The Power of the Groundswell… Literally
// November 5th, 2008 // Social Media
One of the things that never surprises me but always amazes me is how we as Canadians pay more attention to US elections, particularly this time around in what seemed to be a “anything’s better than Bush” rally.
I’m going to keep politics outside of the realm of this blog because it’s not what we like to talk about here; however, we DO like to talk about influence and groundswell, so let’s do some talking.
Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst for Forrester Research was kind enough to publish some interesting figures two days ago, all related to social activity surrounding Obama v. McCain. Now that we know who won, let’s take a look at the data:
On Facebook Obama had 380% more support than McCain
On MySpace Obama… had oddly 380% more support than McCain
On YouTube Obama had 403% more support than McCain… Anybody finding these numbers weird?
The only place that didn’t reach the 400% mark (or close to it) was Twitter with 240 times more followers than McCain.
The most interesting data out of all of this is that Obama won by slightly more than the usual margin we’ve seen in the previous two elections. Could this be an indication that the force of Groundswell is one to be reckoned with? We’re talking about a force above just brand, we’re talking about an entire country!
Clients take notice… This stuff works… At least enough to help somebody get voted into office… Think about it.
Credit to Jeremiah Owyang for the stats he dug up. You can check out his blog here, which he updates at least twice a day.
