Keep It Local, Keep It Real

6 M
y.BarackObama.com
Keep it local, keep it real
Excerpted from Yes We Did. An inside look at how social media built the Obama brand by Rahaf Harfoush. Copyright © 2009. Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and New Riders.
2 PART TWO — THE CANDIDATE
O b a m a’ s official social network,

my.barackobama.com, was at the heart of the campaign’s new media
strategy. Affectionately referred to internally as MyBO, the site
allowed users to create events, exchange information, raise funds,
and connect with voters in their area. MyBO was the digital home
base from which the campaign could mobilize its army of supporters.
Creating an account required an email address and a password. Users
didn’t even have to confirm their email address. This was done to
make the sign-up process as fast and easy as possible.
The drawback of this technique was that people could create

accounts using fake email addresses with the sole intent of posting
negative comments, a frequent occurrence requiring constant moni-
toring by the MyBO team. Online trolls, people who joined the com-
munity only to disrupt and insult members, were usually reported
to online community managers within minutes and removed from
the site. Over the course of the campaign, over three million people
would create an account on MyBO and use the site’s tools to organize
for Obama.
Chris Hughes, Director of Online Organizing, was fascinated by the

challenge of building a political social network. “As great as Barack is,
if the campaign hadn’t been constituted in this idea of investing in our
everyday supporters and helping them organize among themselves, I
wouldn’t have been as excited about the job,” he said. One of Facebook’s
co-founders, Hughes left his role leading product development to
join the campaign in Chicago. Armed with Facebook’s community-
building expertise, he applied the same principles to grow MyBO:
Keep it real and keep it local. MyBO was built to strengthen existing
connections with neighbors. Hughes understood that the primary
function of MyBO was to enable supporters to reach each other and
form their own connections. The MyBO team wanted to ensure that
the online infrastructure would translate into an on-the-ground
army that would help solicit votes.
74
My.BarackObama.com — CHAPTER sIX
Creating a sense of community was essential to MyBO’s success,

and campaign staff made a consistent effort to foster a supportive
online atmosphere by providing plenty of resources to help users
get the most out of the site. Videos offered a step-by-step tutorial
on how to use each of the online tools, and a downloadable host
guide helped organizers plan the perfect event from beginning to
end. Campaign staff hosted weekly conference calls with MyBO
members to exchange tips and insights about using the online tools.
The team phoned hosts who had used MyBO to organize an event
to offer support and advice. They often called back after the event
as well, to make sure that everything had gone smoothly and to ask
for feedback. This was one of the most rewarding parts of my own
volunteer responsibilities. I loved connecting with real people and
hearing the excitement in their voices when they heard that I was
calling from National Headquarters to thank them for their efforts.
“We’re fired up and ready to go,” was an oft-repeated phrase. Their
enthusiasm often buoyed my own spirits, especially when working
twelve-hour days.
This chapter will look at the strategies that made MyBO an inviting
and welcoming environment and some of the creative ways in which
supporters used the site to organize for change.
Focus on what matters — We’ll examine the way the profile, action
center, and personal fundraising pages were used to keep the
communities focused on the most important goal: getting Obama
elected.
Incite the right actions — The campaign’s activity index was refined
to reward supporters who were using online tools to effectively
organize offline.
Leverage creativity — The Obama team left enough flexibility in the

events, group listings, and user blogs to give supporters an oppor-
tunity to create an intimate connection with the campaign through
personal expression.
75
Focus on What Matters

