I see it over and over again.

In between the squawking about how blogs are already passe and how Twitter is going mainstream, there is a fundamental Old School operating concept of the Web and social media that is routinely ignored by many organizations, mostly through what I suspect is simple lack of knowledge and fear of a netiquette misstep.

Here it is  –  they fail to acknowledge the link.

If a blog links to your business/organization/nonprofit/product/service, the simplest way to acknowledge is to leave a comment on the blog post that linked to you.

If someone links to you in their Twitter stream, then acknowledge with a return tweet.

If someone writes on your business Facebook page Wall or uploads a great fan photo, write something back.

When someone links to you, particularly in a two-way conversation tool like a blog, that is the blog author’s way of saying “I acknowledge you and find you link-worthy.” Someone is talking about you with that link. It may be good. It may be bad. The important thing is that they’re digitally waving at you.

If I were a real, live person standing in front of you waving, would you ignore me, or would you engage and talk about your business/organization/nonprofit/product/service?

Of course, you’d engage….unless you don’t care, in which case, you’re on the wrong blog and there’s nothing for you here at Every Dot Connects.  (Go watch old Van Halen videos, maybe?)

You should acknowledge because people behind keyboards are real, too, and links are important.

Links are the coin of the realm online.  They are a “vote of trust.” They drive Google authority. They are a powerful “communication path.” They provide helpful background information.

Most wonderfully, they can shed light on hidden gems that might otherwise be lost in the Webby flood. Through a well-placed link, an influential blogger or wired journalist can bring millions of people’s attention to worthy Susan Boyle-like businesses or services that would otherwise labor in obscurity.

Sure, if you’re a big business with lots of Web traffic (or a small organization with a tiny staff, or a one-person organization like me who writes for more than one blog) it’s tough to keep up with all the inbound links. I discussed this issue on Twitter with the ebullient Dell online community guy Richard Binhammer, who said that while he and his company certainly keep track of who is linking to Dell and its blogs, they only go back and provide “commentary when warranted.”

Well, sure. Some conversations in real life are ignored when appropriate, some just get a cursory nod or “hey, thanks” and others elicit a more active exchange. It’s the same online.

This assumes that there is a mechanism in your business or organization that TELLS you when there’s an inbound link, and from whom.

I think that half the battle with lack of response to links is that the right people….

1. Don’t even see data about links or Web traffic or Facebook business page commentary, and
2. Don’t know what to do with the data if they get it.

The answer is to:

1. Get an internal communications system set up so that you see, immediately, when people link to you (to start, here’s how to see when someone links to your site and where to set up a Google Alert for your URL.)  Then….
2. Recognize the value and acknowledge the link.

As a travel writer and tourism consultant, I link to travel-related and state/county/city tourism organizations all the time.  Usually, I am trying to highlight a place in a positive way because I love and support travel.

The only way I can ever get a comment response to those links in my blog post is to send an email to the linkee, saying, “Hey, I linked to you. Come say hello!”

Um, I’ll wait here while y’all think about the absurdity of that.

Don’t be “that guy” online  –  acknowledge the link.

I’ve never been in the camp of those who follow back every one who adds them on social networks. While the reason people reciprocate all follows–it does seem the polite thing to do–is understandable, I know I’ll never be able to have any kind of meaningful interaction with all of them (over 6,000 now on Twitter). So to me, it seems the more courteous thing to do is not to follow everyone back, but to make sure I respond to anyone who sends an @ message to me.

My question in this blog post is to ask how you determine your “friending” policy on social networks, especially Twitter.

Yesterday I started a TwtPoll to ask the question. Of course, this is not a scientific survey, and is only a small sample of people–83 people who follow me on Twitter or who follow someone who kindly retweeted the poll for me. And the number 1,000 is an arbitrary threshold.

The results, frankly, surprised me a bit. I thought there might be more who valued reciprocity so highly they would unfollow someone who doesn’t follow them back. That is certainly the gambit of those trying to amass followers as quickly as possible, since Twitter seems to limit a person to following 2,000 people or 110 percent of those who follow them, whichever is higher.

But the vast majority of respondents indicated that it either didn’t matter whether I follow them back (46%) or that it was fine as long as I made an effort to respond to messages directed to me (42%). As Dave Shaw said, “Following is the ultimate opt-in and doesn’t require a follow back. Nice but not required. Responding to @’s and DM’s is just good manners.” (Please click through to the poll to read all the comments.)

