The Open Source Marketer

What can we learn as Internet Marketers from the 2008 Presidential race for the White House?

Before we answer that, let’s look at how John McCain failed to leverage the Internet to promote his campaign.

Was John McCain the victim of a biased news media during the 2008 Presidential race to the White House? Maybe so. But, what ultimately hurt John McCain’s campaign was how his message was constructed and how it was distributed.

There were clearly times when it seemed Barack Obama could do no wrong and John McCain could do no right. But what Senator McCain failed to realize was that he had the same access to the Internet that you and I have and a lot of people were paying attention.

John McCain didn’t understand, or rather his campaign managers didn’t understand that the face of media has changed. When Hollywood screenwriters went on strike a year ago, it wasn’t about working conditions. It was about how the Internet and new media has changed traditional media.

Yes, there are 24 hour cable news channels where you can get news from all around the world with a click of the TV remote. But that’s not where people are turning to get information that they trust.

John McCain thought if he ran traditional political TV ads he was following a formula that had worked in the past. But people have come to be skeptical of traditional media and with TIVO they can watch what they want, when they want and that rarely includes paid political ads attacking your opponent.

John McCain didn’t understand that people talk outside his rallys and that what happens at a town hall rally can and will be rebroadcast around the world with the click of a mouse button. He thought he could control his message by limiting it to only a few distribution channels, but he didn’t understand the culture of new media and the influence it is having on people.

To illustrate, do a search on YouTube for Barack Obama Videos and John McCain Videos. What you will find is that Obama has videos that show him speaking in town squares and making statements that promise hope for the future. For McCain you will find a list of all his political ads against Obama.

So, what can we learn as Internet Marketers?

• Recognize that social media is strong and here to stay
• Understand that you can control you, but you can’t control everyone else
• Focus on the positive aspects of your product or service and leave the negative alone
• Make sure your product is what customers want
• Lean into multiple commication methods like video, podcasts, blogs, Facebook pages, etc.
• Test different communication channels before picking just one
• Don’t avoid what you don’t understand
• Seek out partnerships with those who are strong where you’re not

The landscape of media is changing and no one has a monopoly on how things are going to turn out. But, for those who pay attention, there is a world of possibilities in front of them.

What opportunities are staring you in the face?

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Over the past few years blogs have enjoyed increased readership and visitor traffic. But, for the most part, the discussion about how to get traffic to your blog has involved a grocery list of techniques and ideas for bringing in new readers. I rarely hear anyone talking about how you can use offline methods or traditional media to gain blog traffic.

Maybe it’s because as bloggers we try to set ourselves apart from traditional media and to some degree there may be merit in that goal. But as much as we may think our blog’s message can carry itself without the help of traditional media, the fact is that main stream media can give your blog a well deserved boost of visitor traffic.

Big media communication channels like radio, television, and print are all well established methods of spreading mass information and as the lines continue to blur between traditional and new media we should be open to opportunities where they exist.

Even as news stories continue to pop up about reduced readership numbers for print media there is opportunity for getting your blog listed in a newspaper or magazine to draw attention to your blog. These media sources offer a proven way of getting in front of an offline audience. Even if your message is presented to a reduced number or readers, you have to imagine that those readers are still the people who are truly interested in the topic of the print publication because they are still subscribed.

So how can you get your blog featured in one of these big media sources as part of your blogging process? Well, recently my wife and blogging partner came across an interesting blog promotion network while reviewing partner blogs for her Great Cooks Blogroll.

The site, appropriately name BlogBurst, is a “syndication service that places blogs on top-tier online destinations”. They offer exposure to media outlets like Reuters, USA Today, McGraw-Hill, Fox News, and other blog friendly media sources.

Basically, your content gets pulled through the BlogBurst network where they match your content with publishers who benefit from serving your content along with their advertising. When someone reads your post on one of these major media sources they have the ability to click through to your blog. Essentially you are rewarded for producing good content that has value to publishers and their readers within the BlogBurst network.

As you can see, it’s not hard to understand how having your blog post distributed by a large network can help draw attention to your overall blog. As existing media sources look for ways to offer more and more content to their readers and viewers, I believe this type of syndication model will become more common. Isn’t that the point of RSS and blog syndication in general?

Looking for opportunities,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com