There was much talk at the end of 2008 of the Barak Obama Presidential Campaign and how he used social media to build a movement for change. It has been a marketing study for many. The power that was leveraged by sweeping a country one person at a time and using individuals as community organizers to build what became a global movement was cutting edge.

Well here we are in 2010 and most businesses and corporations have gotten the memo. Gotta be in the game if you want to leverage, engage and connect with your target audience. Most of you know that Ted Kennedy’s senate seat was up for election when he passed and his family members all declined to run for his it. The Democratic party chose a successor in Martha Coakley. President Obama was out in full force campaigning on her behalf and the coverage of his speech was on CNN no less. BUT here is the kicker—the very marketing tools that helped Obama and his “movement for change” campaign sweep the nation, were not leveraged. And as a result, Coakley’s opponent won!

The WSJ posts a study for you to review, by Susan Davis, that shows Martha Coakley’s numbers vs. her opponent by using the measurement of several popular social media tools. The amazing thing (and the reason for putting this study in my post today) is that the numbers are NOT HUGE from the perspective of posts and participants. They are not the kind of numbers that would lead YOU in your business to say, “well we can’t get that kind of engagement.” They are numbers that show that if you get in the game you can build your brand and get some mighty impressive results. Imagine the Ted Kennedy legacy—with 47 years in the senate and a well-established brand—being out done by using tools that appeal to a broad based community who engaged and demanded a change!

Can’t find a more crystal clear example of the power of Twitter, Facebook and Youtube in 2010 for your brand.

Best Nicole

If YouTube video views were to decide today’s Senate election in Massachusetts, Republican state Sen. Scott Brown would win in a landslide against Democrat Martha Coakley.

A study conducted by the Emerging Media Research Council out today found that Brown had a more effective strategy of using social networking tools including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to promote his campaign and connect with supporters.

Here’s a look at the numbers:

Facebook Posts since Jan. 1: Brown (128), Coakley (58)

Facebook Fans: Brown (70,800), Coakley (13,529)

Tweets since Jan. 1: Brown (142), Coakley (144)

Twitter Followers: Brown (9,679), Coakley (3,385)

YouTube Videos: Brown (57), Coakley (52)

YouTube Video Views: Brown (578,271), Coakley (51,173)

The study concludes that Brown’s use of social media helped in several ways, including boosting his name recognition both in and out of Massachusetts. They note that just 51% of Massachusetts voters had heard of Brown in a Nov. 12 poll, by Jan. 14 his name recognition was at 95%.

The study also found that Brown more openly embraced social media sites on his campaign Web site, where he “prominently” features social networking channels including a Twitter feed while Coakley “gives social networks less prominent real estate.”

In recent elections, Democrats—including President Barack Obama–have gotten the bulk of the credit for using social media networks to boost their campaigns. However, other recent studies suggest that the tech divide between the two parties is narrowing.

A report released last week on lawmaker’s use of Twitter found that Republican lawmakers are taking advantage of the Twitterverse significantly more than their Democratic counterparts. In the House, GOP lawmakers send out 529% more tweets than Democrats.

Best Nicole

Interactive media will represent nearly one of every five dollars spent by marketers on media in the U.S. next year, according to estimates released Wednesday by WPP’s GroupM unit, the largest buyer of media in the world. The agency holding company’s new global ad spending forecast predicts interactive media, primarily online, will represent 17% of the U.S. advertising marketplace in 2010, up from 15.4% in 2009, and making.

 That makes interactive the third largest medium in the U.S., behind television’s 44.2% share, and magazine’s 18.4% share of 2010 advertising budgets. According to GroupM’s estimates, interactive media will overtake newspaper’s U.S. advertising share this year. Newspapers, which had a 14.8% share of U.S. ad spending in 2008, will fall to a 13.6% share this year, and a 12.4% share next year. Interactive media had a 13.9% share in 2008.

Radio’s U.S. advertising share also continues to erode, dropping to 5.6% this year, from 6.0% in 2008. GroupM predicts radio’s share of U.S. ad spending will drop to 5.2% in 2010.

Out-of-home media spending remains steady at 2.7%.

While the U.S. isn’t the largest interactive media marketplace in the world in terms of penetration, it is the biggest in terms of advertising volume. While the GroupM report does not break out the components of interactive media, it estimates that marketers will spend $23.9 billion on interactive media in the U.S. in 2010, representing 39.9% of the world’s $59.9 billion interactive advertising marketplace.

The largest market in terms of interactive media penetration is the U.K., where British marketers will spend 30.9% of their advertising budgets on interactive media, followed by Denmark, where interactive media will have a 28.4% share next year. Ireland has the smallest interactive advertising penetration of any major Western industrialized nation, with a 3.0% share in 2010, up from just 1.8% in 2009.

Globally, marketers will invest 14.6% of their worldwide advertising budgets on interactive media, up from 13.2% in 2009.

GroupM Futures Director Adam Smith, the author of the new forecast, said the only other major media to increase share during the global advertising recession are TV and outdoor media.

“TV and out-of-home have both added share of global ad investment, while newspapers continue to shed a point of share a year,” he noted in the report. “It may also be the case that TV and out-of-home’s relative cheapness compared to newspapers has encouraged this, and perhaps newspapers have been less willing to flex pricing too.”