As a result of the poll, I will be trimming back the number of people I follow on Twitter. If I can’t remember having any exchanges with someone, I’ll drop that person. Why? Because I’m following over 1,200 people but only paying attention to a few hundred at most.

And that meshes with the well-known Dunbar number, an estimation of the number of people with which one can realistically maintain relationships. For “real-life” friends, the average number is 150, with some people able to keep track of around 300.

I share Ross Mayfield’s view that social software allows us to augment the Dunbar number, which he based on the size of the neocortex in primates and then extrapolated to humans. Ross cites recent research that shows:

Twitter users have a very small number of friends compared to the number of followers and followees they declare. This implies the existence of two different networks: a very dense one made up of followers and followees, and a sparser and simpler network of actual friends. The latter proves to be a more influential network in driving Twitter usage.

That describes my experience. When I was using Twitter exclusively on the Web, I was easily following 500 people. Using tools like Twhirl and TweetDeck, I began to follow more people. TweetDeck gives the illusion of following 1,200+ people. But in reality, I ignore most of them. As the research shows, I have a group of “top friends” I keep in contact with by using the Group feature in TweetDeck. And the rest I try to read now and then–but that turns out to be so infrequently that those other people might as well not be on my “following” list.

This topic has been on my mind since attending a salon discussion at South by Southwest Interactive led by David Armano and Russ Unger. Summarizing his thoughts about the Friendship Is Dead conversation and the concept of ambient intimacy on his Logic + Emotion blog, David concluded:

Most of us intuitively know who our friends are. … But, with networks we have access to more individuals then ever before in history. We know when they are sick, when they are traveling and even when they’ve lost a loved one. Some of us stay in constant communication with people who would have normally been considered “loose ties”, people we’ve met at an event, a party, a former co-worker, or college friend. These ties can become strengthened and feel like something more than they used to be.

What are your thoughts on the relevance of the Dunbar number to social networks and the proper etiquette for following people on Twitter?

“Birds of a feather….”

Connie and I do realize that when you spend a lot of time around the feathered tribe of tech-savvy folks (thereby miraculously becoming two of Austin’s Social Media Mavens) it can be easy to forget that not everyone’s world revolves around LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and blogging, aka “the tech-o chamber.”

As my teen would say, “Duh.”

We know that lots of people find social media to be one big confusing alphabet soup of applications, jargon and insider jokes.

That’s why we run classes and workshops; to demystify the gobbledygook, and that’s why we love speaking engagements with great organizations like Austin’s venerable Metropolitan Breakfast Club.

From the MBC Web site:

“The Metropolitan Breakfast Club is a 20-year Austin tradition that’s anything but traditional.  Every Wednesday morning our members are informed and entertained by a variety of local and internationally recognized experts in business, politics and education. Our speakers share stories of Austin’s past, our current challenges, and future opportunities in and around Central Texas.”

Since 1984, the Club has been renowned for its extraordinarily eclectic speakers – everyone from the city Police Chief to historians to company CEOs to astronauts to the person who organizes the local rodeo.

Connie and I are thrilled to be included in the distinguished lineup on this coming Wednesday morning, March 11 – you can RSVP here if you happen to be in Austin.

We will do our best to rock the house with a combination of two of our favorite presentations:

• Email is for old people – Connie gets laughs and lots of attention with this one because, just like me, she IS one of those “old people.” More mature and particularly more skeptical audiences tend to listen to someone who does not appear to be 22 or live in her Mom’s basement, especially when she cheerfully blows up preconceived notions about social media for businesses and nonprofits. 




• Follow the bouncing blog post – I use a series of tabbed Web pages to show audiences how the information in a single blog post moves through the Web on other blogs, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon and even (how retro!) email. Newcomers to social media say that it gives them a clear visual demonstration of the power of Web communications.

We’ll then open the floor for lots of questions and answers.

If you’re in town, we hope to see you bright and early Wednesday morning!

It’s that time of year again, when the tech universe is abuzz with the digital creative delights of the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference in Austin, Texas.

Since I live in the Austin metro area and this is my third “South by,” I thought I’d update last year’s post on why SXSWi is like Disney World and revisit the lure of conferences.

Just yesterday at Jelly Coworking, I discussed the five geeky days of craziness with City of Round Rock communications guy Brooks Bennett.