The MyBO interface was carefully designed with usability in mind.
The Obama team made sure it was easy for users to participate, raise
funds, and stay updated with the campaign. Each MyBO account
had the following components: dashboard, profile, action center,
fundraising, network, and sidebar.
Dashboard
The dashboard was the user’s homepage, a place to get an overview
of all the action happening on MyBO. It provided easy shortcuts to
quickly access the organizing tools, including personal fundraising
and events. This kept the tools in sight—and foremost in the user’s
mind—whenever he or she logged on.
Profile
The profile allowed the user to upload a picture, create a user name,
and state his or her location. Instead of listing favorite movies, TV
shows, or music, a MyBO profile featured the answer two questions:
“Why do you support Barack Obama?” and “Are you registered to
vote?” The profiles allowed the user to customize content that was
relevant to the mandate of the community: electing Obama.
76
Action Center
In August 2007, Chris Hughes introduced the MyBO action center on
the official blog. “What
we must do now is channel
all the enthusiasm and
energy that you in this
community have toward
the completion of discrete
goals that will help meet
the campaign’s objectives,”
he wrote. “The Action
Center is a place where
you can go to find out
exactly what the campaign
needs from you today.”
Supporters were given

a new task to complete
every two weeks and encouraged to recruit new members from their
circle of friends. Actions focused on priority items including voter
registration drives, phonebank campaigns, and canvassing efforts.
Fundraising
Each MyBO user could create a personal fundraising page, which
included a thermometer graphic that tracked his or her progress.
The page was customizable: users
could articulate in their own words
why supporting Barack was impor-
tant to them. The personal fund-
raising page also came with a
customized URL and embed code
that could be placed in webpages
and emails. This created a new way
for the campaign to raise money
because it didn’t focus on support-
ing a candidate, but created an
opportunity for friends and family
77
to support each other in order to reach personal fundraising goals.

Instead of a stranger cold-calling to ask for a donation of five or ten
dollars, it was your neighbor or friend who was raising money
because she believed Barack would end the war in Iraq and bring her
son back home. This made donating more personal and meaningful
because in addition to supporting the campaign, your funds were
providing a direct benefit to someone you know. Over the course of
the campaign, 70,000 MyBO personal fundraising pages collected
more than $35 million for the campaign.
Network
MyBO users could exchange messages with each other much like an
internal email account. The network feature allowed users to easily
upload contacts from an Outlook or Gmail address book, encourag-
ing members to invite their extended social network to join MyBO as
well.
Sidebar
The sidebar was always visible, even when
users navigated away from their dashboard
to explore other areas of the Barack Obama
site. This made sure that an online mem-
ber’s inbox, groups, and event information
were always one click away.
Incite the Right Actions:

The Activity Index
To keep supporters motivated and engaged,
the Obama team had to make sure MyBO
users felt they were making a difference in
the campaign. Originally, MyBO contained
a point system that assigned a value for
various activities; a phone call was worth
three points, making a donation was worth
fifteen. A single cumulative score was cal-
culated and displayed on a user’s profile, reflecting their rank within
78
the site. Members were ranked against each other and could lose
their standing if another member accumulated more points. The idea
was to mobilize voters by allowing them to directly measure their
impact on the campaign through their organizing efforts. However,
it quickly became evident to Chris Hughes, Director of Online
Organizing, that certain people were trying to take advantage of the
system. “From the start, the emphasis was on quantifying an activist’s
contribution to the campaign, not on encouraging people to rack up
points for the sake of racking up points,” he wrote on the Obama offi-
cial blog in August 2008. “For some people, this wasn’t always clear.”
That same month, MyBO rolled out a simpler way for users to track
their involvement, a feature called the activity index.
Instead of listing a score, the index clearly specified the types of

activities a user engaged in: how many people they phoned, how
many events they attended,
and so on. The index rated
the user’s activity level on a K E E P I NG S C O R E
scale of one to ten (one
being least active, ten being 15 points for every event hosted
most active), but there was 15 points for a donation made to
a twist: it calculated the the personal fundraising page
rating based only on recent
10 points for every door knocked
activities. on using the online canvassing tool
This meant that users had 5 points for every call made using
to keep participating in the online call tool
order to maintain their rat- 3 points for every event attended
ing. “The more work you’ve
done recently, the higher the 3 points for every blog post
number will be,” Hughes 3 points for every group joined
explained on the Obama
blog. This encouraged sus-
tained behavior, ensuring a
continued stream of activity. In addition, the activity breakdown was
publicly visible to other members in the community, further motivat-
ing people to participate. By placing more value on offline activities
(hosting an event was worth fifteen points compared to three points
for joining a group), the campaign also acted on its strategy of “offline
action,” rewarding people for mobilizing in the real world.
79
The index became an accurate and efficient way of segmenting the

