The final speaker before the break was Ben Self, founder of Blue State Digital, a US company that used social media techniques to aid the election of US President Barack Obama. Self's presentation was a case study for social engagement, based on the lessons from the 2008 election campaign.
He started with some stats. There were more than 1800 videos distributed to supporters, and 50 million views of this content. 68 million Americans were reached either online or in person throughout the campaign. More than US$770 million was raised - US$500 million raised online.
Self said Obama set out to build a different sort of campaign from the beginning, one that would be easy for people to be a part of. He said that having a dynamic and interesting email program was crucial, with more than 13 million on the distribution list by the end of the campaign. They also made it easier for people to communicate themselves through the web site. He also talked about Grassroots Match, where existing donors would give $10 whenever a new donor decided to pledge themselves, connecting supports across different areas.
They also built a fight called Fight The Smears, and bought search terms to talk directly to people and squash rumours. YouTube presented a whole new way to talk to voters, with politicians talking to them personally and directly.
"This is something that is going to happen more and more, because suddenly it is very cheap to get your message to people in a way that feels very true and very personal," Self said.
He also looked at tools to target and organise voters geographically, to help get people in neighbourhoods together who want to be part of the campaign.
Self also talked about how social media tools such as Facebook have been used to mobilise communities to drive political action, such as fixing potholes or objecting to poor planning decisions.
His tips for creating social engagement were to talk to your consumers regularly, to be relevant, to be authentic, to be transparent, make it easy for everyone to get involved, raise your expectations of people and what they can do for you, and measure everything.
"Technology focuses passion," Self said. "You've got to have that passion. But if you don't you should start there and create that passion,and then use the technology to build traffic and harvest that passion to build something - a movement - and that applies no matter what you are building that movement for."
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