This will be his first SXSWi and he’s really psyched about it, but also a bit overwhelmed by the barrage of offerings.

Here’s the advice I gave him….

• Forget about seeing everything. Heck, forget about seeing half of it!  There are the big keynote speakers, a crazy-huge number of panels, the smaller Core Conversations (I’m speaking at one with writer Pam Mandel, about travel blogging) plus book readings on the Adobe Day Stage (where I heard then-unknown Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek speak in 2007,) early evening salon discussions and my personal “secret” favorite that often has big names in a small setting, the Studio SX discussions in the northeast corner of the Exhibition Hall.  There are hang-out lounges and parties galore, both official and “unofficial.” This goes on for five days – you’ll be fried.
• Pick everything that sounds good, and weed it all out later. Here’s what I do – I go through the online schedule and say, “Yes, Yes, Yes” to everything that sounds good and every speaker that I know and/or like.  I don’t worry that I’m double-, triple- and quadruple-booked for events. I print the whole thing out (yes, print – paper always boots up & never needs a power outlet or WiFi) and stuff Beast Schedule in my purse. Each morning of the conference, I do ruthless triage to pick the happenings that it would KILL me to miss, saying a fond farewell to the rest. It really sorts itself pretty clearly as the conference wears on;  some people hardly make any panels, but their whole day is a schmoozefest in the hallways and lounges. Whatever works for you!
• Loud, packed parties are overrated. Networking and socializing are not.  Look, I’m not a big party girl if it means jammed, loud rooms full of people that I don’t know.  I assure you, however, that I get plenty of fun time at South by – I’m socializing in smaller gaggles, with lots of folks I don’t know but a few that I do, hanging out in places where we can actually find a seat.  Many people do the same thing – go to the “big” parties, discover they’re not all that insanely fun, go back out on the sidewalk and regroup, run into someone from the day’s panels and all go off together to have a civilized beer and proper geek bonding. (OK, you want a nice bar? The Driskill Hotel, since 1886. Take that, Sixth Street lemmings.)
• The basics – bring business cards, check that your cell phone has unlimited texting, pack a couple of energy bars, bring a water bottle, comfy shoes, power cords. It is truly an endurance event, but I mean that in the most positive way.  While we’re talking basics, there’s good BBQ right around the corner from the Convention Center: Iron Works BBQ at 100 Red River.

I hope to run into any and all of you during South by Southwest – I’m @SheilaS on Twitter, Connie Reece is @conniereece and Jennifer Navarrete is @epodcaster (don’t forget @sxswi – unofficial tweets – and @sxsw – official tweets.) See you there!

More good advice:

• Attend Friday’s How to Rawk SXSW: The Basics
• A guide to SXSW Interactive networking, from the Austin American-Statesman (and the Statesman‘s latest Austin Dining Guide.)
• The SXSW09 PBWiki.
• SXSW Interactive survival tips, from The Adventures of CindyLi.com
• SXSW Baby! especially the forums.
• The SXSW09 Insider’s Guide Ning group.
• Kent Brewster’s Things to Remember About SXSW

(If this post was helpful for you, please vote it up on Kirtsy, or Stumble it on StumbleUpon. The Digg and Delicious links are just below the post as well. Thanks very much!)

In June 2008, after a lot of talks with Connie Reece, reflection time at the SOBCon conference and great advice from both Small Biz Survival’s Becky McCray and Successful Blog’s Liz Strauss, we began to teach a series of entry-level Every Dot Connects social media workshops.

Connie, Jennifer Navarrete and I knew that we had a valuable skill set; a pile of knowledge born of many hours living online trying to figure out how social media works and how to be an effective part of the Web 2.0 world.

The trick was figuring out a way to make a living out of it.

Teaching focused workshops to small businesses, freelancers and solo entrepreneurs seemed like a good start….towards exactly what, we didn’t know, but we were gonna start something!

To be honest, a lot of it was classic “throw something up against the wall and see what sticks….and what peels back off and goes SPLAT on the floor.”

Even how we look is part of what we offer….we are three semi-fearless professional women in our 30′s, 40′s and 50′s who are living proof that social media isn’t only for narcissists, pajama-clad losers living in Mom’s basement or “young people.”

