Yesterday in the United States a new president was elected.\u00a0 It was a landslide victory.\u00a0 Record voter turnout.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0History was made.<\/p>\n
Mentioned, but largely glossed over by the media, was how effective Barack Obama was in using the Internet<\/strong> during the election, particularly new media<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In two years, he went from an afterthought to a front-runner…raising more money than anyone in history.\u00a0 His videos on YouTube<\/strong> had over 10 million views<\/strong>.\u00a0 His\u00a0Facebook<\/strong> account has over 2 million<\/strong> friends.\u00a0 On election day, he sent text messages<\/strong> to voters, reminding them to vote.\u00a0 And after he was declared the winner, he emailed <\/strong>millions of his supporters, thanking them.<\/p>\n In other words, he used new media to get his message out and stay in contact with people.\u00a0 While I’m not suggesting that he won the election because of the Internet (he didn’t), it did play a part.\u00a0 So much so, that this new media approach is guaranteed to become a player in all future elections<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The big lesson here is actually an analogy though;<\/strong>\u00a0you see, both candidates had equal access to the Internet and new media.\u00a0 One exploited it…and one didn’t.<\/p>\n All of us have access to the same technology for our businesses; some of us exploit it…and many of us don’t.\u00a0 In fact, in a recent poll I did asking why people aren’t using web video, 43% responded that they don’t have time<\/strong>.\u00a0 I take that as “I don’t have a compelling enough reason to make time”.\u00a0 Hopefully the election results\u00a0and the statistics I stated above make the reason to use new media (including web video) a little more compelling to us all.<\/p>\n Now onto a new, free resource for those of us who do use web video.<\/strong><\/p>\n