

included in social media. They are: social networking, social aggregation, blogs, and

video and photo sites. Included sites were subjectively chosen, based on: size,

candidates’presenceonsite,andpotentialforfacilitatinginfluence.

Websiteresearchwasconductedthetwoweekspriortotheelection,October20

through November 3, 2008, with supporting research andwriting fromNovember 4

throughFebruary5,2009.

This paper will be looking at both campaigns’ Web sites, Facebook, Flickr,

Youtube,Myspace,Twitter,Meetup,Technorati, andDigg.Actually, toput reachofall

the sites into perspective, below is a graph of their U.S. monthly unique visitors

accordingtoCompete.com(NOTE:AlldataprovidedbyCompete.comisofU.S.visitors

age18orgreater).


3

Asyoucansee,youtube,myspace,facebook,digg,andflickrdominatethesocial

mediascene,allhaving20millionormoreU.S.uniquevisitorsinSeptember.However,

howdidthecampaignsusethesesitesandhoweffectiveweretheytoeachcandidate?

Isolating the smaller sites, twitter, technorati, andmeetup all had roughly the

sameU.S.uniquevisitorsatroughlybetween2and3million.


4

According to data provided by Compete, Inc., selected social media sites sent

hundreds of thousands of visitors to both the Obama andMcCain’s official campaign

WebsitesinSeptember2008.

Thereasonforprovidingthesegraphsistoshowthepotentialforinfluencewith

thecandidates’sitesasreference.Themoretrafficasitehas,generally,themorereach,

ornumberofpeople,ithastoinfluence.


5

OftheselectedsocialmediaWebsites,Facebookwasmosteffectiveatsending

traffic to the official campaigns’ Web sites, followed by YouTube and Myspace,

respectively. Low impact sites includedMeetup, Twitter, Flickr, andDigg, all sending

lessthan20,000visitorstoeachcampaign’ssiteinSeptember.However,whattypeof

trafficare theysending?Werethereferredvisitorsevenofagetovoteand located in

theU.S.?Thisdata,amongotherdata,iswhatI’lllookatineachsite’sbreakdown.

ShareThisisacompanythathascreatedasmallwidget,orasmallapplicationon

aWebsite,thatallowsuserstoshareaspecificWebsitewithfriendsviasocialmedia,

email,andothers.Theirwidgettrackedwhatarticleswerebeingshared,basedonthe

keywordsof“obama,”“biden,”“mccain,”and“palin”.Theresultsarebelow:

0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000

facebook.com

youtube.com

myspace.com

digg.com

jlickr.com

twitter.com

meetup.com

NumberofU.S.UniqueVisitors,ages18+,Sept.08

SocialMediaSite

VisitorsReferredtoCandidates'Site

McCainObama


6

Obamahadroughly50to90percentofsharingactivityuntilAugust2008when

McCainannouncedSarahPalinashisrunningmate.UpuntilthefirstweekofOctober

2008,PalinhadmuchmoresuccessthanObamaorMcCaininsharingactivity,withher

highest day achieving 72 percent of shares. However, as the election neared, Palin’s

sharingactivitydrasticallydeclined,whileObama’srose.Sharingisdefinedastellinga

contact,orfriend,aboutthearticleorWebsite,throughtheShareThiswidget.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

24‐Jul

31‐Jul

7‐Aug

14‐Aug

21‐Aug

28‐Aug

4‐Sep

11‐Sep

18‐Sep

25‐Sep

2‐Oct

9‐Oct

16‐Oct

23‐Oct

30‐Oct

PercentageofShares

Date

ElectionSharingActivity

ObamaBidenMcCainPalin


7

Candidates’WebSites

Before we take a look at the social media Web sites, let’s first look at the

candidates’Websitedemographicstounderstandthetypeofvisitorstheyattracted.

Looking at the candidates’Web site visitor age,we see that barackobama.com

attracted a slightly higher percentage of voter‐aged visitors as a percentage of total

visitors, when compared to johnmccain.com, according to data compiled on

Compete.com.

Also using data provided by Compete.com,we see that barackobama.com had

nearlydoubletheuniquevisitorsof johnmccain.cominSeptember2008,asshownon

thegraphbelow:

0

10

20

30

40

18‐34 35‐49 50+

Percent

AgeGroup

AgeGroupsasaPercentageofTotalVisitors

barackobama.comjohnmccain.com


8

This is an indication that theWebwasmore utilized by theObama campaign

when compared to theMcCain campaign; however visitor numbers don’t necessarily

translateintoraisingcampaigndollars,ormoreimportantly,actualvotescomeelection

day. Approximately 100,000 more visitors to barackobama.com was through social

media,basedonthesocialmediareferrerdata.

Next,eachofthesocialmediasiteswillbeindividuallyanalyzed.Iwillbelooking

ateachcandidate’spresenceonthesite,theageofusers,andthepotentialforvoting

influence.


9

Blogs

Technorati

Technorati,asitebest

known for it’s blog search

engine, provides results of

blogpostsbasedonkeyword

search.While it only returns

keyword usage, and not the

context of the message, we

can still determine which

candidatereceivedmorementionsonblogsatlarge,anindicationofblogshareofvoice.

Itneeds tobenoted that I couldnot segmentbasedonblogcountryorigin, so

resultsincludeinternationalblogsaswellasU.S.blogs.

Above, we see that “obama” returned over 650,000 results, and “mccain”

returnedjustover500,000resultsonthesearchengine.ThisindicatesObama’sshare

ofblogvoice,ortheoverallblogcoverage,isroughly30%higherthanMcCain’s.

While just blog mentions don’t indicate tone of message, Obama clearly had a

highershareofvoicethanMcCainonblogs.

TechnoratiSearchResults

ObamaMcCain


10

SocialNetworking

Facebook

Facebook,oneof themostdominatesocialmediaWebsites,had28.21million

visitsinSeptemberfrompeoplewhoare18yearsofageorolderandresidingintheU.S,

basedondataprovidedbybothCompete.comandQuantcast.com.

ObamaspentmoreadvertisingdollarsonFacebookthananyoftheothersocial

mediasites.Actually,fromJanuarythroughAugust,theObamaCampaignspentnearly

$112,000onFacebook,accordingtoClickZ.iv

Facebook representation can be measured in two ways. First, by using

Facebook’s advertisement targeting feature, the number of profiles thatmention the

keyword “obama”or “mccain” canbedetermined (labeledon thegraphaskeyword).

Secondly, both Obama and McCain have Facebook profiles for which supporters,

dubbed “fans,” can add them as friends (labeled on the graph as fans). Both are

representedon the graphbelowand it’s quite clear thatObamadominates Facebook

withbothkeywordsandnumberoffans.


11

Of the Facebook

usersthathavechosento

publically associate

themselves with a

political thought, which

closely represents party

alignment, 41% are

liberal, 31% are

conservative, and 28%

aremoderate,according todataprovidedbyFacebookonMarch6,2008.v If thedata

holdtrue,McCainshouldhaveahigherFacebookrepresentation,basedonthepolitical

associationswhencomparedtoObama’snumbers.

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

keyword fans

NumberofInstancesorFans

TypeofRepresentation

FacebookRepresentationofCandidates

ObamaMcCain

41%

31%

28%

PoliticalAssociationofFacebookUsers

liberalconservativemoderate


12

32%more Facebook users indicated they were liberal than conservative, but

Obamahad 270%more friends thanMcCain. This indicates that eitherObama had a

disproportionallylargenumberofsupportersorMcCainhadadisproportionatelysmall

numberofsupportersonFacebook.

In looking at the

demographics, Facebook is

dominated by 12 to 34 year olds.

While12to17hadanindex(Note:

Index represents how a site's

audiencecomparestotheonlineInternetpopulationasawhole.Anindexof100indicates

a site's audience is at parity with the total Internet population.) of 272, 47% of

Facebook’svisitscomefromthosewhoare18to34.Thisisimportant,becauseeither

candidates’representationnumberscanbeskewedbythosenotoldenoughtovote.