community based on activity level. Users who achieved a certain rat-
ing out of ten were given access to special resources, such as training
videos on how to maximize the use of the online tools. It also helped
state field organizers spot highly motivated users in their area who
could be recruited to join the campaign in a more formal capacity,
such as becoming a neighborhood leader or phonebank organizer.
It made it easy to identify supporters who were more willing to
engage with the campaign, without excluding those who wanted to
get involved on a lesser scale. Membership became a continuum on
which every supporter could find his or her own sweet spot. The
index was also applied to entire groups, so that anyone could see how
active an entire membership was at a glance.
Leverage Creativity
Groups
MyBO groups allowed users to quickly and easily connect with other
voters who shared similar interests. Groups ranged from people with
the same occupations (Electricians for Obama), to location (Texas
for Obama), to demographics (Women for Obama). Groups were
given their own homepage, complete with a blog, directory, elec-
tronic mailing list, a collective activity index, and a group fundraising
meter. By the end of the campaign over 35,000 groups were created
by volunteers.
Not all groups were focused solely on fundraising or organizing;

some were used as a way to send a message to the Obama campaign.
The most notable of these was one of the largest MyBO groups, made
up of members who opposed the senator’s stance on an amendment
to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The bill would
grant the president more leeway to spy on citizens’ private com-
munications and would grant immunity to telephone companies who
were accused of illegal surveillance. Obama had originally stated
that he opposed modernizing FISA. In June 2008, he released a
statement saying that he would support the FISA Amendments Act
of 2008 being considered by the House of Representatives, but that
he would try to remove the retroactive legal immunity part before it
80
came to the Senate floor. A few months later he changed his stance
and supported the modernization of the bill, including the retroac-
tive legal immunity.
His support of the bill angered many community members on MyBO

and a group was formed in June 2008 called “Senator Obama, Please
Vote NO on Telecom Immunity—Get FISA Right.” It grew to several
thousand people and quickly became one of the largest groups on
MyBO. Many speculated about what the official response would be,
if any, and how the senator’s progressive campaign would respond to
voices of dissent within their own community.
On July 3, 2008, New Media Director Joe Rospars posted an official

response from Obama on the site’s official blog. In a demonstration of
the site’s effectiveness in getting Obama’s attention, an official state-
ment was released addressed directly to those who had taken issue
with his stance. Obama took the time to explain the reasoning behind
his position and acknowledged the impact of the MyBO community,
saying, “Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the
current bill, and I’m happy to take my lumps on this site and elsewhere.
For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is
an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions.” He
wrote, “No tool has been more important in focusing peoples’ attention
on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active
and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true not
just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let
the American people down.”
Obama set the tone for future communications and interactions

with community members saying, “I cannot promise to agree with
you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take
them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the
country.” He also outlined what he intended regarding FISA if he
was elected, promising to have his attorney general “conduct a com-
prehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further
recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to
prevent executive branch abuse in the future.” Once again, his actions
reaffirmed the campaign’s message of hope and change, while main-
taining transparency about why he was voting for the bill.
The new media team took an extra step. Joe Rospars announced that
for thirty minutes following the post, three members of the policy
81
team would be monitoring the comment sections to respond to any

questions or concerns that readers might have. Deputy National
Policy Director Danielle Gray, Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Denis
McDonough, and Foreign Policy Advisor and Senior Speechwriter
Ben Rhodes spent ninety minutes wading through over six hundred
comments and participating in a dialogue with concerned support-
ers. The campaign made it clear that they were both listening to their
supporters and willing to talk with them regarding any feedback they
might have. This also shifted the conversation from complaining or
protesting to constructively discussing the issue and learning about
Obama’s reasons for voting the way that he did. Supporters who
participated would then share this information with other members
of the community who might have similar concerns.
Senator Obama, Please Vote NO Florida Women for Obama

