2012, What? Change Again or Something New..- Response #12

If Howard Dean’s 2004 use of the Internet was similar to the Wright Brothers flying the first airplane,than surely Barack Obama’s successful use of the Internet and social media should be likened to the first man on the moon.  In the 1960’s, everyone said the US couldn’t put a man on the moon, but there’s a guy named Neil Armstrong who would beg to differ. 

The 2012 Presidential election is now.  In fact, President Obama has never stopped engaging social media.  Every week since the election, I’ve received an email communiqué on my Blackberry about something.  At any given time, I can turn it on and there might be message from the President, Vice President, or even Mrs. Obama.

 If President Obama decides to run in 2012, he’s definitely going to have to extend his cyber activism efforts well beyond the 15 intentional sites he participated in during the 2008 campaign.  He’s also going to have tap into every niche community that didn’t engage social media in 2008 because its highly probable those people will be connected to something in 2012.

It’s also evident to me that as I write this post that more rural and urban decentralized communities now linked to the Internet— again just one year after the 2008 campaign.  Companies like My Cricket.com have made a concerted effort to bridge the digital divide and bring broadband access to more niche communities. Neighborhoods like Columbia Heights that are heavily populated with immigrants from all over the world now have a MyCricket.com satellite stores on every corner.  While most people in that corridor of the city don’t speak English, I am willing to bet most of them have cell phones and some are now new Internet users.  It’s those people and communities around the country that the campaigns are going to have to go after.  Additionally, all of the candidates are going to have engage social media worldwide.  While other countries don’t vote on US soil, they have a voice in cyberspace and Americans listen.

Long of short, whoever runs for the presidency in 2012 is going to have to employ all of the online media campaign strategies of 2008.  Since no one knows what new social communities will exist two years from now, all of the candidates whether Republican (especially the Republicans) and the Democrats are going to have to be on the forefront of the latest technologies as soon as they drop. David Alexrod, let’s do it again!