AccordingtoaPewInternetsurvey,viGenY(age18‐32)constitutes30%ofthe

Internetpopulation,reaffirmingFacebook’shighindexforusersage18‐34.

ObamadominatedMcCainonFacebook.Additionally,alargepercentage(33%)of

usersareundertheageof18,meaningtheywerenoteligibletovoteintheelection.


13

Myspace Myspace, like Facebook, allows users to connect with others through their

friends, as well as through

groups. Myspace, had over 56

million visits from U.S. visitors

overtheageof18inSeptember,

meaning it has broader reach

domestically thanFacebook. Agedistributionscloselymirror thatofFacebook’swith

33percentoftrafficcomingfromthoseunder18,and44percentoftrafficcomingfrom

thosebetweentheagesof18and34.

Myspace was well

utilized by Obama, allowing

him to attain more than

800,000friends,comparedto

McCain’spaltry5,187,shown

onthegraphtotheleft.

The impact, however,

isquestionable.Myspace,like

Facebook,isasitepeopleuse

toconnectwitheachother,sharenewsandinformationwithfriends,andkeeptrackof

contacts. Even though Obama had many more “friends” than McCain, the age and

geographic location of users, in addition to the site being designed for users to stay

MySpaceFriends

ObamaMcCain


14

updated on people, not persuade them, makes the impact questionable. This is

questionable even though MySpace referred over 52,000 U.S. visitors to

barackobama.com,andover37,000U.S.visitorstojohnmccain.cominSeptember2008.

EventhoughObamahadmanymorefriendsthanMcCain,Myspaceprofilessentnearly

thesameamountoftraffictoeachoftherespectivesites.Onpossiblereasonforthisis

thatObama’sfriendswerelessactiveonMyspacethanMcCains.

EvenmoresothanFacebook,ObamaheldaclearadvantageoverMcCaininterms

of friends, however the impact number of users had on the campaign is

questionable.

Digg

DiggisanewsaggregationWebsitethatallowsuserstoadd,rate,andcomment

onnewsarticles.It’sconsideredto

bealowimpactsite,becauseofthe

low traffic it referred to the

candidates sites in September. In

terms of visitors’ age, 87% are of

votingage,with28%oftotalvisitorsbetweentheagesof18and34,asevidentonthe

graph.

To determine candidate share of voice, two searches were done using the

keywords “obama” and “mccain,” respectively, and the number of results pages

recorded.“Obama”returned109pagesofresults,while“McCain”returned88,meaning

theshareofvoicewasinObama’sfavor,butnotasmuchasonoftheothersites.


15

However,when looking at the content of these submitted news items, a large

percentage seem to be pro‐Obama and anti‐McCain (or Palin), meaning that even

though McCain’s share of voice was fairly close to Obama’s, most of that voice was

negative.

Obama edged out McCain in terms of number of pages of results, however the

perceptionofthecandidatesseemedtobeinObama’sfavor.Theimpact,intermsof

referredtraffictotheofficialwebsiteofthecampaigns’,isminimal.

Twitter

Twitter, amicro‐blogging service that allows its users to send and read other

users' 140 character updates (known as tweets), had nearly 3.25 million accountsvii

worldwideandwasusedbybothObamaandMcCain.However,thecampaignsusedit

fordifferentpurposes.ObamausedTwittertoupdateonlocation,whileMcCainusedit

tounveilnewadvertisements,pressreleases,andstatements.

ThenumberofusersfollowingObama’sandMcCain’supdatesandthenumberof

timesthecandidates’Twitteraccounthadbeenupdatedcanbeseenbelow:

TwitterFollowers

ObamaMcCain

TwitterUpdates

ObamaMcCain


16

InadditiontothecampaignsutilizingTwitter,otherTwitterusershadalsobeen

veryactiveinmentioningObamaandMcCain.UsingGoogleandthesite:searchfeature,

there were 1,260,000 instances of “obama” and 725,000 instances of “mccain” on

Twitter.