on Telecom Immunity- Get FISA Campaign for Change
Right 39,102 members
23,211 members 4,831 Events hosted
4,919 Events hosted 37,180 Events attended
35,744 Events attended 127,874 Calls made
215,090 Calls made 12,549 Doors knocked
5,263 Doors knocked 42,364 Blog posts
94,826 Blog posts $349,885.30 Raised
$726,977.32 Raised
Macs for Barack Environmentalists for Obama

314 members 36,285 members
1,740 events hosted 14,953 Events hosted
6,690 events attended 92,338 Events attended
17,723 calls made 740,731 Calls made
681 doors knocked 12,610 Doors knocked
28,004 blog posts 162,897 Blog posts
$236,290.87 raised $2,066,717.54 Raised
82
Audacity of Hope Postcards for Obama

Book Donations for Obama (Postcards for Votes)
161 members 124 members
2,012 Events hosted 530 Events hosted
8,667 Events attended 3,200 Events attended
16,042 Calls made 17,251 Calls made
373 Doors knocked 415 Doors knocked
30,634 Blog posts 4,965 Blog posts
$58,127.06 Raised $40,196.79 Raised
Students for Barack Obama

36,719 members
19,635 Events hosted
79,161 Events attended
405,629 Calls made
4,531 Doors knocked
174,259 Blog posts
$1,737,475.70 Raised
83
Events
The real spirit of the community could be seen in the more than
200,000 offline events organized through MyBO. The events feature
gave community members a way to incorporate the qualities that
Obama represented into their daily lives and to inject a personal
touch to the campaign. In addition to traditional events such as
phonebanks or neighborhood canvassing, MyBO members invented
thousands of other creative ways to express their support. Events
included everything from dinner parties and themed biking tours
to art and fashion shows, comedy nights, and local movie premiers.
The community’s actions embodied the Obama brand in a way that
transcended marketing and public relations initiatives.
In January 2008, two Yale University students launched a venture

called Obama Works. In a column in the Yale Daily News, Justin
Kosslyn and David Manners-Weber asked, “What if a portion of the
grassroots campaign were dedicated to visible public service projects?”
In other words, how could MyBO users demonstrate through actions
the values of the Obama brand within communities across America?
Their answer: organized community service where Obama support-
ers could do good while taking part in events that represented the
campaign’s values. The activities would have to be simple enough
to be easily implemented anywhere. They suggested three types of
events: Neighborhood cleanups, charity runs, and various small-
scale local projects. “Residents driving through town squares and
walking through local parks would find groups of enthusiastic Obama
volunteers picking up cigarette butts and candy wrappers,” they wrote.
They also suggested a five-kilometer charity run to support local
families and projects ranging from “re-tiling the bathroom in a local
women’s shelter to distributing children’s books from the local book
bank.”
The goal was to rebuild the American public’s trust in politicians

through reputation and a track record of civic service and to dem-
onstrate that through grassroots organizing, big changes can take
place. Kosslyn and Manners-Weber called their community service
acts “Obama Works.” News of their work quickly spread on MyBO
and soon supporters in other areas started organizing their own
events. Local chapters were soon established across the country. The
Minneapolis chapter boasted over forty members who organized
clean-ups of local parks and streets. The story was picked up by the
media, giving excellent press coverage to the campaign.
84
BarackFest (Breakfast)
Since March 2007, Dan of Ft. Collins, Colorado, has been using the
power of breakfast to bring people together. During the campaign,
on the first Sunday of the month he served fresh omelets, crepes,
stratas, and pancakes to supporters who gathered to trade campaign
experiences and personal stories. Each event raised between $200
and $500.
Barack Birthday Bashes
In Montara, California, eighty people gathered to celebrate Barack’s

