Communication Planning, Concept and Application (Case Study: Barack Obama's Social Media Planning & Winning Strategy)

Abstract

New media is growing so rapidly and affects all aspects of life, from social life to political life, from household to state affairs, from minors to grandparents. This new media is claimed to be the determinant of Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 US presidential election. The new media in question is none other than Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many more. This new media is known as Social Media. The presence of this new media certainly changes the fabric of people's lives. If at first Facebook was only used to build social networks of friendship, now many people and companies use Facebook to do business or campaign. Likewise, with YouTube, which always appears ads when we open a certain video screen. This very rapid development has encouraged researchers, academics and practitioners from various disciplines to make scientific studies on the phenomenon of social media. To be sure, researchers, academics and practitioners alike agree that the communication media has undergone a very fundamental change. The result of this research is to find out how Barack Obama won the US presidential election in 2008 by encouraging people to become volunteers, donors or donors of funds, to become supporters through social networks, e-mail, SMS, and online video. The campaign using online media was the main cause of Obama's victory.