Barack Obama might have not beaten John McCain on Election Day if he hadn’t bested the GOP contender throughout the year online, by raising millions more through microdonations and regularly activating partisans through email messaging.
Yet at this point, the McCain clan also has a decent track record using online tools for career purposes. McCain’s daughter Meghan, for example, has turned her high-profile campaign blog into a gig at the Daily Beast and a place on the pundit circuit. The septuagenarian Senator is staying hip with the new media crowd too. McCain’s Twitter feed now has over 1.5 million followers. That’s ten times more than his former running mate, popular political personality Sarah Palin.
So how has McCain been hooking his audience?
Most of his strategy is Social Media 101 (participate regularly, engage other users, share personal anecdotes and interesting links, etc.). But there’s a new tactic he’s been using recently that can be adapted by anyone who’s looking to establish thought leadership online.
It’s not really a secret that we all are suckers for lists and rankings. McCain (or perhaps his “ghost tweeter”) recognizes this trick. Recently, he has started to send out his top ten pork barrel projects via Twitter each day. And he breaks them down and ranks them before shooting them out one by one until he reaches his most outrageous spending project of the day. This keeps the McCain brand in the conversation throughout the day and maximizes his feed’s viral appeal.
And now for your enjoyment, here is a short sample of McCain’s most outrageous pork barrel picks:
- $165,000 for maple syrup research in Vermont
- $325,000 to study seismic activity in Memphis, TN
- $195,000 to research how to increase the lifespan of peach trees in South Carolina
- $130,000 to relocate the residents of 130 homes in DeKalb, IL
- $900,000 for the City of Whitefish Emergency Operations Center in Whitefish, MT (Population: 6700)
Photo credit: Flickr user “World Economic Forum,” CC 2.0.