birthday. Festivities included a birthday cake, a huge cardboard
cutout for photos, a large birthday card, and a list of forty-seven
reasons to vote for Senator Obama. They also screened A&E’s
Biography channel episode on Barack Obama. After the fun, party-
goers recruited local volunteers and canvassed Spanish-speaking
voters in New Mexico.
Soul Line Dancers
Over 60 dancers wearing “Soul Line Dancers for Obama” shirts

busted out their best dance moves on the streets of Oakland,
California. Many residents out for a stroll past the Lake Merritt
Columns joined in the fun. The group also set up a table for dona-
tions and new voter registrations.
Basement Bhangra
South Asians for Obama in co-operation with Obama NYC, Latinos

for Obama, Asian Americans for Obama, Queens County for Obama,
and Generation Obama sponsored “Basement Bhangra,” an Indian
dance party that educated voters about Obama’s positions on various
key issues. Over 400 people showed up for the event in New York
City and danced the night away.
85
User Blogs
Each MyBO account included a blog where supporters could post
about their experiences and thoughts throughout the race. The
blogs were a great way to share information and personal stories,
and helped connect Obama supporters to each other. It gave sup-
porters like Maria from Missoula, Montana, a platform to have their
voices heard. Maria had become an Obama supporter in 2005, after
stumbling on a keynote made by the senator to Citizens United for
Research in Epilepsy (CURE). Having recently lost her daughter
to the medical condition, she used her MyBO blog in early 2007 to
express how Obama’s words had “comforted me during a most painful
time in my life.”
Maria had already knocked on doors and made phone calls on behalf
of Barack but she wanted to do more. She came up with an innova-
tive idea that combined her love of food with her belief in hope,
change, and action. She spent the month of April 2008 connecting
with Obama supporters on MyBO and compiling 160 stories and
recipes, which she assembled into an online cookbook. She posted
the entire collection on her MyBO blog and called it “The Obama
Family Cookbook,” as a reflection of the camaraderie and friendship
that was felt on the site. Anyone could access the content for free,
but Maria asked voters to donate what they could. She raised $2,000
through online donations but didn’t stop there.
“This is a real grassroots cookbook, like the old-fashioned-but-fun

church and school cookbooks of yore,” she posted on her blog. She
collected recipes from all fifty states, as well as England, the Virgin
Islands, and the Netherlands. The cookbook would be a great keep-
sake of “the experience we’ve had in creating our Obama family.” The
cookbook is dedicated to her daughter, Carrie.
I asked Maria about her experiences with the campaign. “I was a part
of the campaign—as were millions of others just like me,” she said. “I
had never worked on a political campaign or donated any money to one.
I felt that it was my campaign, our campaign, and that I was (and still
am) working for the common good. I felt ‘empowered’ for the first time
in my life.” Obama’s message of being our brother’s keeper resonated
with her. “That is the kind of world I want for my children.”
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SWEET POTATO PIE Recipe

Submitted by Carla B from Waldorf, Maryland
My name is Carla and I received this recipe from a single Air Force active
duty member about 19 years ago. I have been married to an Air Force member
for almost 20 years. I would often host a dinner at our home for active duty
members who had no place to have Thanksgiving dinner. The troops didn’t
have to bring anything but themselves for dinner, but one troop brought sweet
potato pies with him and they were the BEST sweet potato pies I’ve ever had.
I begged him for the recipe and about two weeks later he brought the recipe.
I must say that I’ve served the best sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving dinners
ever since. I get kudos every year from Thanksgiving dinner guests and many
of them have requested the recipe. This recipe is even more special to me now
because the Air Force member who gave me this recipe 19 years ago, died
while serving in Iraq two years ago, leaving behind a wife and two beautiful
children. This sweet potato pie Ba-racks!
1 8" frozen piecrust or 1 Pillsbury ready-made rolled refrigerated piecrust

