The Web 2.0 Campaign for the White House
The presidential candidates may disagree about Iraq, health care and taxes, but their campaigns demonstrate a clear consensus that the rise of Web 2.0 tools offers the chance to engage interested citizens, one market niche, one voter, one message at a time.
But Smith acknowledges that his organization doesn't always know how effective the various online methods are. “Sometimes it’s difficult to gauge whether they’re working,’’ he says, although he is encouraged by the number of responses people post.
So businesses, beware. Web 2.0 applications can be very effective marketing tools, “but you have to balance the marketing aspect with the creation and development and nurturing of the relationship,” Webber says.
“We want to read [the message] and listen to it for a while, but we want to engage with someone in a conversation about what our problems are and how we can solve them,” Webber says. Social networking technologies may offer the ability for dialogue, but whether both sides are willing to engage in that conversation is a question for analysis later in the 2008 race.
