The Obama Campaign's Secret Weapon

Through the social media, Barack Obama managed to become known, raise money and gain sufficient amount of votes to become our president.  As discussed in How He Really Did It, by David Talbot, by placing social media as the central component of the campaign and using its tools accordingly, Obama succeeded in obtaining the recognition he needed to help him win the presidency.  Obama’s campaign did something that no other politician had done before; they efficiently and effectively used social networking to gain people’s attention and votes. Through social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, they were not only able to reach out to the youth audience but to all those involved in the social media world. What is great about social media is that it enables one to publicly share and circulate information in seconds. It is obvious this is what Obama’s campaign found quite appealing and useful about it. I mean if you think about it at one point no one had any idea who Barack Obama was, but “somehow” overnight everyone knew his name.  This demonstrates the benefits of using social networking, especially in presidential campaigns; it is without a doubt a great source of communication and interaction with the public. The key ingredient in the Obama campaign was their ability to interact with the public. Their strategy was innovative and simply brilliant; it helped them reach out and connect with people of different ages and backgrounds.  Obama, as David Talbot states, “created the ultimate online political machine.”