1 medium sweet potato (boiled with skin on until done)
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 stick of butter (softened)
1/2 tsp. of pure vanilla flavoring
1/2 tsp. of lemon flavoring
1/2 tsp. of orange flavoring
1/2 tsp. of maple flavoring
1/2 tsp. of butter flavoring
1/4 tsp. of nutmeg
1/4 tsp. of cinnamon
1/8 tsp. of cream of tartar
1/2 cup Carnation evaporated canned milk or 1/2 cup of Borden’s sweetened
condensed milk
1 tbs. flour
1 egg
Peel boiled sweet potato and place in mixing bowl. Add sugar, softened
butter to bowl and mix together with sweet potato. Add vanilla, lemon,
orange, maple, and butter flavorings. Mix slightly. Add cream of tartar, flour,
cinnamon, nutmeg, and milk, and mix together. If mix is too thick, you can
add a little more milk; if mix is too thin, you can add a little more flour. Once
mixed together, you can taste test and add any additional flavoring you desire.
In a separate bowl, beat egg and add to mix and mix it all together. Add mix
to piecrust and bake in an oven at 350 degrees for one hour. Remove pie from
oven and let cool. Serve with whipped cream and enjoy! Yields one 8-inch pie,
approximately 6 servings.
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Social Media Lessons

Focus on what matters — Within MyBO, the mandate was very clear: use
the online tools to organize offline action. From the profile that asked you to
describe why you supported Obama to the action center that directed users to
areas of priority, offline action was constantly reinforced. When building an
online community it is often helpful to spell out in a few lines what the goals
and mandates are. Is the mandate clear? Does it make sense? More impor-
tantly, does it resonate with what your members are already trying to do? If
you answered “no” to any of the above questions, then it’s probably a good
idea to step back and refine the purpose of your community. Establishing the
mandate is only part one of this exercise. The second part involves making
sure that all of the features and activities of the community reinforce the
mandate. Examine everything from the interface and design to the ways that
you envision member interaction. Be sure everything is designed to push your
mandate forward.
Incite the right actions — Building incentives that reward the right type
of action is an important part of community building. The activity index
helped reward those who were organizing offline by assigning a higher point
value to offline activities. It also encouraged frequent and continual support
by factoring in the frequency of activities in the algorithm. This ensured
that members of the community were not only going out and organizing for
Obama, but that they were doing so on a regular basis.
Leverage creativity — The events, group listings, and user blogs allowed
supporters to engage with the campaign on their own terms. Successful
communities are flexible and allow members to express themselves and have
a role in shaping the community. Thanks to the creativity of users, new event
categories and groups were formed in an innovative way without straying
from the community’s mandate.
88

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6 M

O b a m a’ s official social network,

The drawback of this technique was that people could create

Chris Hughes, Director of Online Organizing, was fascinated by the

Creating a sense of community was essential to MyBO’s success,

Leverage creativity — The Obama team left enough flexibility in the

Focus on What Matters

Supporters were given

to support each other in order to reach personal fundraising goals.

Incite the Right Actions:

Instead of listing a score, the index clearly specified the types of

The index became an accurate and efficient way of segmenting the

Not all groups were focused solely on fundraising or organizing;

His support of the bill angered many community members on MyBO

On July 3, 2008, New Media Director Joe Rospars posted an official

Obama set the tone for future communications and interactions

team would be monitoring the comment sections to respond to any

Senator Obama, Please Vote NO Florida Women for Obama

Macs for Barack Environmentalists for Obama

Audacity of Hope Postcards for Obama

Students for Barack Obama

In January 2008, two Yale University students launched a venture

The goal was to rebuild the American public’s trust in politicians

Barack Birthday Bashes

In Montara, California, eighty people gathered to celebrate Barack’s

Soul Line Dancers

Over 60 dancers wearing “Soul Line Dancers for Obama” shirts

South Asians for Obama in co-operation with Obama NYC, Latinos

“This is a real grassroots cookbook, like the old-fashioned-but-fun

SWEET POTATO PIE Recipe

1 8" frozen piecrust or 1 Pillsbury ready-made rolled refrigerated piecrust

Social Media Lessons

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