There is absolutely no doubt that there is a direct correlation between online video views and how the US Presidential campaigns are going this year, at least not in my mind. Still, though, not every politician seems to be convinced of the power of web video to drive the fueling up of campaign coffers (I'm looking at you, Senator McCain). Still, other candidates don't seem to understand the difference between moderately entertaining online videos, and videos that engage and inspire (and here I'm looking at you, Senator Clinton).
I bring this up because the data and the conversations are still fresh on my mind from the IDPI Politics Online conference, and TubeMogul just recently released a report showing amazing correlations between the online video and campaign donations.
In case you're new, TubeMogul is one part a free tracking service that allows you to follow the trend of your online videos, another part video upload service that puts your videos on every video distribution portal out there, and another part online video think tank that periodically puts out thought provoking reports like this one.
You can't talk about online video, political support on the web, and the 2008 Presidential race without talking about Ron Paul, which provides one of the most stark examples of a successful run at the YouTube, and then a successful run to the bank. Ron Paul's largest fund raising day was December 16, when he raised $6,043,022.96 in 59,170 donations. In the week leading up to the 16th, views spiked at an average of 69,908, up from an average of 40,775 the seven days previous.
Of course, the other notable winner in the viral video arena has been Barack Obama, thanks to artist Will.I.Am putting together the "Yes We Can" music video. Barack Obama raised $7.5 million in the 36 hours after Super Tuesday, despite his mixed results that day. TubeMogul, in their report, speculates that his huge surge in video views and comments in the days leading up to Super Tuesday, driven largely by the celebrity-laden "Yes We Can" music video, played a role.
There are certainly a lot of lessons that can be drawn from these data-sets, and the TubeMogul report goes into their thoughts on the matter. I think it's important to keep a few things in mind when thinking about an online web video strategy for your political campaign.
First of all, the two biggest success stories so far in terms of fund raising didn't really do it themselves. They happened to inspire their respective constituencies enough to propel them forward on the web towards the fund raising goals they desired. The lesson there is that you can probably duplicate the success of these organic occurrences, but it's probably best left to a passionate and inspired support base.
Secondly, don't count on the online web video to necessarily translate into votes at the ballot box. For the next several political cycles, I think that online web viewership is still going to skew fairly young, and that's the demographic that typically doesn't vote (despite usually holding very strong political opinions). You must count on that demographic to vote with their wallet, and then take that money to fund a more traditional campaign, so you can actually get the old farts out to the voting stations.