John Edwards reaches to Tech Community via Scoble, and Deploys Social Media

Categories: Community Marketing, Social MediaPosted on December 27th, 2006

Maryam, myself and the rest of the PodTech crew are super excited for Robert who’s now on a plane to join John Edwards on his entourage starting in New Orleans. Valleywag and even SFgate have the story.

I knew about this trip a few days ago, and Robert and I had an interesting conversation that technology folks tend to be affluent, educated, and often Republican? This could be an important segment of the vote for Edwards.

So far, I’m impressed with the Social Media Deployment that the Edwards family has done. Maryam stopped by earlier and told her that could tell in her interview discussions with Elizabeth Edwards actually took the time to read her blog and got to know her.

John Edwards has this website, a group blog, his personal blog (does he write it himself?), podcasts, videos, and even a myspace page. Holy Geez, that’s more social media than I have!

Good luck Robert, we expect you to ask the hard questions…and next time listen to Maryam and don’t forget your phone!

This is my first post on politics, it may be interesting to compare and contrast how Corporations vs Political groups use Social Media to join conversations.

Update: Robert has just disclosed all the details

Share This Post:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Community Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Politicians will be held to a different standard that us businesspeople, who make no pretenses about selling things.

Woe to the politician who reminds voters that the politician is a peddler of influence. But this works both ways- the politician who can convince people they are selling a better future will be even more empowered than the businesspeople who use a better future as one of their selling points.

I know an aspiring politician who will not keep a public blog because everything is on record, immediately, and their is no chance of taking it back. Take this from Edwards blog:

“It was easy for Congress to characterize bankrupt families as “deadbeats” and ignore the reality that more than 90 percent of all bankruptcies are due to medical emergencies, job loss, divorce or a death in the family.”

Used to be, someone would report a politician saying that. But now Edwards himself has said it, and if that fact is proved wrong, what will happen? What if he is not as accurate as he could be?

In many cases it does not bug me that a corporation makes a minor error, and if I read a blog entry that is later wrong, and the author retracts their incorrect statement, and no one got hurt, fine.

But if Edwards or any politiblogger is on record with a series of inaccuracies, how much faith will I have in them? Doesn’t matter that everyone makes mistakes: if one person is vocal, and the second is not, maybe I feel that the second is more trustworthy/competent.

As you say Jeremiah, this corporation/politician comparison will be interesting.

Posted by Brian Keith on December 27th, 2006 at 5:45 pm

Are technology people really normally republicans? I’ve met not even one in the 2 years I’ve been blogging.

Posted by Robyn Tippins on December 27th, 2006 at 8:26 pm

[...] It’s interesting that Edwards is bringing podcast maven Robert Scoble to New Orleans. He must think much of the primary will be fought in cyberspace. [...]

Posted by The American Mind / John Edwards Will Announce He’s Running for President on December 27th, 2006 at 9:42 pm

Nice idea, but on their own blogs John, Elizabeth and Cate last posts are respectively:
- Oct 16th, 2006
- Jun 21st, 2006
- Mar 5th, 2006

No further comment necessary. Suggest they hire Robert as blog advisor.

Posted by Colin Henderson on December 27th, 2006 at 9:53 pm

Robyn…These were Robert’s observations from the valley. We should take a poll seriously.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on December 27th, 2006 at 10:03 pm

Colin.

Oh boy, you ARE right. It’s been a while for them, I hope this gives them so new energy.

Really great news. So proud to be involved with this company. Just fantastic.

Posted by Loren Feldman on December 27th, 2006 at 11:00 pm

Brian

Isn’t everything a politician says on air, to tv, or in a blog on record? Why would we treat a blog any different than a person’s voice?

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on December 28th, 2006 at 8:30 am

Jeremiah,
We should treat everything they say as on record, but they don’t, so I hear from my aspiring politician friend.

We can link to a blog easier (in most cases) than we can link to what they say.

Posted by Brian Keith on December 29th, 2006 at 12:07 pm

John Edwards knows a lot about poverty, after all, he’s helped throw a lot of people into it with:

- his co-sponsorship of H-1b visas,

- his support for illegal aliens,

- his vote for MFN-China

but what about stuff like iraq war and the patriot act?

well, he voted for them too

About the only think you can say for Edwards is, he spent so much time running for president that he didnt have time to do more damage as senator

Posted by Snorb on January 2nd, 2007 at 7:33 pm

[...] This is interesting to me, as I stated the next Presidential campaign will be fought online globally. My analysis on how Edwards reaches out by using Social Media. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Scoble asks John Edwards “Why do you want to run for President?” on January 22nd, 2007 at 5:06 am

[...] Edwards = 3 points for basic website, social media deployment, and blogger relations in real life. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Conversations begin with Dialogue on January 22nd, 2007 at 5:10 am

[...] John Edwards Web Strategy uses Social Media I noticed that John Edward’s camp was one of the first to use Social Media features early on in his campaign. I’ve documented that he’s deployed: “John Edwards has this website, a group blog, his personal blog (does he write it himself?), podcasts, videos, and even a myspace page. Holy Geez, that’s more social media than I have!” [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Web Strategies of the 2008 Presidential Candidates on April 5th, 2007 at 9:09 am