| The Internet is a very, very different medium than television. If you need any proof, check out these numbers for the online portion of the horserace in September:
On the Web, Clinton led in August with 759,000 unique visitors to her Web site, followed closely by Obama with 749,000. John Edwards was third with 448,000 views.
Recent Republican entry Fred Thompon led in page views in August with 410,000 unique visitors, followed by Romney with 291,000 and Paul with 208,000. The worst online showing was for Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) with 58,000 hits, and 52,000 for Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio). However, McCain leads the presidential field in online advertising, with 4.3 million sponsored links in August, followed by Kucinich with 1.8 million sponsored links.
Clinton continues to lead in "online buzz," which is measured by mentions on blogs. Fred Thompson saw the biggest surge in buzz, up 526%, due largely to his September entry into the race.
McCain is putting down big bucks in online advertising, but it still isn't drawing visitors to his website. This is somewhat odd for a candidate who was one of the first, if not the first, Presidential candidate to raise big money online, and is a testament to how low his image has sunk among internet users in the past eight years. Also, this points to a real problem with online advertising where ads don't necessarily result in click-throughs for the advertiser. Then again, it is possible that McCain would have had virtually no hits at all without his hug online spending spree. It is also interesting just how little traffic all of these websites receive. The Huffington Post surpasses all of these candidate pages every single day.
So, not only are people ignoring paid advertisements, but they are also generally staying away from official channels. These are two empowering aspects of the Internet compared to television. However, they also point to the difficulty of making money online. Marketers are paid to persuade and, in a manner of speaking, control consumers. These numbers indicate that people are extremely difficult to control online, at least when compared to television. Online, the key to a successful online advertisement is to make it seem like it isn't an advertisement at all. Hence, the Googlebomb Rudy Giuliani campaign, which is designed to have individuals run across negative information about Rudy Giuliani on their own, and without any obviously sponsored links. Search engine optimization of that sort is simply a medium appropriate form of negative advertising on Rudy Giuliani, far better than paid links. Instead of simply transplanting television techniques to a different medium, it reinvents them for a new media.
Finally, it is also interesting that Clinton runs neck and neck with Obama in terms of online traffic. Two thoughts come to mind on this. First, that is very different than national polls right now, and thus shows online strength for Obama. Second, that is actually pretty much the same as total donations right now, which simply attests to Obama's well-known activist and donor strength. Still if the only major telecommunications medium we had was the internet, Obama would probably be in a tie with Clinton nationally, and he might be slightly ahead in the two early states. However, for the time being, it is enough for Clinton to remain competitive online, and then swamp the other candidates through other medias. |
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