Yesterday, I received an e-mail from an internet marketer, Rich Schefren.  In his e-mail, Rich attributed Obama’s win to the power of his social media marketing.  In the last week, I have heard a number of explanations of Obama’s victory.  The power of his social media organization was certainly impressive.  Rich Schefren pointed out that:

–Since the conventions, blog posts mentioning Obama outnumbered those referencing McCain by more than 3 to 1.

–Obama’s number of MySpace friends grew steadily over the past few months while McCain’s remained relatively flat. By election day, Obama had almost 4 times the number of friends McCain had

–While those MySpace figures are remarkable, the Twitter stats are even more eye-popping. Obama had nearly TWENTY FOUR times the amount of followers that McCain had.

…

And it doesn’t end there. I found similar numbers for FaceBook and YouTube usage as well, with Obama clearly outpacing McCain.

Obama’s tactic was a masterpiece.  It doesn’t matter if you are a PPC Web Spy or not–targeting the younger, more technically literate crowd (many who had never voted or even bothered to register) and hit them right where they live–on social networking landscape.

All of what Rich pointed out is very true.  Obama did an incredible job of mobilizing supporters online.  That is one great benefit for campaigns on the web.  The web gives you the opportunity to organize supporters cheaply.  And, that is critical for a campaign.  No longer do you have to pick up the phone and call 1,000 supporters.  Just Twitter it one time and have 1,000 people read that Tweet.  No longer do you have to spend thousands to find additional sources of funds.  Just blast out an e-mail and watch the money come in.

But, why was Obama able to accumulate all of these MySpace friends and McCain was not?  I have been telling people in the last few weeks that McCain NEVER could have mobilized that kind of online support for one reason.  It is all about the candidate.

In Primary Colors, one of my favorite movies, the Billy Bob Thorton character (who was supposed to be James Carville) kept discussing the importance of TB’s to a campaign, or “True Believers”.  Web support starts with a core of TBs.  That’s how the social media ball gets rolling.  After the early adopter TB’s come onboard, then, it becomes acceptable for others to get involved – because their friends are there.  In order to have those TB’s, you have to have a vision and a mission – something that the McCain campaign lacked.

No doubt, I voted for John McCain like millions of others.  But, why did we vote for him?  Was it the power of his vision or ideas?  I don’t think so.  Most of the Republicans I know were never excited about the McCain campaign.  They were terrified of Barack Obama.  But, in reality, what was the McCain campaign about?  What was the vision?  Give me 3 quick bullet points that the McCain campaign was about.  You can’t.  Because, his message was all over the place.  Actually, his message was “don’t vote for Obama”.  Plain and simple.

And, in order to succeed online, a campaign has to bring in TBs.  Building a web campaign presence is about attracting TBs.  A campaign must have a vision… a unifying, compelling vision that will attract youthful supporters who are tech savvy to get online and get involved – something that the McCain campaign lacked and, yet, something that Obama did so well.