John Edwards and Peanut Butter March 31, 2007

Posted by Todd Zeigler in Politics, Social Networks, Web 2.0

Jose Antonio Vargas from the Post has a good article up about the John Edwards campaign’s presence on a mind numbing 24 social networking sites. The experts quoted in the article are all complimentary of Edwards’ efforts in the social media space. I think the story is missing one thing: a strong statement of dissent.

So let me repeat that I think 24 is way too many sites for a campaign to maintain a presence on. I don’t think it is good strategy.

The whole thing takes me back to the peanut butter mainifesto written by Yahoo’s Brad Garlinghouse in response to his own company’s meandering stategy.

I’ve heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular.

I hate peanut butter. We all should.

Yup.

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Comments

  1. Vote -1 Vote +1Benny - April 1st, 2007 at 2:32 am

    I wouldn’t call Ruffini’s post exactly objective, would you, Todd? Not only has he worked for Rudy, he’s worked for McCain blogging under his own name and not giving full disclosure either.

    And, you might just go check out Edwards’ numbers on the ActBlue fundraising page or for easy reading, Jerome Armstrong’s piece. Yes, Armstrong is a Dem, but he doesn’t have a dog in the hunt at the moment. There’s a strategy behind 24 networking sites, albeit, I agree it would be a big challenge to keep them up, including a twitter account.

    Edwards has said more than once, and perhaps you haven’t been around to hear it, that his campaign would be grassroots, which includes the netroots–from the ground up.

  2. Vote -1 Vote +1Todd Zeigler - April 1st, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    Benny,

    I think Edwards is doing a lot of great things online. I just don’t think deciding to have a presence on 24 sites is one of them.

    Also, Ruffini works for Rudy but I think you are confusing him with someone else on the McCain thing. He’s since praised Edwards for improving his site:

    http://www.patrickruffini.com/.....s-do-over/

  3. Vote -1 Vote +1Benny - April 5th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    My bad, Todd. It was Patrick Hynes I was thinking of.

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The Bivings Report (TBR) is a source of news, insight, research and analysis on the web-based communications industry. TBR content is posted, created and managed by internet strategists, media/communications analysts, web developers, designers and programmers, all of whom are employees of The Bivings Group.



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