What Candidates Are Leading on YouTube?

It is no secret that a battle for the hearts and minds of voters is underway on the Internet. With exploratory groups, official groups and supporters it is difficult at times to see what candidates are winning the online battle.

This is the first Presidential campaign where social media sites like YouTube will impact what users see and know about a candidate. YouTube is the dominant online video destination and we have decided to track how well the candidates video channels are being received on YouTube.

All three major Democratic Candidates have created their own YouTube channel that interested voters can subscribe too. Interestingly it is Barack Obama who is leading the other candidates in terms of number of subscribers and videos viewed.

Candidate

Number of Subscribers

Videos Viewed

Barack Obama

2,809

85,206

Hillary Clinton

710

33,363

John Edwards

1,116

27,585

Barack Obama continues to be the grassroots candidate of 2008. It is much too interesting to see whether he can turn this grassroots supports into votes or whether Barack becomes this campaigns Howard Dean.

The Republicans have not gravitated to the Internet like the Democrats have and that can be seen in the lack of subscribers to their channel. Interestingly, Rudy Giuliani leads in the number of YouTube subscribers while John McCain is a distant third behind Mitt Rommney.

Candidate

Number of Subscribers

Videos Viewed

Rudy Giuliani

418

18,717

Mitt Romney

370

15,304

John McCain

244

11,290

We will be updating this information on a monthly basis to see if there is any correlation between YouTube subscribers and campaign performance.

Post By David Wilson (636 Posts)

I have been in providing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to clients for the last 8 years. I believe that SMO is where all the online services are going to converge over the next 18 months.

Website: →

Connect

Trackbacks

  1. What Candidates Are Leading on YouTube?…

  2. [...] August 3, 2007 The increasing use of social media in political campaigning in Europe became especially visible in France’s last elections in Royal vs. Sarkozy, but in the US they really have it down to a fine art. Right now in the US, it’s the race for the 2008 presidential elections and everyone is using social technology, such as YouTube, as part of their campaigns. The internet has created a platform for ‘openess’, enabling people to ‘get to know’ candidates before voting for them, exemplified by the Senator John Edwards’ pod cast run on Pod Tech. [...]

Speak Your Mind

*