Along the way, we’ve learned all sorts of lessons and discovered that we provide a service that is not all that common and is currently in high demand. Journalists, for example, want to know what we know, so I recently spent two days in Dayton teaching Cox Ohio journalists at the Dayton Daily News about writing for the Web, blogging and general social media topics.

Here is some of what we’ve learned….

• When in doubt, set a date and make things happen. If you don’t want to make money right away but want to test the waters for interest, offer a free one-hour class about some aspect of social media at your local library.  Pick a date, reserve a room and start getting the word out. Nothing’s more motivating than having a set date when you must deliver content.
• The ones who want entry-level social media training are – newsflash! – probably not on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or even blogs. Our biggest marketing struggle is remembering that we can’t depend on announcements to our geek network.  Attending the local Chamber of Commerce meeting and passing out business cards is better for reaching the market that we seek, as is attending our Association for Women in Communications (AWC) or IABC or PRSA chapter meetings, and monthly eWomenNetwork get-togethers.
• On the other hand, don’t assume that high tech Web developers or coding nerds understand social media; they may not know Twitter from a circuit board. For us, Door 64 Austin High Tech Online has been a surprising source of workshop interest.
• It is hard to hit the instructional sweet spot. At one workshop, an attendee wrote in a post-event survey that, “This would have been better for my Mom. I already know a lot of this,” but someone in the same class wrote, “Wow, there is so much to learn! It’s rather overwhelming.”
• Don’t try to cram in too much. We’ve gone from trying to cover 5 different social media tools/services to hyper-focus on one at a time. Our next workshop is just on LinkedIn – even trying to include Twitter last time turned out to be almost too much to digest for entry-level attendees.
• We’re also exploring one-on-one Consulting with Connie sessions; is being a “social media personal trainer” a viable approach? We think so, but are still testing the waters.
• Find the right venue. To teach, you need a room with tables, chairs, lots of outlets, strong WiFi, a projector for a laptop and a screen. Not complicated, but you’d be surprised how hard it is to find all of that somewhere that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg and is also well-located.  If you can find a good spot that’s not expensive, you’ll be able to do the next item….
• Price it right.  Our target audience of successful businesspeople are not necessarily raking in big bucks, and today’s tough economy makes them even pickier about where to spend hard-earned money.  We set what we think are very reasonable prices for our workshops. We don’t run a “soak the rich” corporate training outfit, but neither are we willing to go broke doing this.  We have bills (and taxes!) to pay and our valuable expertise is worth a lot. It is a tough balance.

Serving as social media teachers, trainers and guides to others is a pleasure for us. Connie, Jennifer and I also try to keep in touch with our students long after each workshop is over. We introduce them to each other on Twitter, swap comments on Facebook, admire their new blog, connect on LinkedIn or just say, “How’s it going online for you?” when we meet workshop attendees in person out in town.

Do any of you have tips and helpful advice if you’ve been teaching others about social media? Let us know in the comments – fresh ideas are always welcome!

I always enjoy writing for the Marketing Watchdog Journal, published by Austin-based Bulldog Solutions (see my March 2008 piece about how to build a blog that draws a crowd.)

Connie Reece stops into Bulldog as well; check out her article about whether your PR team is social media savvy.

The latest Every Dot Connects offering in the Journal is about networking on LinkedIn….is it a fly-by-night fad – or the best networking tool around?

I wrote about beefing up your LinkedIn profile, then some details about powerful tools on the site that are generally underutilized (Answers and Recommendations, for starters.)

For more details on becoming a LinkedIn power user, click here for the Journal article.

(This is cross-posted on the Perceptive Travel blog and my Family Travel blog on BootsnAll.)

I know that I’m a very fortunate freelance writer and social media/Web 2.0 trainer; I have a military pension and health insurance from my 22+ years in the US Navy. I can ride out the current economic storm (with a lot of belt-tightening) so it’s somewhat easier for me than for others to set fiscal angst aside and go to China next week….to meet a bunch of Chinese bloggers.

That’s probably what the China 2.0 Tour might seem like from a distance, and you might well ask; what is the ROI (business Return on Investment) from getting to know “a bunch of bloggers and tech types?” Is that how I should be spending my limited funds?

Here’s why — as a good friend once said about me, I’ve never been about looking back. I’ve always been about looking ahead to the future.