Based on data of Twitter users who have tweeted about Obama and McCain,

providedbyTwitrratr.com,Obama(samplesize:24120tweets)hadmorepositivebuzz

on Twitter thanMcCain (sample size: 13966 tweets). Twitrratrworks, according to

their website, by using a pre‐defined list of positive keywords and a list of negative

keywords. Twitrratr then searches Twitter for the user‐defined keyword, and the

resultsarecross‐referencedagainsttheadjectivelists.Theresultsarecompliedandthe

relative number of positive, negative, and neutral twitter messages are displayed

accordingly.

75%

80%

85%

90%

95%

100%

ObamaMcCain

PerceptiononTwitter

positivenegativeneutral


17

Veryarguably,thisisnotaverygoodwayofmeasuringperception.Forexample,

atweetfromuser@aldyreads,“Obamashouldbehisownpresssecretary,hiscurrent

onesuckswhentalkingtothepress.”viiiEventhoughthistweetwasaftertheelection,a

similar one before could have given Obama (or McCain) negative perception, since

“sucks” is on the negatives list. However, this was mentioning that Obama’s press

secretarysucks,nothim.

Twitter, however, had a

low reach as compared to the

other sites, with just over 3

million visitors from the U.S. in

September 2008, according to

Compete.com.In lookingatthedifferentagegroupsofTwitter,wefindthatnearlyall

usersareovertheageof18.

While the site has millions of visits from 18+ year olds in the U.S., its impact is

relatively low,especiallywhencomparedtotheothersocialmediaWebsites, like

Facebook.


18

Collaboration

Meetup

Meetupwas themost utilized collaborationWeb site betweenObama andMcCain.

Meetupmakesiteasyforanyonetoorganizealocalgrouporfindoneofthethousands

already meeting up face‐to‐face. In essence, Meetup is a basic way to engage and

organizesupportersonlineforofflineactivism.

Obama had over 14,000 active members, and McCain had just over 1,750

members. What is really

important about Meetup is

thatwhile the sitemight not

directly influence the

outcomeoftheelection,what

itorganizesmightverywell.

Its important to note

that while the site has fairly

low traffic and referred few visitors to the official campaign Web sites, it was

instrumental in organizing volunteerism. The site is also dominated by voting age

members,especiallyinthe35‐49agegroup.

To put impact in perspective, an article titled “How Obama Won” by Rolling

Stonewrites:

MeetupMembers

ObamaMcCain


19

Howard Dean used the Internet for meetups — Obama used it to create a

movement. It was enormously important for getting the message out, raising

moneyandmobilizingvoters.Thosearethethreethings—message,moneyand

mobilization—thattheObamateamsawandexecutedonbrilliantly.ix

WhileMeetup had fairly low traffic and referrer volumes, itwas instrumental in

bringingonlineactivismoffline.


20

Media

Flickr

Flickr is a site that allows users to upload digital images and tag them with

specific keywords. Other

users can then search these

keywords. Obama had a

greater presence on Flickr

than McCain, shown to the

right.

In the traffic graph,

Flickr has massive amounts

of traffic, however, it’s not as

interactiveorsocialasasitelike

Facebook, so it most likely

doesn’t have as strong of

influence. 90% of Flickr’s U.S.

visitorsareovertheageof18.

Obama and McCain had many pictures in professional and semi‐formal

situations,withmostofthembeingfairlycandid.

FlickrSearchResults

ObamaMcCain


21

Because these images containa very shortmessage, if any, theactual impact for

influence is fairly low, however it’s still important to note Flickr has 90% of its

trafficcomingfromvisitorsofvotingage.

YouTube

Youtube,oneoftheworld’slargestWebsitesintermsoftraffic,wasanintegral

part of each campaign, allowing the candidates to publish campaign updates,

commercials, and more. Unlike the other social media sites, YouTube allowed the

campaignstoprovideanexperience

topotentialvoters–bothwithaudio

and visual components.

