Can’t Plan a Viral Campaign: Part 2

I recently posted about the difficulty in planning for a  video to go viral.  Sarah Silverman’s the Great Schlep is possibly one of the best viral efforts in recent public affairs memory NOT just because the video has been seen over 925,000 in three weeks, but because the video  was part of a call to action that resulted in actually moving people to act. 

Silverman’s Great Schlep was part of a campaign by the Jewish Council for Education and Research, who also sponsored the website JewsVote.org.  On Columbus Day weekend, Jewish grandkids descended on their grandparents’ communities in Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Barack Obama on Nov. 4.

Cute and comical…yes.  But this effort is also a great example of how mixing Web 2.0 tools (web video, blogging and social network sites) and “boots on the ground” can play out in a major battleground state.

Let’s not forgot the slim 500+ vote margin of victory that propelled George W. Bush to victory over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.  That vote margin again could be the difference in 2008.  And, the effort made possible by the Web 2.0 tools could actually be the difference for Obama in Florida.

The lesson here is the formula.  Web 2.0 is best when coupled with a way to connect ideas to people and then people to people.  Most importantly, if the people to people connection can be brought to real life, then the public affairs effort is a winner.  It’s worked in local campaigns and now in this subset of the presidential campaign.

Predicting the 2008 Election through Online WOM

The folks at WOM agency MotiveQuest are on to a very interesting experiment.  They’re using their proprietary online promoter score that measures online conversation to predict the the 2008 Presidential Election outcome.

From a purely branding perspective, this is a great way for MotiveQuest to “walk the walk.”  Through their BrandAdvocacy08 website, MotiveQuest will prove to the world that their methodology works and can even predict such major events as the election’s winner. 

In terms of the public affairs, measuring online WOM is something that electeds, candidates and organizations should be doing.  There’s a lot of conversation happening out there pertaining to people and issues.  Organizations first must understand the conversation and listen to what’s happening.  Next, they have to find the right way to get involved.

If anything, Obama’s campaign has spurred WOM from his supporters and has built a solid community around his candidacy.  For McCain, his WOM never took off and there hasn’t been a real community to coalesce around him.  I think McCain will look back in a couple of years and resent the different directions his campaign people pushed him to go.  His brand became foreign to himself and he was clearly uncomfortable with John McCain, the candidate.  Had he been true to his own brand, I think the online communities would have formed in a major way around McCain the candidate because it would have been clear he stands for something.