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Obama, McCain Commit to SEO

Written on: June 10th 2008
Author: by Kathleen |
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ADOTAS – Hillary Clinton’s defeat has been widely dissected and analyzed with widely different findings – but one common theme has emerged. Clinton’s online strategy was a flop; Barack Obama and John McCain had her beat from the get-go.

As one political analyst told The San Francisco Chronicle, the qualities that could help propel a successful digital campaign (flexibility, authenticity, etc.) aren’t necessarily hallmarks of Clinton’s personality.

“It’s like the Clintons, both of them, had sort of a ‘Sunset Boulevard’ thing going on,” George Washington University Professor and new-media analyst Michael Cornfeld told The Chronicle. “They were silent screen stars who couldn’t make the transition to talkies.”

Google political advertising guru Peter Greenburger takes the theory a step further in an interview with ClickZ.

Greenburger told the pub that he pins Clinton’s failure on her team’s inability to use search advertising consistently (he adds that Obama and McCain were savvy exploiters of search advertising).

“I think the momentous thing about the 2008 election campaign is just about every presidential campaign used Google AdWords, on the right and the left,” Greenburger told ClickZ, naturally plugging his company in the process. “However some candidates used it a lot earlier than others… Obama started the strategy very early and stuck with it and was able to build an enormous list of supporters. Clinton’s campaign started a little later… They had experimented with it early on in the campaign season and then they ended up cutting it off the last two quarters of 2007… During that time the Obama and McCain campaigns were using AdWords.”

Obama is broadening his online strategy and is building a team of cyber strategists who will form an online “war room” to report and react to incorrect rumors proliferating in chain e-mails or on blogs.

McCain, for his part, recently joked to supporters at a lunch in Richmond, Virginia that he’s using Google to research possible vice presidential candidates.