I have an announcement…..I’m running for President!! I know…it’s a little late and everyone has a bit of a headstart on me, but for some reason I think that the Presidency might rest more on leveraging new technologies than deep campaign dollars…of course leveraging new technologies AND having deep pockets at the same time certainly won’t hurt (see my.barackobama.com). Campaign 2008 has introduced several new tools necessary to win the presidency that were previously nonexistent. Sites like Myspace, Youtube, and Facebook have certainly changed the political landscape, but the driver behind content distribution through all of those platforms is the BLOG….or when fused with Politics “Blogitics” as many have been calling it.

Simply Google any of the candidates candidates that matter and you’ll immediately see the impact that blogs have on politics. Let’s take a quick look at how candidates are using blogs to their advantage:

1. Personal Blogsites
Barack, Hillary and surprisingly even John all have person blogs. While they don’t drop in much, you bet that every one of their campaign managers are in there posting new information daily. Sounds like news right? WRONG? The big difference between blogs and traditional news is that blogs are very informal, allowing for quick updates, instead of the NY Times daily, try getting a new Obama blog every 2 hours. Additionally blogs open up the opportunity to create discussion. The simple addition of a “comments” section turns a one way news article, into a hub for discussion and possibly 360 feedback between the blog writers and readers. Check out the candidates personal blogs below:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog
http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/
http://www.johnmccain.com/Blog/

2. Blog Linking
Sometimes what is even more powerful than the candidates own blog, is the number of various blogsites that link political content and develop conversations about the candidates. For example, the third most popular source for the Obama campaign video “Yes We Can” ft Will I Am came from a NY Times blog…3rd only to Google Video…which is so big they shouldn’t even count. The latest version of these Obama Videos called “We Are the Ones” is getting most of its incoming traffic, from four different blogsites, with popular urban blog The YBF being one of the top linking sources. Note: Not even Obama’s own site is linking this content more than any of the blogsites in the top 5. Sites like Sandrarose.com, theybf.com, bossip.com and concreteloop.com have virtually led the drive of online content to urban supporters of Barack Obama. All of these sites average nearly one new political post every other day, with anywhere from 50-400 comments on each post. Add in the amount of sites that start linking to their content and they’ve single-handedly created a media hub that could rival traditional TV sources. A few Obama links to get your fill:

http://www.bossip.com/categories/barack-obama/, http://www.concreteloop.com/categories/politics/, http://sandrarose.com/category/barack-obama/

3. Microblogging
Ever wanted to know what your favorite candidate was doing 2 hours ago. In comes, microblogging sites like www.twitter.com. Hillary and Obama have both embraced this technology that allows them to post 320 character updates from their phones direct to the mobile phones or twitter feeds of the their supporters. Why do this? Because blogs rock!, even when their only two sentences long, the concept remains the same…personalized news, opening opportunities for social conversation about things that may have previously been largely one-way closed doors. Check http://twitter.com/BarackObama,http://twitter.com/hillaryclinton and http://twitter.com/bush (not sure if that’s really him….but w/e).

When segmenting total online search hits against blog hits, an estimated 20% of all mentions about presidential candidates occur on blogs. And if the number of blog sites that write about you is as related to your chances of winning as it is to an artist album sales you can bet were going to see a huge ramp up in blog activity the closer we get to election day.

Tags: Black Bloggers, Politics, Presidential Race

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