The Long Tail of Obama’s online fundraising
Posted Monday, May 26, 2008 at 3:04pm in PR General, Technology |
The Guardian’s sister Sunday newspaper, The Observer, yesterday ran a piece by Andrew Sullivan titled, “Barack Obama is master of the new Facebook politics” which details the fundraising antics of both Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, as they both continue to battle out to take leadership of the US Democrat Party.
Perhaps surprisingly, the amount of money raised by Obama ($38m) was considerably more than that of Clinton ($6m) who, given who her husband is and was, has the biggest name in the Party. The reason behind this is because Obama has taken to a new democratic way of fundraising which follows the notion of The Long Tail theory.
The article quotes Peter Leyden of the New Politics Institute, who says, “Hillary built the best campaign that has ever been done in Democratic politics on the old model – she raised more money than anyone before her, she locked down all the party stalwarts, she assembled an all-star team of consultants and she really mastered this top-down, command-and-control type of outfit.”
What Clinton hasn’t done, however, is use the power of online ‘micro fundraising’ like Obama has by building online social spaces (using well-known social media sites) where the young can interact and donate money (no matter how small) to Obama’s campaign. Because of this, last month’s fundraising sum of $31m was donated all online and, more interestingly, 94 percent of it came from sums of $200 or less.
Clinton, on the other hand, relies on the old method where supporters have to persuade friends and colleagues to contribute the maximum donation allowance of $2,300, which may prove to be much more difficult in these economically turbulent times.
Expect similar initiatives taking place in the UK and elsewhere soon.
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6 Comments
Melanie Seasons
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 5:33pm
Case in point of why us youngins’ are flocking to Obama instead of Clinton. Have you seen how many Twitter followers compared to her?
From the digital natives’ perspective, it might paint the picture that Obama is wildly more successful than Clinton, but when it comes down to the people who will actually vote, I’m thinking she has the edge. However, I also think that this will be the last election where that will be the case.
Melanie Seasons
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 5:35pm
*Edit
….how many Twitter followers he has compared to her?
Mark Hanson
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 8:04am
it was a good piece but its a phenomenon thats been discussed since the last US elections in 2004, particularly re the Howard Dean/Joe Trippi campaign.
UK politicians have been watching this for years but only seem to see the web as about gimmicks as they fear letting go, something which Dean had to do as an outsider, with phenomenal results and Obama and Clinton learned from.
Things are changing a bit here, particularly with Gordon’s recent YouTube (not Flickr) experiment and Brian Paddick using Jerome Armstrong. I blog regularly on this stuff for any anoraks that are interested but you might want to look at this particular post
http://pr-media-blog.co.uk/did-jerome-armstrong-have-an-impact-on-paddicks-mayoral-campaign/
Femi Fasoyinu
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 5:34pm
It just goes to show you that those who have embraced the value of social media in communication (Obama) are increasing their opportunites to reach those they want to target. With 32m more raised than Clinton, looks like it is working.
David Brain
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 3:13pm
It’s not just the amount he raised….a million donations of 20 dollars seems so much more legitimate than 20 donations of a million dollars. Hers was a campaign….his was a movement. I’ve got a whole chapter on this in my new book mate which will be published in September. please reveiew kindly!
Stephen
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 3:33pm
Congrats on the book deal!
I’ll order a copy and soon as it’s available.