Ron Paul Viral Marketing Success
Ron Paul is winning popularity portion of the united States presidential election. He consistently speaks the truth and does what he says. And lucky for Ron Paul the truth makes a lot of people so happy they sell his message for him.
I pioneered viral media on the web. And have since moved beyond viral to a broader more accurate term, evangelism. Its clear Ron Paul has a lot of evangelists. All of his success is from normal people spreading the message all on their own.
Part of my research on viral / evangelistic marketing is what the trends mean and how to get the results you want. Looking at the trends for Ron Paul and the other candidates I see some very striking results.
Google Trends is accurate unbiased data on what real people actually care about. According to Neilsen/NetRatings 232 million Americans use the Internet. That makes Google Trends the largest most accurate measure in the world.
First, Ron Paul (dark blue line) has more searches than than any other candidate. Plus his searches is continually growing. This is suggestive of real wide spread support. There are 7.7 million pages on Google for Ron Paul.. That is almost 4 times as many as Mitt Romney. Ron Paul has more pages about him, which confirms support not just interest. There are other measures I use and will explain those in future posts.
Romney (orange line) has no real support. You can see this from how his traffic jumps then immediately falls to nothing. He depends on events to get any interest. If Romney was a company I would short his stock. His advertising works but Romney is a bad product.
Hillary Clinton (the red line) is suffering from the same problem as Mitt Romney. She gets big spikes but people don’t like her and try to forget her as soon as possible. Even with a huge budget and over 16 years of national media attention there are only 5.8 million pages talking about her. And much of that is criticism. Hillary Clinton is the political equivalent of Paris Hilton. She gets attention when she does something insane but loses popularity every time.
Barack Obama is in bad shape. Notice that he got a big jump when he announced he was running for office but his traffic has consistently gone down. With only 2.8 million pages and downward trend Barack Obama he is far behind the leader, Ron Paul. The fact Obama doesn’t get any new jumps means its unlikely he will gain any support. He could linger around for a long time but will have a hard time getting new attention. He is played out.
My Suggestions
Hillary has total name recognition. Since people react so negatively she can’t really benefit from Evangelism Marketing without doing something very different. With her long track record she would face the credibility issue if she tried to be different. She depends on spending huge amounts of money and favorable treatment from the big press to get attention.
Romney is dead in the water. He needs to find something unique that he actually deliver. Unfortunately that would require going back in time. He can’t deliver anything unless elected.
Obama can make it to the election with his current trend. He needs to find a new audience, which is unlikely since he already had a huge jump in the beginning. If he offers something new that might get more attention.
Information Generation
This video points out the serious disconnect between the establishment and the generations that grew up with wide spread information technology. There are some very important insights. The moderator, Guy Kawasaki, asked one question several times and was surprised by the answer and couldn’t understand it. Part of the reason is he didn’t know how to ask the question in a way the kids that have grown up with pervasive info tech would understand.
These kids:
- avoid advertising
- shop in stores and buy online
- buy lots of “legal” media
- “pirate” most of their media
- instant message a lot
- don’t watch TV
- like Apple products
- use open source, but aren’t geeks
The thing the moderator seems to miss is these kids #1 concern is managing their time and attention. These kids use SMS text messaging because they can politely do it any time and any place. It doesn’t demand attention from the recipient. This is the same reason they use MySpace and Facebook. They don’t have time to personally deal with all their social interactions. The moderator incorrectly assumed these kids are missing social interaction because much of it is not done face to face. This is the exact opposite of the truth. These kids are managing hyper social behavior. They use technology to stay connected with friends and make connections with possible new friends.
How to Reach Kids
OK, Guy, this is what the kids didn’t tell you. They find out about new products from other people. All you need to do is reach an influencer and you’ve started a marketing virus. The best way to do this is make a really great product. The influencers are always looking for something new. This is how they stay cool. The followers will mimic the leaders and if the product is good it will spread. This does mean traditional advertising is dead or dying. The outcome is a better connection between buyers and sellers. If you make stuff that is cool, you become an influencer. Your website, blog, or just conversations will be the source for the next great thing. This can’t be faked, it must be earned. You can jump start your initial recognition by doing something valuable for the influencer market. A funny viral video is valuable because it is funny. Sponsor a band. Go to a blog and ask for negative feedback on your product. Then fix it. And give credit to those that helped you. This is only some of the ways to reach the attention stretched information generation.
WCBN – Interactive Technology Interview – Part 1 – 2006 Dec 19
We discuss viral marketing, the online TV show I produce being spotlighted on Veoh.com, video advertising systems such as Revver.com, BitTorrent, Creative Commons, and business models that use file sharing and how artists and other creators of intellectual works can get paid for their works in a world of unlimited file sharing.
WCBN – Interactive Technology Interview – Part 1 – 2006 Dec 19
WCBN.org radio University of Michigan Ann Arbor
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