Interestingly enough, Obama’s

campaign also included a donation

widget, that allowed visitors to

donate to his campaign. This was

one of the few instantaces that integrated social media directly with campaign

fundraising.AccordingtoaWashingtonPostarticle:

ThecampaignactivatedtheGoogleCheckoutoptiononallofitsYouTubevideos

onTuesday,meaningviewerscanmakedonationsfrom$15to$1,000.Checkout

allows online shoppers (or in this case, voters) to create a single login for all

onlinepurchases(ordonations).x


22

Even though the 12 to 17

age bracket has an index of 164,

only19%ofitsU.S.visitorsfallinto

thiscategory.The18+category,or

U.S. visitors of voting age,

accountedfor78%ofthenearly63millionuniquevisitorsinSeptember.Additionally,it

needstobepointedoutthat42%ofU.S.visitorstoYoutubeare35yearsofageorolder,

meaningtheyareofprimevotinganddonationage.

When looking at

YouTube search results, or

videos on YouTube that are

tagged with “obama” and

“mccain,”Obamaheldaclear

advantage in terms of

number of videos. Again, the

tonality of these videos may

bedifferentforeachcandidate.Alookatthetopvideosrevealsverypositivecontenton

ObamaandverynegativecontentonMcCain.Infact,avideowithover8millionviews

istitled“McCain'sYouTubeProblemJustBecameaNightmare,”xiwhichisessentiallya

verystronganti‐McCainvideo.

YouTubeSearchResults

ObamaMcCain


23

Obama clearly

dominates YouTube

subscribers, or the number

of users who have

subscribed to receive

updates when Obama and

McCain publish a new video

to the site. This means that,

thereweremanymorepeopleinterestedinreceivingupdatesonObama’svideosthan

McCain’svideos.

Obama also hadmore

channel views. While this

graphmay seem simple, it is

very important, because

videos can be much more

influential than say a status

update on Twitter. They can

include much more content,

includelessrestrictionsincontent,andallowthecandidatetohaveaclearpresence.

ObamaheldanotherdistinctadvantageoverMcCainononeofthemostvisited,and

arguably the most influential, sites of the election. Additionally, the tonality of

YouTubeSubscribers

ObamaMcCain

YouTubeChannelViews

ObamaMcCain


24

videoswasgreatlyinObama’sfavor;however,22%ofYouTube’strafficcomesfrom

usersnotofvotingage.


25

VotingResults

Thegraphbelowrepresentsfourmajoragegroupsasapercentageofthetotal

votersforboththe2004and2008presidentialelectionsxii.Itisimportanttonotethat

socialmediadidnotappeartoattractanynewvotersasapercentageoftotalvoters.

According to official reports by the Federal Election Commission, the popular

vote(Bush/Kerry)for2004was121,069,054xiiiandthepopularvote(Obama/McCain)

for2008was129,391,711xiv,anincrediblysmallmarginalincrease.

If social media didn’t attract any new voters, did it influence voters who

originallysupportedonecandidatetoactuallyvoteforanothercandidate?

05101520253035

40

18‐29 30‐4445‐64

65orover

Percentage,asaTotalofallVotes,fortheir

respectiveyear

AgeGroup

PresidentialElectionResults

20042008

TotalPopularVote2004=121,069,0542008=129,391,711


26

Thebelowgraphshowsnotonly thedistributionof ages fromvoting,butalso

thepercentageoftotalvotesfortheagegroup.The50‐64agegroupwasthedominate

voting group, accounting for over 27% of total votes, while 18‐24 year old voters

accountedforjustover10%.

Based solely on this data, it would appear that Obama made more strides in

attracting the younger voters than McCain, and social media could be named as an

influencer.However, let’s lookatvotingpatterns.Could itbe thatObamawasamore

attractive candidate to younger voters, just as JohnKerrymayhavebeen, and that it

wasn’tdrivenbysocialmedia?

JohnKerry, in2004, attracted54%of the18‐29yearoldvoters,whileObama

attracted66%.Additionally, inthe30‐44agecategory,Kerrygrabbedjust44%,while

Obamareceived52%ofthevotes.

