Well, November 4th has come and gone and we have a new President-Elect.  I can honestly say that from my perspective the elections couldn’t have come a moment too soon as I was truly weary of the many propositions, issues and races.

But, the Presidential race held my attention right to the very end.  I wish I could say that it was because of the historical implications that were so obvious, a woman as VP and a man of color as President.  No, as important as these were, I was looking at the Presidential race through geek colored glasses.

Although there were many issues in this race, from my perspective the race could be summed up in two words –social marketing.  Let’s face it, an election is really no more than a marketing campaign. You’re basically trying to sell people to buy your brand over another person’s brand.

One campaign managed social marketing brilliantly.  Guess which one that was?  Yep, the winning one!

Obama campaigned to the social marketing crowd perfectly, generating a HUGE amount of support from a variety of online resources:

Here are some eye-opening stats from the social networks

• Since the conventions, blog posts mentioning Obama outnumbered those referencing McCain by more than 3 to 1.
• Obama’s number of MySpace friends grew steadily over the past few months while McCain’s remained relatively flat. By election day, Obama had almost 4 times the number of friends McCain had
• While those MySpace figures are remarkable, the Twitter stats are even more eye-popping. Obama had nearly TWENTY FOUR times the amount of followers that McCain had.
• There were similar numbers for FaceBook and YouTube usage as well, with Obama clearly outpacing McCain.

Obama’s tactic was a masterpiece…targeting the younger, more technically literate crowd (many who had never voted or even bothered to register) and hit them right where they live…on the social networking landscape.

The subsequent result was a MASSIVE following that grew larger and larger by the day. And those same people made a huge impact at the polls.

What does this all mean?

Social marketing is now a factor that cannot (and must not) be ignored.

When the American political climate can be influenced by a blog, a forum, or a social networking site, then you have an 900 pound gorilla staring you right in the face.

Obama worked this element with a surgeon’s precision, generating a buzz very early on and feeding the frenzy until it grew to mammoth proportions.

How do you translate this into what you do?  To start with, do you have an account on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn or YouTube?  Why not?

Seriously, why not?  They are free to join.  You can learn about them from my classes or you can get a Dummies book, or you can ask some one who uses them or you could just go try it out yourself.

Think about it…if using freely available Internet tools can help win an election, do you think that it might be possible to use these tools to reach people who have proven their willingness to use and be influenced by them in your real estate practice?  I fervently believe that we have a tipping point here and these tools will only become more prevalent and more important as time goes on.

And, if President Elect Obama, soon to be President Obama continues to use these tools as he governs, then you and I will be part of the first truly representative government in the history of our nation…and, that ain’t hay!

Get on board, now, or miss out…it’s your choice.