Yesterday, the first social media president was inaugurated.
Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to effectively use the Internet to converse with his audience. Other candidates had used the Internet to broadcast or raise a ton of money (Howard Dean), but candidate Obama took it to a new level by first listening to the needs of the country through twitter and his website. Once these messages were received, he incorporated these needs into his plan of action. The level of success of his social media strategy was demonstrated not just by the election results but by yesterday’s massive level of participation and enthusiasm on the Washington streets and throughout the rest of the country.
The ongoing challenge will be to see how this administration continues to mobilize this energy as he has transitioned his social media enegagement to Whitehouse.gov. We will be watching.