Using some extrapolation and assumptions, the graph below represents the

average age (from Quantcast.com) of the social media sites mentioned in this paper

0%2%4%6%8%10%12%14%

18‐24 25‐29 30‐39 40‐49 50‐64 65orover

Percentage,asaTotalofallVotes

AgeGroup

VotingResultsbyAgeGroupandCandidate

ObamaMcCain


27

(excluding Technorati) and that age group’s percentage of total votes in the 2008

presidentialelection(fromCNN.com).

Notsurprisingly,18%ofsocialmediausageisbythosenotevenoldenoughto

vote.Additionally,the18to34agegroupaccountedfor42%ofsocialmediasiteusage,

butonly28%ofvotes. Inessence, theyoungervisitors (<35yearsold)accounted for

mostofthesocialmediasiteusage,whiletheoldervoters(>=35yearsold)accounted

formostofthevotes.

Under18 18‐34 35‐49 50+%socialmediasiteusage 18% 42% 24% 15%%votes 0% 28% 31% 31%

0%5%10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%

Percent

AgeGroups

PercentofSocialMediaUseandVotesinthe2008PresidentialElectionbyAge

Group

%socialmediasiteusage %votesSourcesQuantcast.comandCNN.com


28

Conclusion

Inconclusion,basedonresearchconducted,socialmediawasagreatconnector

andhadsomeimpactonvoters,especiallyinthe18‐29agegroups.However,Imaintain

that it was more of a connector than a direct influencer in getting candidate votes.

Obama having, in some instances, more than 10 times the exposure on some social

media sites and basically being at parity with McCain in the 30‐64 age groups in

percentageofvotes,indicatessocialmediawasn’tasimpactfulinolderagegroups.

Indirectly, socialmediawasan instrumentalenabler. It connectedhundredsof

thousandsofvolunteers,referredmillionsofvisitorstothecandidatesWebsites,andit

providedinformationatincrediblespeed.

Socialmediamarketing,especiallyinpoliticsisheretostay.It’snearlyfreeand,

aspoliticaladvertisingbecomesmorefragmented,candidateswillbe lookingtoreach

users wherever they are and social media sites are no exception. In looking at the

future,candidateswillstarttousesocialmediaasaninfluencerandafundraiser,rather

thanawaytojustpushoutstandardcontent(likepressreleases)andupdateuserson

theirlocation.


29

References

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iiPewResearchCenterforthePeopleandthePressofpew&AmericanLifeProject,“Internet’sBroaderRoleinCampaign2008,”January11,2008.

iiiLuo,Michael."DemocratsLeadinRaisingMoneyOnline."TheNewYorkTimes13JUL2007<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/us/politics/13internet.html?_r=1>.

ivKaye,Kate."ObamaNears$5.5MillioninOnlineAdSpending."ClickZ29SEP2008<http://blog.clickz.com/080929‐123950.html>.

vWebster,Buzz."Facebook'sPoliticalDemographics."PoliticsOnline06MAR2008<http://www.politicsonline.com/blog/archives/2008/03/facebook_search.php>.

vi"GenerationsOnlinein2009."PewInternet28JAN2009<http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/275/report_display.asp>.

vii<http://twitdir.com>.22OCT2008

viiiMasna,Aldy.05FEB2009<http://twitter.com/aldy/statuses/1179038739>.

ixWenner,Jann."HowObamaWon."RollingStone27NOV2008<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24200780/how_obama_won/>.

xO'Keefe,Ed."YouTubeViewersCanNowDonateDirectlytoObama."WashingtonPost28MAY2008<http://blog.washingtonpost.com/channel‐08/2008/05/obama_montana.html>.

xibravenewfilms,"McCain'sYouTubeProblemJustBecameaNightmare."18MAY2008<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c>.

xii<http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html>and<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26843704>.

xiii"2004ELECTIONRESULTS."<http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/tables.pdf>.

xiv"2008OFFICIALPRESIDENTIALGENERALELECTIONRESULTS."22JAN2009<http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf>.

the social media use of obama and mccain

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