Are Smart Phones smart politics for 2012?

Rewind to 2008 and the U.S. Presidential Election campaign. Doesn’t seem like 3 years ago does it? Not only did the election of President Obama break down many barriers, it was a “first” for the use of social media in politics.

According to Mobile Marketer, Team Obama set a stellar example for marketers by packaging their candidate as the change agent and then using the most personal and powerful medium of all -- mobile -- to get that message across.
Mr. Obama's campaign managers, agencies and mobile marketing specialists used a combination of SMS text messaging, mobile Web site, interactive voice response, mobile video and mobile banner ads to reach out to the millions of U.S. voters keen to engage with their candidate through the mobile phone.

First to mobile
Underpinning all of those marketing efforts were two simple mobile platforms: the 62262 (spells OBAMA) common short code and the http://obamamobile.mobi or http://m.barackobama.com mobile Web sites.

The Obama campaigns mobile efforts are credited with the grassroots-level, get-out-the-vote support needed by a candidate if they are to make it to the presidency.

And Team Obama executed flawlessly. On November 4, a thank-you SMS message was sent just minutes after Mr. Obama was elected President:

"We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Barack."

The campaign was executed brilliantly, and has been quoted in too many case studies to mention, but some of the statistics are really impressive.

The Nielsen Company estimated that Obama’s text message announcing his VP pick reached 2.9 million mobile cell phone users in the United States becoming the largest and most successful mobile marketing campaign of that type so far.

Pew Research also shows adoption and cell phone usage in politics is expanding beyond the 18-29 year olds, so expect more mobile messaging in the campaigns ahead. 

Fast forward now to 2011 and the race is on again as President Obama has announced his candidacy for President in 2012. The campaign was announced using the same tactics that made his first run successful, but the times have changed in 3 years, and mobile is now a much more accepted channel.

So how will the increase in social media adoption change the political landscape in the election season to come?

Here are a few hints at what is to come:

1.     Mitt Romney has announced the formation of an exploratory committee for a 2012 presidential bid via YouTube, and Twitter.

2. Obama announced his campaign online with a video at Official Obama 2012 Site 

3.  Shortly after Obama’s first video for the campaign went up, Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor and potential GOP candidate for the 2012 presidential race, released a YouTube retort.

4. Since its release, the video has gotten about 53,000 views, compared with 168,000 for Obama’s. Pawlenty also released the video on his Facebook Page, which has 81,000 fans.

5.  President Obama has close to 19 million Facebook fans.

If the Republicans’ response to President Barack Obama’s campaign launch Monday is any indication, social media will play a major role in the 2012 election.