TO: High-Level Business Executives
FROM: The Executive Whisper
On January 19, Scott Brown, an obscure state senator from Massachusetts, pulled off a stunning upset by beating the heavily favored state attorney general Martha Coakley for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Edward M. Kennedy.
Many political pundits credit the social media efforts and technological know-how of the Brown campaign for overcoming huge disadvantages in fundraising, familiarity, and party ID to win. In just one day, late in the race, the campaign was able to raise $1.3 million by publicizing a fundraising blitz using its established social media platforms.
So what was the secret of his success?
Here are the tools the campaign used (the stats are from Time):
- YouTube: His YouTube views hit more than half a million in the weeks leading up to the vote, compared with Coakley’s 51,000 views.
- Facebook: By the end of the race, Brown had 76,000 Facebook fans, and according to a study released by the Emerging Media Research Council, his fan page had 10X more interactions than Coakley’s.
- Ning: The campaign used the free community-building platform to create the “Brown Brigade,” which allowed the campaign to connect with grass-roots supporters and the supporters to network among themselves.
- Text Messaging: Viewed as its most important tool, the campaign continuously sent out text messages encouraging supporters, among other things, to call into radio shows that were interviewing Coakley with questions and comments.
- Word of Mouth: Brown’s staff banked on the fact that email and text messages might be forwarded by individuals to others in recipients’ electronic address books.
- Twitter: The morning before the special election, Brown had approximately 10,000 Twitter followers.
- Google Ad Words: “If you were in Massachusetts, pretty much all day every day you would see a Scott Brown ad,” says Google spokesman Galen Panger. Those ads also listed regional offices, Brown’s social-media strategist Rob Willington told Time, who bet that showing local locations would make it more enticing for people to come out and help.
So there it is. The secret to Scott Brown’s historical upset. Did you miss it?
If you looked at the individual tools, you did. There is no social media secret set of tools. Nor is there a magic formula for success.
The real secret was most aptly revealed by Ning CEO and co-founder Gina Bianchini who suggested, while commenting on the race, that social technologies only organize “the passion and drive and power of an idea.”
In other words, you can repeat step-by-step the efforts of the Brown campaign, but without the content or the product that generates a passion or even strong interest, you will fail. Even if you use Twitter.
