Promoting IYC: learning lessons from the Obama campaign

What does a Barack Obama campaign strategist have to do with the International Year of Co-operatives?  He can talk to co-operators about the importance of using social media...

What does a Barack Obama campaign strategist have to do with the International Year of Co-operatives?  He can talk to co-operators about the importance of using social media to promote co-ops and the International Year.

That’s why the ICA invited Sam Graham-Felsen, who masterminded Obama’s social media efforts during the U.S. presidential campaign, to give the  keynote speech at this morning’s session.

In an engaging presentation, the 30-year-old Graham-Felsen gave numerous examples of how social media was used to mobilize people to support Obama during the campaign. It was a monumental effort: the campaign posted some 2,000 videos on YouTube; they got so many hits that a total of one billion minutes of web video content from the Obama campaign were consumed. Many of the videos didn’t even include shots of Obama — instead, they included ordinary people talking about why they supported Obama, people holding up signs bearing the two key messages of the campaign: “Hope” and “Change”.

And then there was what was probably Obama’s most famous text message: his announcement to supporters that Joe Biden had been chosen as his vice-presidential running mate.  People were so impressed that the candidate communicated directly with them that they became even more fervent supporters, and encouraged others to do the same.

Obama social media strategist Sam Graham-Felsen talks to co-operators in Cancun

“We had a different kind of candidate — we wanted to have a different kind of campaign,” Graham-Felsen said. “We wanted to show people that they were the superstars of the movement, so we treated them like superstars.”

Toward the end of his presentation, Graham-Felson mentioned that he was a member of  two co-operatives, then generated a burst of applause when he pledged to move his money from a bank to a credit union.

And what’s the first thing individual co-operators can do to show their co-op colours using social media?

“The simplest thing that everyone in this room can do is join the (ICA International Year of Co-operatives) Facebook page,” he said.

As I write this, the page now has 728 “likes”.  Let’s hope it has 2,728 “likes” by the end of the week!

– Donna Balkan

In this article


Join the Conversation