Unless I’m sorely mistaken, 245 million Chinese Internet users might be rather important to someone like me who mostly publishes online, and who consults and teaches entry-level workshops in all of this heavily-connected Webby stuff. Travel writing is only one activity supporting my overall life philosophy, which is to attempt to understand how things work and how people tick.

That’s why Christine Lu and Elliott Ng asked me to join China 2.0….from the Web site, here is what they’re trying to accomplish:

“Led by The China Business Network and co-organized by Web2Asia and CNReviews, the inaugural China 2.0 Tour is sponsored by Edelman Digital China and represents a unique opportunity for companies and individuals to gain a deeper understanding of China. Unlike a typical business conference or large trade delegation, we seek to go ‘one-level deeper’ by creating a series of small-scale, exclusive meetups where people can share more openly about their business successes and challenges, and provide a deeper view into the nature of building a successful venture in China.

We also are taking an interdisciplinary approach by looking at social media, clean technology, gaming, wireless, and other areas where trends in China will affect markets around the world.

We also seek to provide informal opportunities to go off-message and off-the-record, so that long-lasting relationships can be built….”

Not only will I meet all sorts of key people in China, including many directly related to my travel and social media work, but I’ll also get to know my fellow Tour attendees — people like:

• Shel Israel, co-author with Robert Scoble of one of the seminal Web 2.0 books, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.
• Sam Lawrence, CMO of Jive Software and enterprise 2.0 influencer behind Go Big Always.
• Mike Butcher — Editor, TechCrunch UK and Ireland.
• Ernst-Jan Pfauth — Editor-In-Chief, The Next Web and Co-Organizer, Blog 08 in the Netherlands.
• Melissa Sconyers, who won a contest sponsored by Mashable to create a new kind of online resume, called VisualCV. She’ll blog for Mashable in China.

How much I’ll be able to post here while in China will depend upon Internet connectivity and more importantly, time available. I’ll certainly do my best, although this is more of a tech visit than a travel visit.

I’m not going to be able to make the Guangzhou leg of the Tour (and will miss the Chinese Blogger Conference where Shel is a featured speaker – phooey) because finances wouldn’t allow it, but I will spend extra days in Shanghai and will have more pure-play travel goodies from there, I would think.

Thanks very much to my sponsors Every Dot Connects and UpTake – Your First Step to a Great Trip, and the support I’ve gotten from BootsnAll’s Cheap Air Tickets in order to get me there and back.

More from Every Dot Connects

• Blogging Basics: How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it
• 6 ways to improve your destination marketing (and why you’re toast if you don’t)
• Hawaii Tourism Authority breaks the mold with a bloggers fam tour

Chris Brogan has another project. How does he do it? Dad-O-Matic goes live today.

I was honored to be asked to join a group of great bloggers and, more importantly, really great people who also happen to be dads or have something to share about dads. Please visit the new site and comment, especially on my post. You know how fragile the male ego is. We need a lot of reassurance.

You know, I feel kind of feel like a proud dad all over again, just by being part of the project. Thank you Chris.

~Mike Chapman

P.S. Don’t forget, the victims of Hurricane Ike need your help. Use the ‘Strike Back at Ike’ widget over on the right to help directly with your online contribution.

I’ve mentioned my favorite political blogger here several times. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s extremely knowledgable on politics, and I give her much of the credit for getting me interested in social media. Now I get to be on some high powered panels with her as part of My ooVoo Day Political Edition this Sunday and Monday.

My political blogging hero is Eileen Smith, creator of In The Pink Texas and editor of TexasMonthly.com the online edition of Texas Monthly magazine. OK, I tricked her into doing this with flattery and small bribes. That’s not really true, but if you read her blog posts regularly, you’ll get the spirit.

The Pink Lady and I don’t always agree and when we don’t, she’s always right. Well, except on a few issues and I won’t mention what they are. If you watch the replay of our panel here on Every Dot Connects, or on one of Eileen’s blogs, you’ll probably figure out what those very, very few issues are. Here’s a hint, I supported Barack Obama and she still wants Hillary to take it to the convention. Other than that, we agree on everything.

Politics can get really boring for normal people. Eileen gets that and makes the issues of the day fun. She isn’t Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert…she’s better. Recently, she posted about our upcoming panel, which just happens to be on Obama’s birthday (I thought you’d like that Eileen) and, once again, she cracked me up.

