There is a lot of talk in the online marketing world about how large a part digital marketing played in the success of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He certainly embraced the internet, in particular the social networking platforms, and reportedly spent over $16 million on online advertising during the run up to voting day.

His digital campaigns included spending over $640,000 on Facebook, creating profiles on MySpace and Twitter, using search engine optimisation for his sites, blogging whilst on the road, and creating a YouTube channel.

Whilst most of those are fairly standard ways of raising awareness and promoting something on the web, the Obama team also came up with some original advertising. A clever tax calculator was placed on his site and links to it were spread around the web. The calculator shows just how much tax an individual could save under Obama’s proposed tax laws when compared to McCain’s and the number of direct links to it stands at over 6000, according to Yahoo!.

Obama’s marketing team also used the internet to communicate with hard to reach audiences. By putting billboard adverts inside the online version of the Xbox 360 game, Burnout Paradise, they took steps towards a demographic that McCain struggled to engage.

It is clear that the people advising the Obama administration knew the benefits that these digital marketing activates held. By having a presence on the social media networks Obama was opening himself up to his audience and coming across far more personable and  approachable than his competitors. By placing things like the tax calculator on his site he took advantage of viral linking, where people started broadcasting the message further on his behalf.

There is no doubt that these digital marketing campaigns helped Obama win the presidency. Future politicians will have taken note and the next time an election is looming it will be interesting to see the new and creative ways they use to web to get surfers to vote for them.