This is not a political post – it is a social media post. My email from President Obama – and others are shared below. Read on for the details.
Politicians (or better yet – their political campaigns) are showing us some great case studeis on social media.
Social Media overload is something that can be debated for sure. And as social media grows at different rates for different people at various geographic locations and cultures around the globe, the depth and pervasiveness of it is relevant.
Having said that, I am seeing a shift in the social aspect of social media. I have shared before that this may be the time that Warhol was speaking of – everyone’s 15 minutes of fame may be happing now – because it can and everyone seemingly wants their time.
I have also stated that I believe social media is as perfect an oxymoron as JumboShrimp. Social by it’s very nature is human interaction. Conversely, media by it’s nature is primarily about broadcasting.
Social media then, in its best form finds the balance – right? The social woven eloquently within the media. The nuance of retweets, comments, likes, digital conversations, texts and even face to face, event based, word-of-mouth all wound up into the media – the broadcasting of the overall (long-term) marketing efforts intended.
But the social aspect may be losing.
I saw this ad inviting little ol me to have dinner with the President and just had to click. I wanted to see where it took me. And that started the inspiration for this post.
I then recieved emails from Barack, Michelle, VP Joe, John Kerry, David Axelrod, and a host of others.
Click on an ad, and you’re in their sights! They use the term “Friend”, they sign-off with just a first name, the seemingly personal invite to a birthday party, dinner? Sometimes 3-4 emails in one day – do you buy this anymore? And I’ll say it again – I’m not making a political statement… it is a social media observation – I am getting at here.
A campaign is media but it is not social. Some will buy into it, they likely would have bought into it anyway.
When the media turns social – now THAT is when it can have influence.
You see – I think social media worked liked this 4-5 years ago really well, in fact it worked well for the presidential race back then. There was still a newness to the social media space. But since that time, Twitter, Facebook, and all of the others have exploded in terms of use – and now those using and more importantly consuming are smarter or perhaps more cynical and jaded than they once were.
Sure, the campaign is probably working, but this along with the use of social media in the Olympics shows a sign that the social may be lost to the media in some of the grand-scale (campaigns).
Now I will contradict myself. As horrific and tragic as some of the news has been in the middle east the past year or so, social media has had and continues to have a massive role in that process. Which speaks to the point that when there is a common thread among a large population, social media can unite quicker than anything we have ever seen before.
See multi-page PDF of screen grabs showing some of the emails received over the past 45 days.
Social Media? – The social is still primary before the media. We need to all remember that. Social media is a tool that can be effective if/when used properly.
John Ayers 
