Barack Obama – Using Social Media to Reach Out to the People

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Social media like Twitter and YouTube may seem mundane and out of this world for even a politician to consider in his or her public service life. But times are changing when a 47 year old Senator from Chicago Illinois decided that he wants to be the 44th president of the United States of America.

Barack Obama is young and has a lot of “Internet smart” people surrounding him. He first signed up on twitter at the heat of the Presidential Primaries. It was obvious that he was not the one personally tweeting, but nobody cared. Almost all at once, the technorati of Silicon Valley followed him by the hundreds until he pushed past web celebrities like Kevin Rose and Leo Laporte. As of now he has 228,567 followers under his belt. Way past the big Internet celebrities and mainstream celebrities.

His last tweet? January 19th: Barack Obama is asking you to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr by volunteering in your area. Visit http://USAservice.org or text SERVE to 56333 for info. The other question is, will he even tweet again now that he is seated in the White House?

Aside from Twitter, Obama also has a MySpace page, a podcast called the Obamacast, and a YouTube channel. Clearly, the 44th president of the United States has more than an inkling over the growing importance of the web as a communication medium and a community forming instrument.

Many are saying that Twitter won the election for Obama. Clearly, this is an exaggeration. Twitter members are merely a fraction of the voting public. The truth is some of his Twitter followers are not even American citizens that can vote. Regardless, this is a testament that the man knows that showing knowledge about technology and social networking can set him apart from the rest of the candidates.

As mentioned above, Obama also appeared on the Obamacast. The Obamacast is a podcast or Internet radio show, syndicated through an RSS feed. It is a popular audio commentary show during his time as Senator. You can still find 1 year old audio files from Odeo where then Senator Obama addresses some of the issues that affect Illinois and the rest of the American Senate. This makes apparent once again the understanding of Obama about the new order of things. That new order is transparency. President Obama is very good at projecting to the American public that he is an open president, a president of the people whom they can approach easily. This kind of openness has been unprecedented.

Twitter and other social media did not necessarily won the election for President Obama, but maybe the perception of the public was swayed as to his modern thinking and youthful vitality. The president showed his willingness to embrace technology, to embrace the fast paced changing world. He showed he can adapt and that he understands the basics of living in this technological society.

It is so refreshing to have a leader who, at long last, gets it.

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