The last presidential elections gave to US not only a new president but also a new tool to politicians. Before, television and the newspaper where the only mediums available for politicians to transmit their political messages but now the internet is being used as an important resource for politicians to reach their voters in a faster an efficient manner.
Why the internet has become such a popular tool in political campaigns?
The internet is a free service that millions of Americans use in a daily basis and politicians are taking advantage from it. One of the main objectives in a political campaign is to reach people to share ideas and thoughts to convince voters to vote for a specific candidate. This process can be very expensive because TV advertising is very expensive and it has to be done for relatively long period of time but the internet has opened a new door. President Obama is one of the pioneers in the use of internet to reach voters when running for president. His campaign was mainly online and it was very successful since he used different online marketing techniques including social networking, search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, email marketing, mobile marketing between others. He created a YouTube channel that was watched for 14.5 million of hours before the elections and has 25,069,318 of views. He also opened his own social networking site www.my.barackobama.com which helped him raise $200 billion that came from small contributions of people to support his campaign making it one of the most profitable campaigns in the history.
Even though president Obama’s campaign is a demonstration of perfect online marketing and show how useful the internet is for politicians, we also have to mention that online information can be sometimes misleading for voters because everybody can publish their opinions and there is not control over who publish information or what is published. To find more accurate information it is recommended to go to official sites rather than just “Google” a candidate. Also, when reading an article about candidates make sure you verify the name and the reference of the person who wrote it. Do not believe everything you read online instead validate the source first. Remember you will find opinions from everybody and does not mean they are true or false but they are just opinions not facts.
One more time we confirm Mktingiseveywhere.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/
http://www.webprofits.com.au/blog/6-lessons-we-can-learn-from-barack-obamas-online-marketing-strategy/
His Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/BarackObamadotcom
His social page: www.my.barackobama.com
Friday, March 2, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Are Facebook and Google sharing data with marketers?
Why do companies such as Facebook and Google share data? We have to remember that Facebook and Google offer their services for free to hundreds of thousands of users all around the world. One way to make profit and not having to charge a fee to users is trough advertisement in their web pages. It is a fact that this two companies share user data with marketing companies creating a new way of target customers. It is easier and more accurate to discover customers taste and interest by analyzing what they do on the web and what online pages they spend most of the time. Marketers can rapidly create a profile of a specific market by knowing what they “like” on Facebook, what they research on Google, or what videos they look at YouTube.
At the end of 2011, The Federal Commission ruled that Facebook and Google had unfair and deceptive practices regarding privacy user data: they changed privacy defaults and made private information public without notifying users. Facebook has changed their privacy settings many times using a very difficult language for users to understand how these changes allow the company to sell information to third party advertising companies (If you want to read the complaint click here http://ftc.gov/os/caselist/0923184/111129facebookcmpt.pdf ). This is the main reason for the changes we can see now on Facebook and Google privacy settings; every time you open Google you will find pop up explaining how they are changing their privacy settings. In reality, these companies will keep doing the same they were doing before because they need it to stay in business but know users are more aware about their data sharing policies.
There are few things internet users can do to prevent personal information to be share. One recommendation is to turn on the cookies notices will alert you when a cookie is being place and the ability to block it. Also,use a different email account for social networking sites from the one used for personal information. Change passwords constantly, do not set easy security questions with answers available in social networking sites, and always clear the history after using a public computer. But the most important social networking users have to do to prevent data sharing is always read privacy policies before accepting them.
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Saturday, February 4, 2012
How SOPA affects E-Marketing?
In the last few years E- Marketing has grown faster than any other form of marketing. Companies use the internet to promote their products and services around the world. The new bill the senate is trying to pass known as SOPA will affect not only big online companies but small and large size
businesses that use the internet as a form of effective marketing. The act gives the power to government to censor and remove content that is seen to be as illegal, but this criterion is not that clear because the law is not well define. Companies will have to spend many hours reviewing all information and links on their pages to make sure they are not infringing the law. Online webpages will stop making an important amount of revenues coming from foreign ads. They could be seen as illegal to sponsor in the United States and the page will be probably banned. In conclusion, SOPA not only will affect Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Google, it also will affect all the small and large companies that use the internet as marketing tool to promote their products and services.
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