Here’s her take…

When my blog friend and yours, The Other Guy, started telling me about some new, exciting platform for online communications and digital media, I quickly said “unsubscribe” and hung up the phone. But then he told me it had something to do with a live video chat and I’m like, sign me up. Who am I to pass up yet another opportunity to embarrass myself and the entire staff of Texas Monthly?

God knows I’ve had plenty of practice, appearing on panels I have no business being on, where I nod my head thoughtfully and continuously blink so as to appear awake. No matter. I’ve already coerced the lovely Karen Brooks and the lovely Andy Brown to appear on the virtual panel so they can save my virtual ass.

ooVoo is the hot new video chat and conferencing tool (and I say it’s “hot” and “new” because I just found out about it). They’re hosting several virtual political panels over the next week. You can sign up to be a participant if slots are available (especially if you have a mac and a built-in web cam). Live streaming is not an option yet, but you can watch the recorded sessions once they’re uploaded. I’ll be posting them here once they’re online so you all can make fun of me while I get all defensive and then burst into tears. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?! Who’s the Other Guy?

Here’s the full line-up:

Adriana Maestas, Marisa Trevino & Edmundo Rocha / Latino Politics Blog, Latina Lista & XicanoPwr
Albert Maruggi / Provident Partners
Arlene Fenton / Black Women Vote
Baratunde Thurston / goodCRIMETHINK
Eric Roston / Carbon Nation
Eileen Smith & Mike Chapman / In The Pink Texas & Every Dot Connects
Erin Kotecki Vest / Queen of Spain
Jason Rosenbaum / The Seminal
Joanne Bamberger, Glennia Campbell & Stefania Pomponi Butler / PunditMom, The Silent I & City Mama
L.N. Rock / African American Political Pundit
Leslie Carbone
Liza Sabater / Liza Sabater, culturekitchen, Daily Gotham
Mary Katherine Ham / HamBlog
Matt Parker / Political Buzz
Morra Aarons / Women and Work
Nicco Mele / EchoDitto
Robert Millis & Will Coghlan / Hudson Street Media
Todd Zeigler / The Bivings Report

Join us or one of the many others who are participating in the ooVoo Day Political Edition. Tune in.

~Mike Chapman

More from Every Dot Connects

• Blogging Basics: How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it
• World Sjogren’s Day | Every Dot Connects
• Our ooVoo Debut: From Connections to Community

This past weekend I had the opportunity to catch up with my former colleague and political phenom, Steve Hildebrand, Deputy Campaign Manager for the Obama Presidential campaign. Steve and several of the key staff members from the Obama campaign were speaking to the Netroots Nation conference about their online campaign.

Steve recounted that while planning the campaign with the Obamas, they decided that “Barack had to be authentic.” The online campaign, like the overall campaign, had to be about the movement and changing the country. Further, it had to allow for volunteers to be true partners in the online efforts, allowing for a wide range of affinity groups created within the campaign’s own website and for local volunteer organizations to be truly empowered.

They recognized that the “internet alone won’t win elections. It must be combined with on-the-ground efforts.” That combination could allow Obama’s skills as a community organizer to be translated online to reach out in ways never before possible on a Presidential campaign.

According to Hildebrand, they determined that the Iowa caucuses could provide the “path of credibility” they needed to go the distance. Simultaneously, they began preparations for a full-scale national campaign based largely on volunteer support and coordinated largely online.

They discovered that Obama would draw support from across the country and further used their website in a serious attempt to win the “the first primary, the financial primary,” in spite of the huge advantages of their opponents. When the fundraising results for the 4th quarter of 2007 were announced, they had won the “financial primary” with a record number of donors and dollars coming from their online efforts.

The goal of MyBarackObama.com, the hub of all Obama campaign online activity, is not to win awards, but to win the election. The Obama campaign has kept it simple, sticking to the fundamentals. All functions of the online campaign are specifically done to compliment traditional campaign strategies.

The Obama campaign is fully embracing the potential of the online organizational opportunities and they are active in a number of online social networks. While the online activities of the Obama campaign did not win the nomination, they were a integral and key component. Fundraising, community organizing, get out the vote (GOTV) activities, voter registration, meetups, and rapid responses to media and opponent charges, are all greatly enhanced by the internet efforts.

Smart companies, non-profits, and government agencies will certainly be studying the Obama online efforts to see where they might enhance their own consumer and constituent services.

~Mike Chapman