What is SEO 2? It’s mostly content and social SEO.
It’s not just about getting found on search engines or social media.
It is a term that encompasses modern techniques of making a message heard online.
It’s also any feasible way of reaching audiences by use of the Web.
Barack Obama was among the first politicians to use the Web to popularize ideas successfully!
Read how he actually did it and see the examples for yourself.
SEO 2 techniques the Obama campaign employed
The whole blog here covers content and social SEO.
I call those SEO 2. There are about 400 posts on it!
Thus let us just focus on the few techniques that were successfully used by the Obama campaign in 2008.
Some of the typical SEO 2 techniques the Obama campaigners employed were:
- business blogging
- social media participation
- online reputation building (not solely management)
- video, especially viral video
- user experience (UX) focused website (instead of looking fancy)
- local SEO (optimization for Google Local/Maps etc.)
Indeed back in 2008 the Obama campaign exhibited inspiring ways of popularizing his message.
He was been far better at employing modern web technologies than the McCain campaign
McCain lagged behind on the Web and preferred more traditional ways of disseminating his message.
The Web alone does not make you a President though.
We’ve seen the Republican candidate Ron Paul fail spectacularly despite dominating social sites like Reddit.
In spite or maybe even due to his overwhelming Web presence – especially on social news sites – Ron Paul was just a negligible candidate in the end.
Barack Obama was also hugely popular in real life.
We can see it based on the campaign funding from citizens and the large crowds that followed him everywhere.
The McCain campaign had to order school kids to fill in the ranks like they did in the former Soviet Union.
From a SEO and SEO 2 perspective you can’t help to admire Obama for his Internet campaign.
Thus I will outline the 7 SEO 2 techniques of the Obama campaign
Using them allowed Barack Obama to score with on the Web.
Ultimately he would become president of the US twice – in 2008 and again in 2012.
Pull vs push
SEO 2 relies entirely on pull tactics that is attracting people’s attention to make them followers.
It’s similar to permission marketing as explained by Seth Godin or inbound marketing as introduced by Hubspot.
Conventional SEO 1.0 in contrast depends on push tactics to force people to see a message even if they don’t like it.
The Ron Paul campaign used especially obvious push tactics flooding social news sites like Reddit.
The Obama campaign relied on people subscribing themselves voluntarily on
- MySpace
Yet he also let people subscribe by mail on his own website.
The subscription form was in the center of the site and the calls to action were strong.
The McCain campaign did use social media as well but far less prominently and successfully.
They focused mostly on their own site.
Blogging
Obama’s blog has been far more lively than McCain’s.
As I already have written it has offered both better quality content and the number of blog posts is much higher.
On the other hand the blog has created some serious information overflow no single person can digest.
There were more than 20 posts on one day after the last debate!
This surge of activity will drive more search traffic though.
Viral video
A viral video made by musicians and actors was one of the first things to notice about the Obama campaign online.
The video has a very positive empowering message and it has a quality on its own.
You can watch it without being interested in politics.
It’s not just a “cool video” for those who liked Obama already.
It makes sense to watch it just for the music or the recognition of super stars.
Also it has much “beautiful people” value with appearances by famous actress Scarlett Johansson for instance.
The McCain campaign focused on their conventional video ads displaying them right away on their website.
This is probably the better solution for more conservative voters they aimed at.
Social networking
I mentioned MySpace, Facebook and Twitter above.
Yet the Obama campaign used far more social networks, especially “niche” social networking communities.
Obama appeared on sites where religious people, sexual or ethnic minorities or other groups convene online.
This can also backfire in some cases as examples show.
On Glee the first thing we saw on Obama’s profile was an anti-Obama ad.
A 3 days old post titled “Will you join Barack on Election Night?” got ignored.
It had also an embarrassing zero comments after all that time.
Also the number of “friends” on hispanic Batanga seems to be pretty low (177).
Conversion focused website
Business oriented web design is not artsy, fancy, flashy or decorative!
Conversion focused website design is based on your objectives.
The most important element of web design for ROI (Return on Investment) is not the homepage.
This had to “look cool” in conventional web design.
It’s about the forms. The forms decide whether it works.
Obama’s website greeted you with a form. A form that encouraged participation.
When you skipped the first form you encountered more forms like that on the main page and throughout the website.
Local SEO
While subscribing on Obama’s site they asked you where you live.
The call to action said “Enter Your Zip Code” and then you got localized alerts.
This ensured that your online subscription does not make you an armchair activist.
The Obama campaign also made sure to have community relevance locally.
Mobile marketing
Obama not only provided a text messaging subscription and a mobile phones website version!
The site seemed to be made in an outdated format though, WAP.
He also offered an iPhone app.
The iPhone has been the single most popular smartphone to access the Web during the election.
Whether you supported Senator Obama or not you have to admit that his usage of online tools for his campaign has been outstanding.
Also it was far more advanced than of any campaign before.
Why do you cal it SEO 2 or even SEO?
Many people won’t agree with the label SEO or SEO 2 to describe this approach. Yet that’s exactly what SEO 2 is about.
It’s about spreading the word using various online tools.
Yet it’s also focusing on the people. It’s not just about the technologies used.
As Obama prevailed nobody will be ever able to ignore SEO 2 techniques to spread the word on the Web again.
More insights on the successful Obama campaign and SEO 2 elsewhere on the Web: