In A look inside Obama’s (social) Whitehouse, Kori Schulman, Director of Online Engagement at The Whitehouse, explains how the Obama administration uses social media to create dialogue between the President and the people.
Our goal is to connect with people where they’re already engaged and consuming information.
I’ll give you a couple of examples: to raise awareness around the President’s plan to help homeowners refinance, we teamed up with the real estate site Zillow.com to discuss refi with homeowners from around the country. Zillow moderated a Google+ Hangout with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and more than 70,000 people tuned in live.
Obama leads by example.
Last month, the President took some time to answer questions on Twitter about extending middle class tax cuts. During the chat, President Obama was responding to a question and noticed that the twitter user had blue hair in her profile picture. In the response tweet, the President noted that he liked her hair. It was this wonderful, authentic, dialogue on Twitter between the President and someone in their living room. From the President all the way down,
The takeaway here is social strategy starts at the top. It’s not something that gets bolted on like an aftermarket accessory. Rather, it fundamentally changes the way brands are experienced in the lives of its audience and therefore warrants deep and careful consideration in the strategy development process.