On the verge of our country picking its next President of the United States, one candidate has truly taken advantage of how he uses the internet to spread his message of change. Closely watching this revolutionary online movement is Barack20.com, a Web 2.0 marketing concept created by Social CRM Expert Brent Leary and Online Business Development Expert David Bullock. The concept was formed out of the positive reaction Leary received from his Black Enterprise article, Barack Obama’s Lesson in Social Media. Leary then joined forces with Bullock in producing a webinar of the same name. The webinar was not promoted to many but the response from those fortunate to catch it was significant.
Leary and Bullock propose that Barack Obama’s success with social media provides best practice strategies that can be employed by small businesses. Leary states:
“Our hope is to help small business people learn how social media can positively impact their efforts by taking a close look at how the Obama campaign used Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other tools to engage millions of people.” Hence Barack20.com is born.
Leary and Bullock have no affiliation with Barack Obama, or the Obama campaign. The webinar, and their transcript of the original conversation, focuses solely on how the Obama campaign used social media to engage people at the grassroots level in order to win millions of votes and break political fundraising records. Bullock states:
“The idea is simple: digging deeper and showing true to life examples on how to really use social media to connect, engage and develop meaningful business relationships that create profitable connections for the business owner. In the end, transactions don’t occur without relationships. Social media bridges that gap.”
One thing is for sure, Barack Obama has made history both politically and technologically in his bid to become the first African-American President of the United States. All Barack20.com wants to do is educate small businesses on this social media marketing concept and have them apply it to their own businesses. I for one look forward to Brent and David’s next webinar scheduled for August 19, 2008, and in the meantime I’m noting how I can apply and put Obama’s Web 2.0 marketing strategies to the test.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
jbrath thanks for the interest in Barack 2.0. David Bullock and I are both excited to see the interest from the community in taking a closer look at how the Obama campaign’s use of social tools and strategies may help move their businesses forward.
BW2.0 thank you for adding jbrath to your great list of writers. He’ll be a great addition to the team.
Keep it going!
August 1st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Barack 2.0 shows the fundamental power of Web 2.0. That is the power of the platform. It was not too long ago that the only to reach a large audience was to use traditional media outlets such as radio, television, or large publications. This often cost a lot of money and made tracking the number of impressions difficult.
Fast forward to today, and anyone can reach hundreds if not thousands of people using applications like Facebook, Twitter, and the other sites that feed Barack 2.0. I have hundreds of people who follow the updates I make to my profile on those sites, and most of the are people I have never met. The power of the platform is no longer in the hands of traditional media channels. It will be interesting to see if Web 2.0 can help a man become President of the United States.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Brent, thanks for the comment and the praise. I was inspired by your thought provoking webinar.
Anjuan, a totally agree with you that we have moved beyond traditional media and I look forward to seeing where Brent and David take Barack20 from here.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Very interesting post and the website Barack 2.0 has some great information. I’m glad to see that Barack 2.0 is using web 2.0 to push his campaign. I can see where plenty of businesses can use the techniques David and Brent mentioned in their podcast and video.
In addition to what they talked about users should also look at ways of leveraging Google and the searches people are doing. Its a very powerful tool especially if you leverage it on a local level.