"Politics Leads the Way We Blog"

"Blogs, Videos, and the Political Season"

Politics has led the new media revolution. And this year is promising already to be cutting edge.

Hillary Clinton does not typically show good numbers across all demographics when making public appearances. She has brilliantly counteracted that by having personal "visits" with her viewers of her website, thusly controlling her appearance. She has a new video about every week for you to watch.

Ironically, it has been the Conservative side of American Politics that has typically dominated new media, with Cable and now the Internet. Many believe John Kerry's demise in 2004 was because of a very strong right wing net base that attacked him on every front, mostly from the web.

Politicians have lived and died by the net so far in this short century. Heck, even journalists have lost their tenure because of "corrections" by bloggers.

And as the right has typically dominated the new channels, it seems to be the left whom have been cutting edge. You will recall that Howard Dean was able to get huge grassroots support thru his blogging efforts in 2004.

Now Hillary is Vblogging. And Obama is attacking back not on TV or Cable. But on You Tube!

Themed from the "1984" Apple Computer Mac Launch promised a new revolution, the Hillary Video implies a new age of politics. This video is going right after that base that Howard Dean took in '04.However, the Obama campaign is claiming that they did not release the video.

In webalogy, that means this thing has got some viral juice in it.

Meanwhile, the Edwards campaign made a blunder by hiring two pro bloggers that have written very disparaging remarks on their personal blogs that would offend a religious group that Edwards sorely needs.

I write this non real estate post because it is about blogging. And the political scene typically leaves many blunders (like hiring outside writers), and cutting edge guerilla tactics to grab mind share.

The campaigns leave behind a series of "tests" that we can all study for their clues to success or failure on the web.

Comments

[Joseph M. Zlomek]

Tim, it would be helpful to update this post. Effective 03.21.2007, the creator of the "1984" Clinton video mash-up has been identified by The Huffington Post blog as not the Obama campaign but an Obama supporter who admitted he did not consult or consort with anyone in his efforts. As a personal aside, I wonder whether this kind of "cutting edge guerilla tactic to grab mind share" is something real estate licensees should embrace as a form of Internet marketing, or shun. Avoid it, I say.

[Tim O'Keefe]

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/13040/

reports that:
"The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama," Jim Kuhnhenn reports for The Associated Press.

"Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign," Kuhnhenn reports.

I had heard this and tried to pull this from a non rightie site. I saw mac, and mac evangeleists are typically Lefties ( I have no idea why the correlation)so I thought I would get a very unbiased report.

However, this post wasn't about politics as this is a marketing site. The tactics is what I am reporting on. The point of my piece was that the tactics are very new. And that typically Political seasons usher in a new set of online maneuvering that is adopted by mainstream marketing.

[Joseph M. Zlomek]

Tim, I applaud your effort to recognize that what happens in political marketing may ultimately affect marketing in other industries like real estate. Such insight is why your blog gets read! My point is simply that, in a profession so publicly reviled as real estate, licensees must consistently take the high road. If creating viral juice-infused mash-ups like "Obama 1984" (for lack of a better title) gives the real estate business an even blacker eye, agents are best served by avoiding it ... not emulating it.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Joseph-
Thanks for keeping it going...
I think the video in the context of the political world was tame. BTW Paradoxically, Hillary was shown thru Zogby polls to have benefitted from the Vid. Proof why politics is better than sports!

Anyway, I don't believe that the bashing would be tolerable in the realm of real estate. However, the guerilla aspects is what I am fascinated by.

Like Dean brought blogs the toy to have for all politicos, Now the Video has shown itself to be an attention getter.

The first reaction will be for all to put their attempts at traditional commercial qualty ads.

This will be useless except to wow their customers. What if in the insurance industry a marketer produces average quality documentaries on tragedies such as floods, fires etc. Then it ends to see more go to the tragedy website. And on the site is a ton of more info of all these fires floods, etc and the lives it disrupted. Which of course is all a giant reminder why you need insurance. And you offer a booklet and it ends with a soft sell for insurance quotes.

What I just mentioned is so guerilla.

However, the vast majority of the sheeple will plaster their ego centric ads on the You Tube and come to the conclusion that video does not work. Just like many say that blogs or leads on the internet suck.

Right now blogs are the buzz. Ask how many actually have any money from a blog.....A handfull of all the ones that blog will say they are making money. Simply because most sheeple follow the leader even though the leader might be the salesman who sold them the tool.