Social Media campaign of Barack Obama in Presidential Election 2012

Author : Googma Sansar

Social media networks called the presidential election 2012 were in Obama’s favor. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus were the major social media tools to popularized Obama’s Profile status. One case study “Used of Social Media in Presidential Election-2012” revealed that 33,656,198 Likes, 446,044 Shares, and 166,765 comments on Facebook. Likewise; there were 695,135 re-tweets and 238,802 Favorites on Twitter. 2413018 people were Google +1 in Barack Obama’s Google plus Profile.

At the day of election, there was record breaking traffic generated from all over the world. According to Twitter official, 327453 Tweets per minutes when Barack Obama had won the election. Facebook was generating traffic more than four times. In 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama massively used his status on social media and had won the election. He repeated same techniques as promotional approached in 2012 election. In 2008 election, people from worldwide were extremely crazy and millions of people became Obama’s fan on Facebook and Followers on Twitter. It was a nice technique to quick gain popularity. Obama also gained popularity among young generation and majority of Fans and Followers were young generation. Most of the people were like, share and re-tweet the photo of Obama embracing with his wife Michelle Obama.

On other hand social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Stumbleupon, Flicker, Tumbler, YouTube were become the foremost sources of link sharing and connecting on conversation. Social bookmarking sites also played the crucial role to bookmarking Obama related articles, news, post, video etc.
YouTube became the major sources of video sharing bookmarking sites while presidential election. Billions of people around the world watched and subscribed YouTube video of presidential election. 287,677,370 people viewed and 284,186 people were subscribed the Barack Obama’s YouTube video.

Obama in Presidential election 2012 was become icon on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Tumble, Flicker were major boosted the Obama’s favor. The Obama election campaign photo which was posted on Facebook became the “Most-Like” Facebook photo. The campaign photo was like by 2.1 million and which was record broken. In Election Day (Wednesday) Obama photo had generated 3.5 million likes, 170000 comments and 46000 shares. At the same day more than 300000 tweets per minute, the overall tweeting were 23 million. The photo of the president hugging the Michelle Obama was re-tweeting 40800 times. According twitter official, 327,452 tweets per minutes when announced Barack Obama winning re-election.

Barack Obama proclaimed himself the winner over Mitt Romney by Tweeting “This happened because of you, Thank You”

He tweeted again: “We’re all in this together that’s show we campaigned, and that’s who we are, Thank you- bo”.

There were 31 million election related tweets on the last night of election. 23 million tweets in the day of election.

The internet is truly a real and powerful tool in politics and social media as another battle ground, democratic strategies in this digital age. It was the first social media election and fully a part of the election machine. Presidential race was the first where social media play the key role. Some international media called it was a first social media election like Twitter and Facebook. Online news portals announced that it was the victory over Facebook. Aggressive social media strategy was campaign by both candidates (Mitt Romney and Barak Obama).

The prominent social bookmarking site Reddit was importantly used for election related issue. Reddit has its own special feature in the crowd of bookmarking sites. Millions of people were share, subscribe and comment on Obama’s favor. There were 24292 comments on Reddit.

Last tweet of Mitt Romeny

“From the bottom our hearts, Ann and I thank you for your support, prayers, efforts & vote. We are forever” 10 Nov, 2012.

People ‘Unliking’ Mitt Romney in Facebook: According to CNN, Mitt Romney’s official Facebook page has been losing 11 fans per minutes and 847 friends per hours. At Monday afternoon (2 days prior to election) he still had more than 12 million Facebook fans and 1.7 million Followers on Twitter.

Comparative Social data of Two Candidates:
Barack Obama				Mitt Romney
1	Facebook:		1	Facebook:
	Total Likes:	33,656,198		Total Likes:	11,920,921
	Total Shares:	446,044		Total Shares:	N/A*
	Total Comments:	166,765		Total Comments:	N/A*
2	Twitter:		2	Twitter:
	Total Tweet:	7,986		Total Tweet:	1,351
	Total Following:	670,117		Total Following:	285
	Total Followers:	23,742,921		Total Followers:	1,749,629
3	Google Plus:		3	Google Plus:
	Google Plus (+1)	2,413,018		Google Plus (+1)	1,044,781
4	YouTube		4	YouTube
	Total Views:	287,677,370		Total Views:	33,573,039
	Total Subscribes:	284,186		Total Subscribes:	28,723

N/A = Not Available

 

In conclusion, there is no doubt that president Obama massively used the social media. It is a victory of social media because of major social media and its members were in favor of Obama. Social media has changed the election trends since 2008 presidential election campaigned. Not only Barack Obama’s profile popularized in media but also the social profile of First lady Michelle Obama work better.